Feed Manual of Official Controls

This section deals with how feed incidents and feed alerts / information notices are managed. 

Authorised Officers are responsible for reporting incidents to FSS, and specifically the SFCIU (7.3). 

Incident investigation and handling, and any consequential enforcement action, shall generally be carried out by FSS. 

However, Authorised Officers from Agents may be asked to undertake this work, in exceptional circumstances and with written agreement from FSS. The necessary requirements for incident investigation and handling are laid out in this Chapter (from 8.3) should they be required. If Agents carry out incident investigation work that result in enforcement work, they shall also carry out the enforcement work. Chapter 7 provides details of enforcement action. 

FSS Incidents Team is responsible for managing and analysing incident information to assess and manage risk, risk communication and providing advice to the Authorised Officers on the management of the risk. 

A schematic representation of the process that Authorised Officers should follow when dealing with reporting a feed incident or hazard to the incidents team can be found in Annex 7.1.

A food incident is defined as any event where there are concerns about actual or suspected threats to the safety, quality or integrity of food/feed that may need action to protect consumers’ interests.

The word ‘quality’ in this case includes standards, authenticity and composition. The term ‘food incident’ includes animal food, or ‘feed’ incidents. Feed Incidents are considered in the following three separate categories, which may overlap:

a. Hazardous - an incident with the potential to cause an adverse effect to the health or safety of animals and/or consumers, involving (or suspected to involve) a biological, chemical and or physical agent in, or condition of, feed These include outbreaks of disease directly related to the feed and/or infectious intestinal disease.

b. Non-Hazardous – an incident which does not have the potential to cause an adverse effect to the health or safety of animals or consumers, but which may involve issues detrimental to farmers/ consumers’ interests such as standards, integrity, authenticity, composition and labelling.

c. Feed Fraud and Feed Crime – is serious dishonesty that impacts detrimentally on either the safety or the authenticity of feed. Further information on Feed Fraud and Feed Crime can be found in section 8.10.

All feed incidents shall be notified to FSS using the online incident form. When emailing the form, it should be sent both to the Incidents team and the Feed Delivery Branch. In the case of hazardous incidents, Authorised Officers shall also contact FSS by telephone at the earliest opportunity, usually within 2 hours of determining it is a hazardous incident: Incidents team: 07881 516867. The incident report form can also be found at Annex 7.2. 

FSS may be notified of an incident because of analysis by the Agricultural Analyst.

Incidents may be a result of deliberately contaminated feed and or malicious tampering. “Malicious tampering” goes beyond the act of a person/persons intending to cause limited disruption and includes the tampering of feed by terrorist activity, political disruption or with a view to blackmail or extortion. 

Arrangements for dealing with malicious tampering incidents have been established between the FSA and FSS, and Police Scotland will lead the investigation. Any issues should be referred to FCIB without delay as they have direct lines of communication with the police and for intelligence research and development between agencies.  The SFCIU Head of Food Crime Operations, or deputy in absence, should also be consulted for specialist criminal investigation advice and support from SFCIU investigators where necessary. 

Authorised Officers must co-operate fully with police investigations into incidents of malicious tampering and respect police requests for confidentiality whenever possible. 

Once a hazardous incident has been identified, the Authorised Officer must submit an Incident Report Form (Annex 7.2). The Authorised Officer must immediately carry out an assessment to determine the likely scale, extent and severity of the risk to public health or safety of the hazard and referred to FCIB without delay as they have direct lines of communication with the police and for intelligence research and development between agencies. 

The SFCIU Head of Food Crime Operations, or deputy in absence, should also be consulted for specialist criminal investigation advice and support from SFCIU investigators where necessary. These other agencies might include Government agencies and Agricultural Analysts. Authorised Officers should continue to assess the incident throughout where new information comes to light. 

The assessment should include the following: 

• the nature of the hazard
• the toxicity of the contaminant
• the type of injury which might be caused by a physical contaminant
• the population (human and animal) likely to be affected and its vulnerability
• the geographical spread of the hazard i.e. the likely quantity and distribution of the feed in the feed chain up to the point of consumption
• the ability and willingness of the producer or distributor to implement an effective withdrawal of the product
• the ability to identify accurately the affected batch(s) or lot(s)
• the accuracy and extent of records held by the producer or distributor
• the likely effectiveness of any trade withdrawal at all stages of the feed chain
• the stage(s) at which the fault is likely to have occurred (for example in processing, packaging, handling, storage or distribution) and its likely significance to the problem
• whether other products produced in the same establishment may have been affected
• whether the feed has been imported
• whether any of the feed has been exported
• whether there are wider implications for others in the same industry or for establishments using similar processes in other feed industries
• the possibility that the incident has been caused by a malicious act (see section 8.4) and
• whether the root cause of the incident or hazard is known, and corrective action taken to avoid recurrence. 

