Food reality

Electronic media has brought the world into our living room. Nowadays, a new type of reality show is the trend: live reports about food scandals, with all the tricks used to re-date long expired products. We have become familiar with new faces; official vets, laboratory officials, and the spokespersons of big retail chains. We have also learned that retails never have the faintest idea what it takes to make their purchases so cheap. We also know now, that products – which belong in the waste bin – travel across borders without any control in the EU. And know we know that it is best if the food safety office belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture, where it used to belong until two years ago, when it was removed from the Ministry as a result of the paprika scandal. According to official spokespersons, the number of cases has been fairly constant for years. Official vets will target a new field after finishing with investigating the import scandals: restaurants and commercially operated kitchens. They will check how food is stored, prepared and where the ingredients come from. Waste disposal will also be a priority – more precisely – checking that waste is disposed of, instead of being served. A new data bank is to be set up for all the data connected to food trade and processing. Co-operation with the police will continue to be intensive, since official vets are not welcome in many warehouses. Changes in legislation are needed to prosecute sellers of expired or faked foods more efficiently, since these intermediaries – unlike producers – are usually hard to find, or even identify. Though we do not have the precise figures yet, probably only a tenth of one percent of the total volume of food trade is involved in some way in these scandals. The vast majority of food in stores is safe and legal. It is up to market researchers to assess what effects the scandals had on consumer confidence.