Problems facing the food industry

Think of crises that have recently swept the food industry. Remember bovine spongiform encephalopy (BSE)? It was suspected BSE, or ‘mad cow disease’, arose from unsuitable animal feed being fed to ruminants. A frightening off-shoot of that was new variant vC-JD, which tragically led to the deaths of its victims and even raised questions about its transmission through blood transfusions. Amid the concern about the implications of the disease, many countries stopped importing British beef. France was among the most vociferous and raised a storm about British beef. Yet, on July 4, 2004, the United Kingdom's Sunday Telegraph claimed that the mad cow disease epidemic had gone undetected in that country and had led to almost 50 000 severely infected animals entering the food chain. The report was based on a ‘shocking’ report by France's own government researchers.