An approach to risk categorization of Products of Animal Origin imported into the United Kingdom

Abstract

There are thousands of potential hazards associated with imported foods and to achieve an excellent food safety record, resources need to be focused on higher-risk foods and preventive mechanisms.

We were tasked to develop an automated tool to assess public health risks from imported foods across multiple countries of origin, hazards and product types to replace manually conducted single product-hazard qualitative import assessments.

In this paper we describe the generic import assessment of risk to consumers from importing foodborne microbiological hazards into the UK, to identify those higher-risk foods. A risk categorization approach was developed as recommended by international standards laid out in the CODEX principles and guidance by FAO and WHO on food control. The approach combines an assessment of the inherent risk of the commodity (product characteristics), and any hazard mitigation or control measures undertaken in the producing country (control characteristics) and incorporates real-world global data relating to food safety incidents over a three-year time window (compliance) for that product.

With the broad diversity of foods imported, food stuffs are grouped into commodity groups using the codes in the international Harmonised System of classification. The mapping of trade into commodity groups and the scoring system developed to estimate risk are presented.

Results by exporting country were generated for 16 selected public health hazards identified from global food safety incident data using expert elicitation.

To ensure the approach is dynamic, can keep pace with global trends, and uses resources efficiently, the assessment has been automated and predominantly uses data that is global, publicly available and routinely updated.

The results support risk managers in their regular reassessment of the controls that should be placed on foodstuffs imported into the UK.