Institute for Global Food Security set up in wake of horse meat scandal

A new food safety institute has been founded to improve environmental health and supply chain problems, it has been reported.

The Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) is to examine quality and standards in food production and manufacturing after it was launched at Queen’s University in Belfast (QUB) on Thursday March 14th.

This follows an environmental health scandal in January during which there were widespread reports of contaminated meat products in supermarkets throughout Europe.

The main aspect of the scandal was horsemeat in items that were labelled beef. However, there were also some products that were found to be subject to pork contamination.

This unsurprisingly sparked questions about the environmental health standards of meat production and the reliability of food labelling.

It is hoped the IGFS will help to bring companies in the food chain to account, making such incidents less likely.

Professor Chris Elliott, director of the new organisation, said the university wants to “build a food fortress”.

He added: "This new institute will ensure that we can continue to recruit the best students into our food programmes, creating the food-leaders of the future who have been trained in one of the world's best equipped research laboratories."

Philip Clarke, chief executive of Tesco, launched the new centre.

Speaking before the event, he said: "Northern Ireland can be proud that it is home to a world leading centre for the study of an issue which all of us in the food industry need to pay close attention to."

Tesco was one of the supermarkets at the centre of the horsemeat scandal, and at the height of the incident, it took out a number of adverts designed to reassures its customers, claiming it would change.