![]() However, some physical contamination can occur naturally, like insects entering fruit and vegetables or bones in boneless fish. Moreover, physical contamination could also occur because of issues with packaging, such as staples, string, polythene, and cardboard. Physical contamination of food may also be from the environment including the building and the equipment you are using, such as plaster, flakes of paint, and screw fixings. The most common objects to contaminate food include glass, hair, metal, jewellery, dirt, and fingernails. Furthermore, the object may also carry bacteria, which could cause microbial contamination at the same time. Food that has been contaminated by a physical object could directly pose as a choking risk and cause serious injury. ![]() Finding random objects in our food is certainly off-putting, and it is definitely something that causes concern for consumers. Physical contamination refers to food that has been contaminated by a foreign object. Consequentially, UK businesses that fail to comply with standards are appropriately penalised. Furthermore, 33 million people die due to some form of food poisoning each year. However, each year around 600 million people around the world are ill because of food-borne illness. For most people, food poisoning does not have long-lasting effects. Physical contamination could pose as a choking risk, high levels of chemicals in food could cause fatalities or long-term illness, and microbial contamination could cause food-borne illness. Food contamination can ultimately result in serious consequences. Statistics also show there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases of food contamination. However, despite some growing fears, not all of these were conducted ‘just in case’. In recent years, the number of product recalls by companies has increased rapidly. However, a failure to recall products could have worse consequences. As well as being expensive, they can damage public opinion and affect consumer trust. They involve a crisis team, the removal of the product, a full investigation, and money spent on public relations. If a business is aware that food has been contaminated and it is unsafe, they will need to do a product recall. In the UK, all businesses must adhere to food safety responsibilities as outlined by the Food Standards Agency. ![]() ‘Food contamination that occurs in one place may affect the health of consumers living on the other side of the planet’. A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated that: Many producers faced with faulty food simply want to minimize their losses without harming public health, said Peter Quinter and Jennifer Diaz, lawyers with the Florida firm Becker & Poliakoff, which represents importers of foreign food.In the modern globalised world, food contamination can have far-reaching impacts on the lives of the people it affects. At least 2,240 reports were logged in the registry’s first year, including the salmonella-tainted vegetable protein. But in 2009, the agency started a new Reportable Food Registry, which requires notification of hazards to human health. “You can’t cook the poop out of it.”įDA officials couldn’t provide an estimate of the number of reconditioning requests received from food firms each year. “If food is adulterated in an unacceptable way, reconditioning won’t fix it,” he said. Heat-treating would have eradicated the bugs - but not the problem, Correll said. He recalled a seafood firm with faulty bathroom practices that led to canned crab contaminated with fecal E. Similarly, companies that propose to eliminate a serious contaminant without addressing the source are turned down.
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