Food surveys

Surveys help to protect and inform consumers, judge the effectiveness of regulation, monitor trends and assess risks.

They aim to:

• protect consumer safety, the authenticity of food and nutritional quality of the UK diet
• allow consumers to make informed choices
• inform UK negotiations in Brussels and other international meetings
• assess the effectiveness of legislation and Codes of Practice
• monitor trends both in terms of concentrations and geographical location
• enable consumer exposure assessments to be made

The Agency carries out surveys in the following areas:

• chemical contaminants in food
• chemical contaminants from food contact materials
• food additives
• food authenticity
• nutrients in food
• radionuclides in food
• microbiological contamination of food
• dietary surveys

The Agency normally releases the full details of the samples analysed in its surveys including their brand names together with the results. This policy has had several positive side effects:

• the consumer has more information on which to base their choice of food
• quality assurance criteria have led to more rigorous analytical procedures
• surveys are now larger and more representative of the brands on the market
• industry has become more aware of the need to be diligent with respect to quality control

For practical and legal reasons, there will be a small number of well-defined circumstances in which we will not release advice or information. You can find out more about these circumstances in paragraph 2.7 of our policy on openness.

The Agency carries out surveys for information gathering purposes and monitoring, and not for law enforcement. However, the Agency liaises with the enforcement authorities if an urgent food safety problem is found and the survey results are made available to enforcement authorities prior to publication so that follow up action can be taken where appropriate.