Food safety and animal feed incidents

A food incident happens when there are concerns about the safety of a food or animal feed product and action may need to be taken to protect people or animals. 

What is unsafe food or feed?

Food is 'unsafe' if it is harmful to health or unfit to eat. Food that is unfit includes food that doesn't meet quality standards, but isn't necessarily harmful to health.

Animal feed is unsafe if it has a direct adverse effect on human or animal health, or makes edible animal products unsafe to eat.

Reporting unsafe food

You must report unsafe food or feed to the relevant authorities, even if you no longer hold them. The relevant authorities may include:

• Food Standards Agency (FSA) - for food
• Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) - for feed

It may also be a good idea to inform your trade association.

Types of food incidents

The FSA defines a food incident as any event where there are concerns about the safety, quality or integrity of food or feed, that could need action to protect consumers.

The main categories of incidents are:

• contamination during processing, distribution, retail or catering
• incorrect food labelling - such as missing allergens on a food label
• environmental pollution - such as a fire or chemical or oil spills

Incidents are classified by potential impact as:

• routine
• serious
• severe
• major

Following investigation, these incidents may mean that food or feed must be either: 

• 'withdrawn' - removed from sales and taken off the shelves
• 'recalled' - removed from sales and customers asked to return the product

See more on food withdrawals and recalls.