Nottingham City Council recognises the importance of food sampling for analysis and is committed to providing a food sampling service.

Food sampling provides a valuable means of surveillance to ensure that food safety and hygiene standards are monitored in accordance with current food safety legislation. The Food Safety Act (1990) allows Authorised Officers from Local Authorities to obtain food samples for analysis/examination which are taken in accordance with the relevant guidance from the Food Standards Agency and the Health Protection Agency Collaborating Laboratories (formerly known as the Public Health Laboratory Service, PHLS).

Why are food samples taken?

The main aims and objectives of food sampling are to:

• Identify food that could pose a hazard to the consumer through the presence of significant levels of harmful bacteria.
• Support the food law surveillance functions of the authority and assist in the identification of food safety legislation contraventions.
• Assist in the evaluation of food hygiene practices in food businesses and to determine if advice or enforcement action is appropriate in premises where it is suspected that poor practices and procedures exist.
• Assess the microbiological quality of food manufactured, distributed or retailed in the area.

Food complaints submitted to the Food Safety Team are not classified as food samples.

When will a food sample be taken?

Food samples are usually taken in the following situations:

• Investigation of food poisoning outbreaks and food contamination incidents.
• European Community co-ordinated programmes for the official control of foodstuffs.
• Food Standards Agency co-ordinated sampling programmes.
• LACORS (Local Authority Co-ordinating body on Regulatory Services) / HPA (Health Protection Agency) co-ordinated sampling programmes.
• Nottinghamshire Food Sampling Group surveys.
• Home or Originating Authority responsibilities.
• As part of routine food hygiene inspections to aid assessment of food safety management.

Nottinghamshire Food Sampling Group

Nottingham City Council is a member of the Nottinghamshire Food Sampling Group which is responsible for implementing both regional and nationally co-ordinated sampling programmes. The food group meet on a quarterly basis throughout the year to discuss the outcome of previous food sampling and also to determine the appropriate follow up actions, as well as planning future surveys. By liaising with other Local Authorities to produce an organised programme of sampling, resources are efficiently targeted within the city councils food safety section and throughout the Trent region. Also the information obtained from such surveys is of more significance since it allows generalisations and continued evaluation of the microbiological quality of food from one year to the next. In addition the results of a sampling programme are useful because they often highlight the risk to public health by identifying the foods which are a potential food poisoning hazard.

Analysis/Examination of Food Samples

All food samples obtained by Local Authorities from the Nottinghamshire Food Group are analysed by the Department of Microbiology and Health Protection Agency Collaborating Laboratory at Lincoln County Hospital. The criterion applied by the laboratory to assess the microbiological quality of those foods sampled is the Guidelines for the microbiological quality of some ready-to-eat foods sampled at point of sale, (Communicable Disease & Public Health, 2000). These guidelines are not legal requirements but they do provide standardisation for microbiologists/Environmental Health Officers when interpreting the results obtained from microbiological examination of foods. However, a suitably qualified Food Examiner as defined in the Food Safety (Sampling and Qualifications) Regulations 1990; can provide evidence as an expert witnesses during food safety proceedings when formal food samples have been submitted.

The PHLS/HPA has provided environmental health departments of Local Authorities with microbiological advice and scientific expertise on the examination of food samples for over fifty years. The guidelines were compiled by a collaboration of expert microbiologists working within various sectors of the public health laboratories and communicable disease centres. The guidelines reflect the collective experience of public health professionals and represent the extensive data bank of results from national and local surveys from over 190,000 samples examined per year.

More recently though the microbiological criteria applied to EC co-ordinated sampling surveys is based on the published recommendations by the European Commission 2004/24/EC concerning a co-ordinated programme for the official control of foodstuffs. Although the microbiological limits (numbers of bacteria detected in the food) which are applied to determine food safety and quality may vary from that of the PHLS guidelines for some bacteria/micro-organisms, the interpretation of the four grades of microbiological quality are common to both sets of criteria. Foods are examined for foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella and Campylobacter species, Escherichia coli 0157, and Listeria monocytogenes etc, to determine the safety of the food. Tests are also performed to determine the presence of indicator organisms as these often provide a reflection of hygiene standards and any post processing contamination of foods which, can occur during handling and storage of ready-to-eat foods.

When food samples are examined the results are interpreted as one of the four grades of microbiological quality and these are detailed below:

• ‘Satisfactory’ is the term applied to foods which is of good microbiological quality and therefore the numbers of bacteria found were relatively low or not detected in the food.
  
  
• ‘Acceptable’ is the term applied to foods that reflect a borderline limit of microbiological quality and therefore the numbers of bacteria detected were higher than expected. A review of food handling procedures is necessary to ensure that safe food is produced.
  
  
• ‘Unsatisfactory’ is the term applied to foods with relatively high numbers of bacteria and indicates a problem with food hygiene and handling procedures. A review of working procedures must be conducted and Environmental Health Officers may take additional food samples together with further inspection of the premises to determine the possible cause of the contamination.
  
  
• ‘Unaccepatble / potentially hazardous’ test results indicate that immediate action is required to locate the source of the problem and consumption of such foods may cause illness. Such results may also form the basis for prosecution by Local Authority Enforcement Officers (EHO), especially if the results occur in more than one sample.

Results of the Food Sampling Programme April 2003-March 2004 Conducted by Nottingham City Council

Graph to Show the Results from Food Sampling Programme
April 2003-March 2004

The results in the table and graph for the food sampling survey 2003/04 above show that 74% of food samples examined were of good microbiological quality. The microbiological quality of several foods was found to be acceptable/unsatisfactory due to the presence of higher than expected numbers of indicator organisms. The foods would not have caused food poisoning since pathogens were not detected in any of the samples that were ready to eat but improvements in the standard of hygiene practices and procedures were necessary.

In the case of acceptable or unsatisfactory results it is standard procedure for a re-visit to the premises to be made by the Sampling Officer/EHO to identify the possible sources of contamination. During the revisit appropriate advice is given to the proprietor of the business in order to improve the microbiological safety and quality of food produced at the premises. If necessary a resample of food will be taken to ensure that business owners have implemented the relevant actions required to reduce/eliminate any contamination that was originally identified from the previous unsatisfactory food sample result.

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