2 Sisters: Sandwell Council boss says the authority will go beyond national safety standards
A council boss has vowed to go 'beyond' national food safety requirements in the wake of the scandal engulfing a borough’s biggest chicken processing plant.
The 2 Sisters site D base in West Bromwich temporarily ceased production after undercover filming revealed poor hygiene standards, altered food safety records and workers changing food date labels at the site.
Appearing in front of a Parliamentary inquiry into allegations, Sandwell Council’s chief executive Jan Britton vowed to launch a review into the authority’s labelling inspection procedures, focusing on ‘high-risk’ plants in the borough.
Food hygiene in Sandwell is the responsibility of the Food Standards Agency(FSA), while the council's sole responsibility is for product labelling.
He suggested that council inspectors had not visited the 2 Sisters factory often enough and admitted that the authority ‘did not know the company well enough to take action’.
At the same hearing 2 Sisters boss Ranjit Singh Boparan apologised for the alleged breaches and told members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) he was ‘committed to improving food safety’.
The inquiry heard Sandwell Council had a responsibility to ensure food produced within the borough was labelled correctly.
Asked if footage showing date labels being altered represented a failure in the authority’s detection processes regarding labelling, Mr Britton said: “Yes.”
He added: “One of the questions that we, in relation to our particular responsibilities in Sandwell, are asking is how do we learn from that and how do we move forward in a way that tells us something different?
“One of the advantages of the local authority being involved in this sort of work is we know these companies on our local patch.
"We’ve had long standing working relations with them. And I would have said our strength was knowing the culture and I would have said that our strength was knowing these companies over a long period of time at a local level.
"What this evidence that’s come through from the media inquiry shows, at least suggests to me, is perhaps we didn’t know this company as well as we thought we did.
“We have to ask ourselves as we go forward what we are going to do differently.”
Mr Britton said the authority was considering increasing the frequency of visits to the 2 Sisters base. Asked why the council had not kept ‘a really strong eye’ on what was happening at 2 Sisters, he said: “We have followed the national framework and complied with all of its requirements in respect of this company.”
He added: “We didn’t know the company well enough to take more action.” Mr Britton was pressed on the council’s inspection procedures by committee chairman Neil Parish, who asked: “Will the council be reviewing its processes and procedures and are you likely to change them dramatically.
“I don’t want to appear to be leading you here.” A smiling Mr Britton responded: “You are leading me, but you are saying what I would have said anyway.”
Before the scandal broke inspectors from Sandwell Council last visited the plant in March 2017.
Mr Britton said the authority oversees 13 or 14 plants that it considers to be at the highest level of risk in terms of food labelling issues.
“We will be looking particularly at those plants, what we do, the frequency with which we inspect and indeed the manner in which we inspect,” he said. The inquiry was called after undercover footage showed 2 Sisters workers altering the source and slaughter date of poultry being processed at the firm’s West Bromwich plant.
The worker shown changing the kill dates has since been dismissed, after the company started disciplinary proceedings citing allegations he had breached food safety regulations.
Footage also showed chicken being picked up off the floor and returned to the production line, and older chicken being mixed with fresher birds.
The committee has pledged to launch a more thorough parliamentary inquiry into food standards in the new year.
