Food Recalls - as certain as death, referendums and taxes

 There are 4 things you can count on in 21st Century from a UK perspective death, taxes, referendums and food product recalls.

Product recalls appear to be a recurring theme in the UK food industry - a total of 159 recalls in 2015 a 78% rise on the previous year. The Food Standards Agency has consistently reported increased food safety incidents since annually since 2009 despite a decrease in 2013 the year of the infamous Horsemeat Scandal (figure 1).

Recently in August 2016 there has been another major food product recall in this instance yogurt produced by Yeo Valley for major high street supermarkets such as the Co-operative, ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose was considered to possibly contain rubber particles.
It is estimated that in the first week of February 2016 that foreign objects e.g. plastic and glass accounted for 2 out of 8 food product recalls.

In addition to foreign objects product recalls arising from the presence of bacteria e.g. salmonella, listeria and product labelling omissions or unlisted ingredients has led to retailers demanding reimbursement from manufacturers for any administrative cost or loss incurred as a result of rectifying these anomalies. Seemingly avoidable non-conformances such as unlisted ingredient omissions accounted for 59% of food product recalls in 2015.

Despite the alarming increase in food product recalls UK Government officials and regulators shroud these non-conformances under the umbrella of food “safety” rather than food “quality”. Proposals for an industry wide steering committee may yield limited results if quality management issues arising from poor process management, weak inspection and testing regimes are not addressed. Misplaced emphasis on effective food recall systems rather that robust quality management systems will only maintain the status quo – a continued escalation in food product recalls and reduced stakeholder satisfaction.

To learn how to embed sustainability/CSR into your business strategy visit our site www.sustainabilitycsr.com 

Back draught - the need for continuous improvement in the Wind Energy Industry

Renewable energy and in particular wind energy has seen a rapid increase in deployment within the past decade to meet the UK’s renewable energy targets. Within Scotland there has an exponential increase in renewable energy projects accounting for 61% of proposed and installed UK onshore wind farms. Onshore wind farms have also contributed to economic prosperity providing 8,600 jobs yielding £548 million in GVA. However critics claim that wind farms are not labour intensive and jobs are subsidised at a cost of £100,000 per job created. Therefore economic benefits can appear to be illusory are in spite of reductions in fossil use in the energy supply grid. The question can be asked is the wind energy revolution truly sustainable.

Although the economic costs are readily disclosed and debated in the public however the hidden cost of wind energy accidents is suppressed by the industry and externalised at times by environmental champions. Caithness Wind Farm Information Forum  an advocacy group that campaigns against wind turbines categorise wind sector accidents as Fatal accidents, Human injury, Human health, Blade failure, Fire, Structural accidents, Ice throw, Transport, Environmental damage and other miscellaneous events e.g. lightning strikes, electrical failure.
During the period 2009 – 2011 over 1500 accidents were admitted to have occurred within the wind energy sector highlighting the need for improved non-financial risk management.

Aside from the rapid expansion of the industry into offshore areas one of the root causes of the increase in accidents is the absence of industry wide standards for quality, safety and environmental management and a desire by the wind industry to value the guarantee confidentiality in regards to incident and accident reporting above organisational transparency (Fig 1). 

The UK’s Health and Safety Executive has been reticent to impose a minimum safe distance between wind turbine developments and occupied buildings and presently does not maintain a database of wind turbine failures making accident trend analysis nearly impossible. At an operational level fire brigades are at times ill-equipped to deal with wind turbine fires as working heights can be more than 80 metres. Wind farms have also accounted for the deaths of endangered birds and bats exacting an environmental toll despite the carbon friendliness of wind energy.

Within this context the Wind Industry must begin the process of standards development in consultation with all stakeholders i.e. government, NGOs and businesses to ensure that environmental claims can be substantiated and more importantly continuous improvement is embedded within the sector.