In this article we welcome guest author and industry expert, Alec Kyriakides, to explore some of the food safety developments, recalls and incidents that have happened recently.

 

Food Safety Developments

 

Food Safety Culture

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) issued Version 2 of its position paper on ‘A Culture of Food Safety’. The original position paper, published in 2018 paper was formative in establishing a common language for discussing food safety culture and stimulated dialogue across its stakeholders including industry, regulators, certification programme owners, and academia. This unquestionably helped to progress the integration of cultural considerations into food safety management systems and assurance programmes. This update incorporates a review of academic and professional literature published since 2018. There is an excellent Guidance Note on Food Safety Culture, published in 2025 by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) that provides recommendations and best practices, to assist food business operators implement and maintain food safety culture and organisations like BRCGS provide online training in product safety culture for both food and non-food related goods and services.

 

Authenticity, adulteration and Food Fraud

Milk supplied to 100 families in India was believed to be the source of a fatal outbreak that resulted in 12 deaths amongst the 20 hospitalised victims. The milk, supplied from a single dairy, is reported to have been contaminated with ethylene glycol. Symptoms included vomiting, abdominal pain and acute renal dysfunction including kidney failure. For those interested in understanding the latest food fraud risks, the EU has recently published its monthly ‘Report on EU agri-food fraud suspicions’, and there is also a useful infographic on the ‘Alert and Cooperation Network’ of the EU for 2025. On a more positive note, the UK Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) seized 67000 bottles of counterfeit and misrepresented wine and prosecco with an estimated value of £500 000 and arrested a man for conspiracy to defraud. This follows the prosecution by the NFCU of a man due to food safety offences and the illegal production of ‘smokies’ in the UK. ‘Smokies’ are skin-on sheep meat produced by singeing the fleece and giving the skin a golden-brown colour and smoky odour.

 

Future Foods

A report issued by the UK Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland highlights the technologies that are likely to emerge over the next decade and impact the food safety and regulatory system. These include controlled environment agriculture (CEA) (or vertical farming), precision and biomass, cellular agriculture, including cell-cultivated foods, edible insects (sold whole or as ingredients), molecular farming (using plants or plant cells as factories for specific food ingredients), gas fermentation, 3D food printing and reverse food manufacturing (food by-product utilisation).

 

Travellers associated illness from Cabo Verde

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published a report on a high number of infections in travellers returning from Cabo Verde between September 2022 and March 2026. Over 1000 confirmed and possible cases of shigellosis and other gastrointestinal infections including salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, yersiniosis, amoebiasis, and Shiga toxin-producing and Entero-invasive Escherichia coli (STEC and EIEC) infections, were reported in travellers from 13 EU/EEA countries, the UK and the USA. Epidemiological information indicated that “most individuals with shigellosis and other gastrointestinal infections, including salmonellosis, had stayed at the same hotel chain in the Santa Maria region on the island of Sal”. It is reported that food and / or waterborne transmission are the most likely modes of transmission although the source of the contamination has not been identified. Some direct person-to-person transmission (faecal–oral route) was also considered plausible. Persistent strains of Shigella and Salmonella have been identified since 2022 and 2004, respectively indicating a persistent source.

 

Be happy

For those who missed it, last month saw the release of the World Happiness Report and, although clearly not directly related to food safety, I am a firm believer that happy individuals and happy workforces are likely to deliver better food safety outcomes. The Nordic countries occupied five of the top six places in the happiness rankings with Finland at the top of the league and Costa Rica squeezing into the top six. Comparing the latest happiness rating between 2023 - 2025 with the base period (2006 - 2010) for the 136 countries ranked, nearly twice as many countries were reported to have achieved significant gains (79) than significant losses (41). In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases.

 

Foodborne disease outbreaks

 

A multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) was reported in the USA implicating raw milk and raw milk cheese. Nine individuals suffered illness with 3 being hospitalised and 1 case of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS).  The two salmonellosis outbreaks (1, 2) previously reported due to contamination of moringa leaf / powder in the USA have now been declared over with a combined total of 107 cases and 29 hospitalisations. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a redacted summary of an outbreak caused by Salmonella Saintpaul implicating mangoes that was reported to have caused 56 cases. An outbreak of salmonellosis caused by S. Typhimurium implicating a brand of dry-cured meat has reportedly caused 84 illnesses in the UK. An outbreak of listeriosis was reported in France due to contamination of cooked meats and pâté resulting in 12 cases, most of whom were over 65 years of age. All cases were hospitalised and two deaths were reported. A Hepatitis A outbreak attributed to the consumption of shellfish was reported to have affected over 130 individuals in Italy.

 

Food Recall Highlights

 

The data used for this food recall highlights review is sourced from open access recall databases covering different countries and continents including the USA (Food & Drug Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture), the UK (Food Standards Agency), Germany (Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety) and Australia (Food Standards Australia New Zealand).

 

Microbiological recalls moved back to the traditional organisms with Salmonella spp. and STEC dominating, followed by Listeria monocytogenes. An unusual contamination event of Hepatitis A in grated coconut was also worth noting.

 

 

Allergen recalls continued to be dominated by undeclared milk together with a high number due to nuts and multiple allergen mislabelling.

 

 

Physical contamination recalls included those due to mouse infestation together with the usual hazards of glass, metal and plastic.

 

 

Chemical recalls reverted to mycotoxins and pesticides although a number of products were recalled due to sildenafil and tadalafil contamination.

 

  

   

Author

Alec Kyriakides

Independent Food Safety Consultant