Risk assessment
A detailed risk assessment is essential to determine the scope of risks arising from the incident – and the actions needed to address them. The assessment should focus on whether the issue is one of product quality/brand integrity or whether potential consumer safety issues have arisen.
Where a product quality issue is so serious that it renders the food product unfit for human consumption, or not of the substance or quality demanded by the purchaser, this may amount to a safety issue because of the wording of the relevant legislation in some jurisdictions (see below).
Key considerations include:
- if there is a specific legal regime to safeguard consumer safety, the risk assessment is important to determine the steps that should be taken in response to the issue. Where there is a potential risk to consumer safety, the organisation is likely to be required to take corrective action and also be required to notify the appropriate regulator. However, the level of corrective action response required should respond to the level of risk to consumers
- assessing the risks against the relevant legislation in market(s) where the food product has been sold (the relevant legislation will typically define what constitutes safe/unsafe food, as well as setting out notification requirements and mandatory corrective actions)
- to take just one example, the EU’s General Food Law Regulation (178/2002/EC), which applies across all 27 member states, defines "safe" food as food which is neither injurious to health nor unfit for human consumption. As well as mandating corrective action, it requires producers and distributors to notify national food safety authorities if they know (or have reason to believe) that food they have placed on the market is unsafe
- any issue concerning quality, fitness for purpose etc could have reputational consequences, which may increase the risk of liability for negligence or breach of a sale or supply contract (this could include express contractual terms and also implied terms in contracts for sale/supply of goods); this is in addition to any regulatory sanctions that may apply
