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A food or feed incident is when you know, or suspect, that food or feed your business has produced or distributed has one or more of the following problems:

• it’s harmful to health
• it’s not safe to eat
• it does not meet legal requirements
• the product label or ingredients list is incorrect or misleading
• it contains allergens or other potentially dangerous ingredients that are not mentioned on the product label

You must take action and report any food or feed incidents.

Reporting an incident in Scotland

There is a different way to .

If you want to report someone else’s business

Contact your local authority’s food safety team if you believe there’s been a food or feed incident in a business you do not own.

Food incident news and alerts

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Gather information about the incident and trace your suppliers and business customers, so you know what food or feed has been affected and what the risks are to consumers.

Then you must:

• immediately withdraw the food or feed from the supply chain
• issue a recall if the product has reached consumers or animals
• tell your local authority’s food safety team or port health authority
• tell the Food Standards Agency (FSA) about the incident if your business has been approved by the FSA veterinary team
• tell your local authority or the FSA if the product has been distributed outside of the UK
• take action to prevent future incidents

Your local authority will inform the FSA incidents team. You can also tell the FSA yourself if the food or feed has already reached consumers or animals.

Withdrawals

You must withdraw unsafe, mislabelled or non-compliant food or feed from the supply chain. Do this immediately, before it reaches consumers or animals.

You must tell any other businesses you have sold the food or feed to about the incident. Tell them:

• exactly which product and batch is affected
• why it has been withdrawn
• what they should do next, for example return or safely dispose of the product

Recalls

If the food or feed has already reached consumers or animal owners, you need to recall the product.

You must contact consumers. Share accurate information about:

• the product details, such as the name, size, best before or use by dates and batch code
• an image of the product
• the reason for the recall
• what they should do if they bought the product, including whether it can be eaten, if they should return it and whether they can get a refund
• how to safely dispose of the product - speak to your local authority about this
• where to get more information

You must communicate with consumers effectively. You could use posters in your store, your website, social media or marketing communications. You could also contact specific consumer, patient or allergy organisations.

If you have sold the product to another business, tell them to contact their customers about the recall.

Use these template documents to help you carry out a recall.

What to do with unsafe food and feed

When you have unsafe, mislabelled or non-compliant food or feed, you should:

• store unsafe food away from non-affected food
• label it clearly
• have a plan for what you will do with unsafe food that is returned to you
• safely dispose of the food - speak to your local authority and follow relevant waste disposal laws, including those for animal products
• document what you do with the food, including how you safely dispose of it

You might be able to make the food or feed safe, for example by re-labelling a food so it states it contains an allergen. You must get permission from your local authority’s food safety team or port health authority before you do this.

After dealing with the immediate incident you must work out how and why the incident happened and how to prevent future incidents.

You can carry out a root cause analysis to do this.

Get information from the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA’s) and their root cause analysis resources.

You can also ask your local authority for advice.

You can also prevent incidents by:

• having a food safety system
• following food hygiene best practice
• ensuring food is labelled correctly

Your local authority will usually contact the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on your behalf.

You should contact the FSA as soon as possible yourself if:

• the food or feed has been distributed outside of the UK
• the incident is serious and the product has reached customers

What to tell the FSA

Include the following information in your report:

• the name of your business
• the business’ full postal address and post code
• when you identified the incident
• a brief description of the investigation to date - include product details, quantities affected, any hazards identified and the impact on consumers or animals
• a summary of the action you’ve taken and plan to take
• details of any specific advice you need from the FSA
• contact details where you can be reached at any time, including outside of normal business hours

If the product has been imported or exported outside of the UK, you must also include distribution or traceability information.

If available, also include:

• distribution and traceability information
• relevant photographs
• copies of any test certificates
• the result of any root cause analysis on how you will prevent future incidents

Contact details

Email your report to the relevant team for your nation.