More food safety recalls and alerts
In 2020, the Federal Food Safety Office (FSVO) issued a total of 31 public warnings and 62 recalls. Over the last few years, an increasing trend can be observed in both the number of recalls and public warnings.
The Federal Food Safety Office (FSVO) posted a total of 31 public warnings and 62 recalls in 2020. Of the public warnings, 28 foodstuffs and 3 articles of daily use were affected. The recalls concerned 49 foodstuffs and 13 articles of daily use.
The most common reasons for public warnings were pesticide residues, pathogenic microorganisms and allergens. For recalls, the most common three reasons were pesticide residues, foreign bodies and mycotoxins. New this year are pesticide residues of the
most common reason for both public warnings and recalls.
Slight increase in warnings and recalls
The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) is used for the rapid transfer of food safety information between the European Union and Switzerland. It was developed to inform the competent authorities in Europe immediately about products that pose a risk to health.
Pesticide residues in food are due to ethylene oxide residues in sesame products from India. The trend over the last years is slightly increasing both in public warnings and recalls. In the European Union, a total of 3766 RASFF notifications were issued in 2020. Switzerland was affected by 241 of these notifications and triggered 62 of them itself.
To the detailed annual report of the BLV
