Food Safety Regulation and the Conflict of Interest: The Case of MeatSafety and E. Coli 0157
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
| Author | Richard Schofield,Jean Shaoul |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00217 |
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
FOOD SAFETY REGULATION AND THE
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: THE CASE OF MEAT
SAFETY AND E. COLI 0157
RICHARD SCHOFIELD AND JEAN SHAOUL
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) aims to remove the longstanding conflict of inter-
est between producers and consumers which is thought to lie at the heart of the
rising number of food safety problems of recent years, to restore consumer confi-
dence, and to protect public health. This paper sets out firstly to understand what
the conflicts are, how they arise and their implications for food safety, and secondly
to provide some means of evaluating the proposals for the Food Standards Agency.
It does this by examining the current food safety regulatory regime as it relates to
e. coli 0157, one of the problems that gave rise to the FSA and an exemplar of the
problems of meat safety, and places it in its wider economic context.
The results show that the financial pressures on the food industry were such that
food hygiene was largely dependent upon external regulation and enforcement. But
the deficiencies in the conception, design and implementation of the Food Safety
Act, which was fundamentally deregulatory and privileged producer interests, per-
mitted the food safety problems to grow. The case also, by illustrating how the
interests of big business predominate in the formulation of public policy at the
expense of the public, reveals how the class nature of the state affects public policy
and social relations. Without addressing these issues, the problems they give rise
to will remain. While the case is based on experiences in Britain, the problem of
food safety and the issues raised have an international significance.
E. COLI 0157: FOOD SAFETY REGULATION AND THE CONFLICT
OF INTEREST
But, let us not lose sight of the key issue – creation of the Food Standards
Agency will remove the long-standing conflict of interest which may,in
the past, have compromised the public interest. The agency will have no
role in sponsoring the food industry or protecting the interests of far-
mers. Its statutory duty to protect public health along with a new open-
ness in its decision-making processes should make a real difference to
consumers (James 1998, p. 10) [emphasis added].
At the beginning of 1999, the government published legislation to set up
a Food Standards Agency (FSA) whose central aim would be the protection
of public health. While the public at large was increasingly concerned about
Richard Schofield is a Lecturer in the Business School at the Bolton Institute, Bolton and Jean Shaoul
is a Lecturer in the School of Accounting and Finance at Manchester University, Manchester.
Public Administration Vol. 78 No. 3, 2000 (531–554)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
532 RICHARD SCHOFIELD AND JEAN SHAOUL
food safety, the food industry, particularly the meat industry, was in crisis.
It had lost valuable markets both at home and abroad after the government
announced a connection between Mad Cow Disease and nvCJD in humans
in March 1996. Moreover the industry was represented at international
forums by government agencies that had become discredited as a result of
the failure to control the BSE epidemic. It was clear to all that a change
was needed to restore consumer confidence and sales revenues.
The decision to establish the FSA was finally taken by the Conservative
government early in 1997 in the wake of a number of public health crises
and epidemics that have affected the food industry in the UK in recent
years: salmonella, listeria, botulism, BSE/nvCJD and most recently the out-
break of e. coli 0157 food poisoning in Scotland in 1996–97 which killed 22
elderly people, hospitalized several hundred and left many with serious
long-term effects. Since then there have been further sporadic outbreaks of
e. coli and the reported incidence of the disease has risen from zero in 1980
to more than 1,000 in 1997 (PHLS 1999). As well as the rise in e. coli, the
incidence of all food poisoning reported in England and Wales rose from
20.8 per 100,000 in 1980 to 95.4 in 1994 (ACMSF 1995a). The Audit Com-
mission warned as long ago as 1990 that food safety was inadequate and
the regulatory regime needed to be overhauled and improved: ‘Waiting
until a serious food poisoning incident occurs is not good enough’ (Audit
Commission 1990a, p. 12).
The only serious media discussion about the causes of e. coli and other
food infections relate to the scientific issues. While these are clearly
important, science in general and microbiology in particular is treated as
something separate and distinct from the economic, social and political
world in which scientific laws operate. Little attention has been paid to the
social, financial and regulatory context. Since the end of the 1970s there
have been numerous changes in the wider regulatory framework: the intro-
duction of compliance cost assessment so that regulations are only intro-
duced if the costs to the industry are not excessive; an end to ‘over-zealous’
enforcement; and the introduction of self-regulation and the concept of ‘due
diligence’. All this was accompanied by ever increasing financial cutbacks
in the public services, including the enforcement agencies. It marked a
change from the Keynesian Welfare State system of the post-war period
whereby, nominally at least, the state claimed to act in the public interest
and modify the activities of private corporations with the imposition of
rules, constraints and laws (Ogus 1994).
As Teeple (1995) explained, in the past, government regulations and the
associated agencies grew more or less in line with the pace of technological
developments and public pressure. The immediate post-war period saw an
unprecedented application of technology to the food industry : the develop-
ment of new fertilisers, seeds, agricultural methods, genetic modification,
livestock rearing practices, food manufacturing processes and storage, etc.
These expensive changes in the technology of food production and distri-
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
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