NPA calls for action, after products from ASF scandal-hit company found on sale in UK
According to media reports in Vietnam, investigators discovered that Ha Long Canned Food JSC (Halong Canfoco) had used pork that tested positive for the ASF virus in its canned pâté.
The case reportedly came to light after officials detected two trucks transporting 1.2 tonnes of pork of unknown origin last September. The consignment later tested positive for ASF, which has been circulating in the country this year, according to VN Express International.
Investigators found a further 130 tonnes of frozen diseased pork stored at the company’s warehouse. They said the company had made more than 1.7 tonnes of pâté, equivalent to about 14,000 cans, using contaminated raw materials on September 6 and 7.
Other products, including 4,000kg of spring rolls and 3,000kg of premium spring rolls, also tested positive for ASF, while investigators found that 13,000kg of frozen pork skin and 8,000kg of frozen chicken skin were contaminated with salmonella.
It has now emerged that products from the company have been on sale in the UK, at least until a few weeks ago.
Leaving biosecurity to chance
Tony Goodger, the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers’ head of marketing & communications, immediately passed the information onto the Food Standards Agency (FSA), after he discovered a few days ago that products from the company were seemingly available in the UK and
But he said it was concerning that the UK authorities appeared to have no prior knowledge of the situation.
“It appears that we are leaving the country’s biosecurity to chance,” Mr Goodger said. “It was fortunate that the store saw it on Vietnamese news and also took proactive action to remove it from his shelves.
“And it was by pure luck that I spotted the issue, and it was then only my own investigations which identified the products being available in Asian supermarkets.
“At present, we have no idea about the full range of potentially contaminated products in the UK, for how long they have been sold to consumers, their batch codes or where else they might be being sold.
“This highlights that the UK must have better surveillance/horizon scanning at local level in countries whose products may be exported to the UK. We need to be better, quicker, and smarter with biosecurity information.
“If these threats to our country’s farms and to consumer health are flagged at source, the appropriate action can be taken to seize the products, ideally at the point of entry.”
NPA reaction
NPA chief executive Lizzie Wilson said the incident raised many important questions. “It is very well documented that previous major disease outbreaks in the UK and, recently, across Europe are often linked to domestic or feral pigs gaining access to infected meat brought in from another country,” she said.
“The risk is the same whether that meat is imported via legal or illegal routes – and it is hugely worrying that products from a company that has only recently been found to have been using ASF-infected meat have been available in the UK.
“What makes this worse is that the authorities appear to have been completely oblivious. We need to know how widely and for how long these products have been sold in the UK – and whether potentially infected meat is still available.
“We share AIMs’ calls for the government to step up its international intelligence gathering and communication to help ensure this cannot happen again.
“This is yet another example of why the government must not row back on resource or wider commitments to border controls under a future UK-EU SPS agreement.”
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