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While consumers in the U.S. seem to be grappling to deal with an almost continuous parade of food recalls and alerts, Australian consumers will be heartened to hear that since 2000 the number of Australian food recalls has fallen to its lowest level in 8 years.

According to food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FANSZ), this shows that manufacturers continue to improve the effectiveness of their food safety systems.

The Federal Government’s ‘Product Recalls Australia’ site reveals there were a total of 43 consumer level recalls reported last year which compares favourably to recent years - in 2007 there were 49 while in 2008 there were only 24.

It seems the main culprit for a recall last year was foreign matter, applicable in 15 cases - as a rule microbiological reasons are at the top of the list - cases of a foreign matter usually mean substances such as plastic and metal have been found in a product.

Another 12 cases involved ‘labelling’ issues where companies had failed to include a warning label of potential allergens, and 10 microbial issues such as listeria and salmonella.

In the UK and the U.S. last week it was revealed that 50% of all food recalls in 2008 in both countries were also due to incorrect labelling of allergens, according to the product testing organisation RSSL.

RSSL’s department of DNA and proteins, which examines allergens, says there were several reasons why firms recalled products - where the allergen is simply left off the list or sometimes a product is reformulated and the list of allergens is not updated.

RSSL says while in many product recalls there was no legal requirement to include the information, manufacturers need to check they are not inadvertently contaminating their products by not checking the labelling is correct.

In the US, microbial contamination led to 33% of recalls, whereas in the UK, the figure was only 11% and Australia 23% while in the UK, nearly 20% of recalls were due to foreign bodies - but in the USA foreign bodies were implicated in less than 5% of the recalls.

Comparing RSSL’s data to the Australian figures highlights a major difference, as 35% of Australian recalls were due to foreign matter.

In total, RSSL assessed 172 recall notices/incident alerts reported by the U.S. agency websites, and 116 reported in the UK and the RSSL says it is interesting that allergen mislabelling is the stand-out statistic from both countries.

It is also worth remembering that despite the alarm concerning melamine during 2008, relatively few recalls were required, which proves that the monitoring and analysis of ingredients was largely successful in keeping melamine out of the food supply chain in the U.S., the UK and Australia.

The RSSL analysed data published by the Food Standards Agency and the US Food & Drug Administration and U.S. Food Safety & Inspection Service.

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