Hazards and Crisis Management: Incidents and Hazards

The Food Standards Agency’s Incident Management Plan for Non-Routine Incidents defines a food incident as:

(A)ny event where, based on the information available, there are concerns about actual or suspected threats to the safety, quality or integrity of food and/or feed that could require intervention to protect consumers’ interests. Quality should be considered to include food standards, authenticity and composition.

This definition is the same as that provided in the Food Law Code of Practice (England) and incidents are categorised as hazardous or non-hazardous. Hazardous incidents are:

(I)ncidents involving (or suspected to involve) a food hazard, or the condition of any food, with the potential to cause an adverse effect on the health or safety of consumers (including outbreaks of foodborne disease and/or infectious intestinal disease).