Food Alerts

Food Alerts are the Food Standards Scotland way of letting local authorities and consumers know about problems associated with food and, in some cases, provide details of action to be taken.

They are usually issued in conjunction with a product withdrawal or recall by a manufacturer, retailer or distributor, however, it is occasionally necessary for enforcement officers to contact or visit premises to ensure that all suspect products have been removed from sale.

A Food Alert can be of 4 types:

• Food Alert for Action where food business and local authorities must take the relevant precautions to ensure the food involved is removed from the food chain.
• Recall Information Notice - advising of the recall of a food, where no specific action is required to be taken by local authorities. Recall relates to recall of food from the consumer
• Withdrawal Information Notice - advising of withdrawal of a food where no specific action is required to be taken by local authorities. Withdrawal relates to food Withdrawal from the food business
• Allergy Alert - to quickly communicate allergen risks directly to the consumer.

Up-to-date information on all current food alerts is published on the Food Standards Scotland website.

Occasionally foods have to be withdrawn or recalled if there is a risk to consumers because the allergy labelling is missing or incorrect, or if there is another allergy risk.

In these situations the Food Standards Scotland will issue an Allergy Alert.

Up-to-date information on all Allergy Alerts are available on the Food Standards Scotland website.