Every third food inspection fails
About every third mandatory inspection in food companies fails because the authorities have a blatant lack of staff. This is confirmed by research by the consumer organization foodwatch. According to this, only a good ten percent of the approximately 400 control offices are able to meet their specified target when inspecting companies. In 2018, the authorities nationwide were unable to carry out more than a quarter of a million of the mandatory official inspection visits.
With comprehensive data research, foodwatch made the situation in the almost 400 mostly municipal food authorities transparent for the first time - published on Wednesday in the report "Control is better". The situation in Bremen and Berlin is particularly catastrophic, where the authorities in 2018 did not even comply with half of their requirements for inspection visits. The situation was least bad in Hamburg, where every tenth mandatory check still failed. Nationwide, even 80 percent of the prescribed controls did not take place in individual offices.
From the point of view of the consumer organization, the figures show a fatal political failure. “When consumer protection authorities violate consumer protection regulations almost across the board, it is a tangible political scandal. The inspectors who do a hard job are being let down by politicians. The responsible district administrators, mayors and ministers not only harm the consumers, but also the many food companies that work cleanly and honestly," explained Martin Rücker, Managing Director of foodwatch Germany.
The consumer organization emphasized that the problem cannot be solved with more staff alone if the federal states do not simultaneously tackle a comprehensive structural reform in food monitoring: Instead of the countless municipal authorities, a single, independent state institute must be responsible for the controls in each federal state. Their financial and human resources must be based solely on the goals of consumer protection by law. “Consumer protection and food safety must not be dependent on the cash position or on politically motivated budgetary decisions in the federal states or communities. The political influence on the food control authorities must be stopped,” says Martin Rücker.
In addition, the offices would have to be obliged by law to publish all control results without exception. If food companies knew that violations would become public, this would create the best incentive to comply with food law requirements every day. Experience from countries such as Denmark, Norway and Wales has shown this: since all control results have been published there, the number of food companies that have received complaints has fallen significantly.
The “General Administrative Regulation on Framework Surveillance” (AVV RÜb), adopted by the Federal Government and the Bundesrat, regulates how often controls must take place in food companies nationwide. In addition to event-related controls, every food business should be routinely checked at regular intervals - the more frequently the greater the control authority classifies the risk. However, as the foodwatch research shows, these plan controls cannot be adhered to in any federal state because the political decision-makers are cutting back on staff. In Lower Saxony, the state government is even trying to move away from the nationwide regulation with a ministerial decree - it stipulates that the municipal control authorities only have to comply with 55 percent of the plan controls resulting from the AVV RÜb. foodwatch classifies the decree as illegal.
The consumer organization once again criticized Federal Food Minister Julia Klöckner's plans to further reduce the mandatory controls. At the end of November, foodwatch published an unpublished draft bill for a new version of the AVV RÜb from the Federal Ministry of Food, which provides for fewer binding controls than before. Daily checks in companies with the highest risk are no longer provided for according to the proposal - unlike before. Even at a company like the Hessian sausage manufacturer Wilke, which hit the headlines nationwide because of a listeria scandal, only four instead of twelve visits by the official inspectors would be required in the future. "Julia Klöckner wants to adjust the targets to the shortage of staff, instead of admonishing the countries to finally create the necessary positions to achieve the goals. The minister's crazy logic is obvious: there are no inspectors - so we simply check less. The minister's plans pose a threat to food safety in Germany," said foodwatch Managing Director Martin Rücker.
For the "Control is better" report, foodwatch asked all of the approximately 400 food authorities in Germany to what extent the legally prescribed number of controls were being observed and what the staffing situation in the authorities was. The basis for the data query was the Consumer Information Act (VIG), which citizens can use to request information from the authorities. The research took about seven months. While some offices responded within hours, others were only ready to provide information after objection procedures or even supervisory complaints to the responsible state ministries. 19 authorities refused completely, 18 of them from Bavaria and one from Brandenburg.
Sources and further information: https://www.foodwatch.org/de
