2014-10-07
National Audit Office: food safety assurance is improving, although we still cannot be quite confident about the situation
The National Audit Office conducted an audit to assess the assurance of food safety in Lithuania. “A comparison of the data for three years showed that the assurance of food safety has been improving and this has been providing tangible benefits. For example, the number of disease outbreaks due to the performance of food operators and the number of persons taken ill over the last two years went down almost twice. However, low-quality and unsafe food products have still been reaching consumers,” said Auditor General Giedrė Švedienė commenting on the audit results.
National food control in Lithuania is carried out by the State Food and Veterinary Service, together with its subordinate National Food and Veterinary Risk Assessment Institute which performs risk assessment and laboratory food tests. The auditors were satisfied both with the testing procedures for food operators and the testing frequency. The number of checks and laboratory tests at border inspection posts which check feedingstuffs and foodstuffs has been increasing meanwhile the number of violations detected has been going down (2.1 per cent of violations detected in 2011, 2.8 per cent in 2012 and 0.7 per cent in 2013).
The number of checks at catering establishments has also been growing; however, the number of violations here remains as high as 40 per cent for the third year in a row. A quarter of these violations are significant and were subjected to sanctions. The auditors also pointed out that measures taken to ensure control of genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been insufficient. There are too few GMO tests (0.014 per cent of all tests), although the share of violations in this field compared to other irregularities is three times higher. In addition, the number of GMO tests decreased by more than three times since 2008.
The public auditors carried out random sample tests of some food products. It was found that the amount of protein meat substitutes in one (out of two) sausage samples exceeded the allowable amount more than six times and the amount of phosphates was higher than the allowable amount in both samples. The National Food and Veterinary Risk Assessment Institute does not examine the content of phosphate additives in meat products, because it is not possible to distinguish, by way of laboratory analysis, between naturally occurring phosphates and those added artificially. The total allowable phosphate content (i.e. both added and occurring naturally) in products has not been regulated. Therefore, any excess of phosphates can be interpreted as arising naturally and so producers can abuse this situation.
The auditors found that the National Food and Veterinary Risk Assessment Institute, which carries out laboratory tests of food, has been using one-third of its equipment for more than ten years, which determines an increasing number of failures and the risk of a lengthy analysis process. The annual number of tests is over one million and half of the equipment checked by the auditors fails 1-5 times a year.
The audit findings also demonstrated that consumers are not always properly informed about unsafe food products placed on the market.
The National Audit Office issued recommendations to the State Food and Veterinary Service to facilitate more effective assurance of food safety in Lithuania.