Food Fortress reducing risk in the food chain
CONSUMERS in Northern Ireland can be assured that the raw materials imported here have some of the most stringent food safety testing protocols in the world. The testing programme will show up any contaminants and illegal compounds. The Guild of Agricultural Journalists of Ireland’s Northern Ireland section were recently hosted by Food Fortress, a collaboration of agri businesses committed to improving the safety and security of the food chain.
Through an industry-wide programme of strategic sampling and testing, they co-operate to reduce the risk from principal contaminants which threaten the chain.
It is now recognised as the most advanced testing programme of its kind in the world supported by the Institute of Global Food Security at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Robin Irvine, a director of Food Fortress, outlining the organisation, said it is all about protecting the food chain.
Giving the backdrop that the Northern Ireland Food and Drink sales exceed £6bn, he said the Northern Ireland produced 2.6m tonnes of finished feed with a further 200,000 tonnes of raw materials sold direct to farms. More than half of this is for the cattle and sheep sectors.
One of the worst food scares stemmed from the Irish dioxin pork crisis of 2008 which involved a recall of contaminated
Irish pork.
The Food Fortress contaminant testing network for compound feeds operates as a collaborative network owned and directed by its members of 82 feed companies across Ireland as well as seven importers totalling eight million tonnes of finished feed production.
Food Fortress operates a testing programme with more than 10 years of results which have shown to be well below the EU guidance levels.
Robin explained that distillers grains was one of the high risk products imported from North America as a by-product of the ethanol industry. Difficult harvest