The outcome of this investigation must be shared with FSS (Incidents team and Feed Delivery Branch) to enable them to take any necessary action required.

Authorised Officers must implement urgent control measures whenever they are required:

• When an Authorised Officer becomes aware of a hazardous incident, they must take action to protect public health and safety and animal health at the earliest opportunity, including, if necessary, detaining or seizing the feed concerned (see Chapter 7).
• Authorised Officers must also consider the use of other powers under the Feed (Hygiene and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 2005, relevant to the circumstances involved. 

Where an Authorised Officer becomes aware that a FeBO has withdrawn or recalled feed from the market in accordance with Article 20 of  Regulation (EC) 178/2002, due to non-compliance with the feed safety requirements of that Regulation, the Authorised Officer should confirm that FSS is aware. 

Where a multiagency response is invoked by FSS Incidents team, as part of FSS Incident Management Framework, the Scottish Food Crime Investigation Unit (SFCIU) and the Incident Assessment Team (IAT) will oversee the response and coordinate activities if a multiagency situation arises. SFCIU are solely responsible for forming FSS Operational Incident Delivery Team and/or Strategic Incident Team Meetings as per the Incident Management Process. If an Agent is involved in the investigation of an incident, SFCIU may request that a representative of the Agent attends such team meetings either in person or remote conference facilities.

Where any specific incident-related action is required to be taken outside normal working hours, a telephone call will be made to the nominated contact point of the Agent to confirm correspondence distributed by emails. 

The FSS Incidents team can be contacted on: 

• Email: incidents@fss.scot
• Out of Hours: 07881 516867 

FSS utilises the following communications to raise awareness of feed incidents:

• Feed Alert for Action (FAFA) – is a communication from FSS Incident team to FSS FDB (or if an Agent is doing so after agreement, on behalf of FSS) concerning a feed incident, where a response is required by the FDB.
• Product Recall Information Notice (PRIN) – advises of recall of feed, where no specific action is required to be undertaken by the FDB. Recall relates to recall of feed from the consumer/user. 

There may be occasion where FSS needs to update the information contained within an Alert/Information Notice and these will be issued as updates. 

Agents must ensure that any action specified in a FAFA is undertaken promptly. If Agents propose to take alternative actions, they must agree these with FSS before implementing them. Where an Agent anticipates difficulties in complying with a request for action given in a FAFA, they must contact FSS Incidents Team immediately.

There may be occasions when there is a need to alert consumers/users of feed to the existence of a feed hazard or incident. FSS is responsible for media relations. 

To the Feed Manual, activity that is classed as Fraud and / or Crime can be described as serious fraud and related criminality within the feed supply chain.

This is a dishonest act, omission or regulatory non-compliance, relating to the sale or preparation of feed, which is intended for personal gain or to cause loss to another party.

The following factors should be considered when assessing whether the crime offence is serious: 

• the seriousness and types of offences or crimes,
• those involved in the criminality,
• substantial financial loss to customers or businesses,
• serious risk to public health,
• cross border or international reach,
• political or economic considerations
• the complexity of the investigation.

Due to the serious nature of the criminality involved, crime, relating to animal feed, shall be investigated by FSS, with input where necessary from the Agent. 

The Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU) was established for the purposes of the prevention, investigation and detection of fraud and deliberate non-compliance within the food and animal feed chain.   

The FSS Board agreed the remit of the SFCIU Food Crime capability should be to tackle:

• serious and/or complex fraudulent conduct; and
• serious and/or regulatory non-compliance involving dishonesty 

Conduct is considered serious in this context where it is likely to result in: 

• significant risks to public safety
• substantial gain to the offender or loss to consumer
• pan-regional or trans-national offending or
• significant public concern

Intelligence can be described as information that has been subject to a defined evaluation and risk assessment process, to assist decision making. 

The gathering, submission and analysis of intelligence is vital for any investigation. It will be used to support investigations relating to crime, product safety and to protect people from those who pose a risk to colleagues and others. 

FSS and the Agent have a role to play in providing intelligence regarding fraud and crime in all areas of the animal feed sectors. During the course of day-to-day business, Authorised Officers may become aware of relevant information by witnessing criminality, they may be approached by third parties who wish to ‘whistle blow’ on wrongdoing at their places of work, or they may be physically or verbally threatened or abused by members of staff at a feed business.

FSS and Agents with access should record all intelligence relating to feed crime on the CLUE intelligence database. In addition, the Agent should contact FSS at the earliest opportunity to discuss any suspicions they may have regarding criminality, relating to animal feed. They should contact Food Crime Unit and Feed Delivery Branch.

Examples of crime include:

• Falsifying records
• Deliberate mislabelling
• Adulteration of feed
• Fraudulent use of quality marks or accreditation e.g. organic labelling
• Misrepresentation of durability date