The Food Standard Agency (FSA) has published findings of the 2012 FSA Retail Surveillance Sampling programme – its fifth consecutive year. The questionnaire examined issues relating to food labelling and composition of items available in the supermarkets, independent shops and online shops in UK. Between June and December 2024, 822 items were bought and tested by testers.
There are famous or inferred issues that were tested in the survey and these centred on:
• Uses in allergens that are undeclared
• The falsely labelled cases
• Contamination
• Problems of composition
The use of caffeine supplements registered the greatest failure rate. Eighty three per cent of the products failed which were a majority due to either over-stating or under-stating of caffeine content.
Bread products recorded lesser compliance whereby 74 percent of samples failed to comply. They were minor labelling errors in most cases, and three products containing undeclared allergens. Both of these three were sold by small retailers.
The products of bubble tea had a 59 percent failure. Wrong nutritional labelling, inappropriate forms of date labels and prohibited additives were some of the problems. There was some bubble tea that was of Far Eastern origin that contained the Konjac (E425) that is an additive that is approved, according to rule that UK bubble tea is not supposed to have since it causes choking. The local authorities were encouraged to resort to enforcement measures–such as withdrawals of products.
In response to the findings of the project entitled caffeine supplement, which were controversial, the FSA, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) released new advice. The new regulations are designed to restrict danger of strong-caffeine goods and caffeine-power powder.
Official food laboratories in England and Wales were used in the programme. The complete report can be found at FSA site.
