Krebs calls for honesty on food safety

Former Food Standards Agency (FSA) chairman Sir John Krebs has urged the government to be upfront with the public, claiming that no food should ever claim to be 100% safe.

“The concept of zero risk is unobtainable,” he said. “The question is what level of risk is safe enough?”

He claimed that even though food risks have substantially decreased over time, consumer confidence was still low. “People [say they] are more worried about Chelsea versus Manchester United, but when prompted, they’re actually worried about BSE, animal welfare, and GM [genetically modified] food.”

He said that if consumers were familiar with a risk, such as skiing, they weren’t as afraid of it, but felt that public concern was heavily linked to the media. He added that media interest in vCJD (a human form of mad cow disease) was about 23,000 times that of obesity-related deaths. “Writing for media is a bit like fiction writing - it has to be a good read with villains and heroes, and conspiracy,” he said.

Being open was more likely to win people over, than denying there was any risk, he claimed.