Which? Report food for thought!

A letter of congratulations is being sent to the Food Enforcement team which also saw the local authority attain sixth place in the UK for enforcement performance in a Which? report.

The consumer affairs magazine, Which? looked at 395 local authorities in the UK and using the latest data submitted to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), ranked how they were performing on food safety enforcements.

Ballymena council was placed sixth overall across the whole of the UK for 2012-13.

Thursday night’s Regulatory and Operational Services Committee of Council committee meeting was told that local authorities were ranked on three criteria: - the proportion of premises ranked as high or medium risk in a local authority that were broadly compliant with food hygiene requirements; the percentage of premises yet to receive a risk rating; and, the proportion of inspections and other follow ups that were required but not carried out by local authority inspectors.

Cllr Monica Digney said: “This is a tremendous achievement. We need to let people know that our officers care about their food and their businesses and we should send a letter to the officers in recognition of their hard work”.

Supporting her proposal, Cllr James Currie: “Council’s coming sixth in the UK and first in Northern Ireland is a fantastic achievement which deserves recognition.”