Pat Nolan, Editor of Drinks Industry Ireland recently spoke with the Chief Executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland Dr John O’Brien about the increasing role of the FSAI in the licensed trade’s growing pub food offering. Read the interview in full

The Chief Executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland Dr John O’Brien could be described as coming from a long line of  ‘sticklers for detail’. His grandfather, a farmer, demonstrated this trait of thoroughness when he became the first person to win the Guinness Malting Barley Cup back in 1954 for the quality of his barley.
It seems that the FSAI Chief Executive is not unfamiliar with the drinks industry then - even more so as he was brought up in the town of Midleton which harbours the very heart of IDL’s distilling empire.
John O’Brien has spent his life in the food industry and has held a number of senior positions down through the years such as Director of Food Safety and Director of Corporate Scientific Affairs with the Danone group. Also during his career he has been a Board Member of and Treasurer to the International Life Sciences Institute, Europe. Prior to working in France, he lectured in Food Safety at the University of Surrey in the UK . He was the founding Editor (and currently sits) on the Editorial Board of the journal Trends in Food Science & Technology and until recently, was it’s European Editor. He has also co-edited three books as well as having authored or co-authored more than 50 other scientific publications.
He’s been heading up the FSAI since 2004.
The Authority was set up after the BSE outbreak nine years ago. Today, keeping food safety as an issue on the national agenda occupies much of John O’Brien’s time and effort.
“The key challenge now is to continue to remind our political masters of the importance of food safety for Irish consumers as well as for tourism and for the continued success and health of Ireland’s food and drink industry,” he explains.
As Chief Executive he believes it’s important to keep the peace among the 39 different agencies under the FSAI’s wing.
“At the same time, while it’s my duty to put the consumer first” he points out, “I must not be unfair to the business community”.
Not too many years ago, eating dodgy food would have laid a body up for a few days but times have changed for the worse. Now the same bacteria can kill.
“I don’t think licensees realise that virulent bacteriological strains have become much more prevalent in the last few years and it’s worth emphasising that food poisoning today can be much much more serious that it used to be,” he explains.
“The bacterial strains and viruses that can contaminate foodstuffs today are significantly more dangerous than they were 20 years ago.”
Emerging pathogens such as E coli0157 can, in the more serious cases, fatally affect the weak — particularly the old, the very young and the sick.
So it’s about a lot more than a tummy bug today.
“There’s also a chronic ‘sequelae’ associated with some strains where even if one survives the serious food poisoning incident itself, there can be residual kidney or even brain damage,” he points out.
But vigilance by bodies such as the FSAI appears to have paid off.
“If somebody gets sick today, we’d have a better chance than ever before of finding the cause via the organism itself and the source of it,” he says.
But it doesn’t take front page headlines for customers to suffer the more mild forms of food poisoning. It goes on regularly.
In fact the vast majority of food poisoning cases go unreported “…. by as much as a factor of 10,” he says.
Of the reported cases however, the predominant food sector is the small takeaway outlet or the small-scale caterer.
“In the summer months things can get worse and cases can peak due to the failure of the cold chain or sloppy conditions due to the work overload on the kitchen staff following the influx of visitors. The most common problem in the kitchens arises from cross-contamination.”
Viruses too are a very important source of food poisoning.
“It doesn’t take many viruses to infect a person,” he explains. Unlike bacteria, viruses can survive in isolation for long periods. They can stick to door knobs and other surfaces. That’s why it’s not a good idea to let anyone with a stomach complaint work in the kitchen.
And with the growth in seafood operations in so many licensed premises today, some precautions must apply. Just because it’s out of the sea doesn’t mean that bacteria cannot be present.
“Storage is a particular problem with seafood,” he says, “Some seafood can generate chemical toxins such as histamines.
“All seafood should therefore be refrigerated as soon as possible and used as soon as possible”.
Also, shellfish can take up toxins from the sea and this alone can render them toxic.
Today’s consumer requires more reassurance than ever before, he says, “Food is such a personal thing”.
Indeed, he’s had three priorities from Day One on the job.
“Firstly, to continue to address the need to improve food hygiene standards via the HACCP strategy. As an indication of this, we intend rolling out a generic form of HACCP for catering establishments with The Safe Catering Workbook in the near future.
“Secondly, to improve food labelling and thirdly, to support and assist small businesses on the challenge of coping with the food regulations.”
He’s noticed a huge improvement in commercial catering in recent years thanks to HACCP.
“We’ve been trying to prioritise HACCP implementation on the scale of the premises so on the large-scale operations the news is good.
“As for the smaller-scale operations we hope to help out by use of the generic HACCP plan which should help make this somewhat intimadatory world accessible to smaller businesses.”
The licensed trade has entered this world of catering in recent years. With that in mind he counsels that toilets and hand-washing facilities remain the most unsatisfactory elements of hygiene in many pubs.
“One needs to have good washrooms for both staff and customers,” he says, “One of the challenges facing regional trade is to be able to scale up their efforts at the peak of the season, when demand is there, without sacrificing  food safety in refrigeration, storage or preparation.”
Many pubs and restaurants complain that EHO inspections are not consistent with differing interpretations of food hygiene legislation leading to different adjudications being placed on the operation by different EHOs visiting the same premises.
“We’re moving ahead on that,” he responds, “We’ve been involved in the introduction of standard operating procedures that can be adopted across the country.
“While these are being harmonised, there may remain residual differences in approach and interpretation — but it’s important to understand that they will be eliminated soon.”
He points out too that the FSAI would be very happy to be informed of areas of inconsistency by any of the representative associations out there in the trade….
Overall, he regards training of staff to be the most important priority for those in the licensed trade in regard to hygiene. With such  huge staff turnover in the licensed trade, it’s not easy to keep employees aware of food safety issues.
“They need to be made aware of the food safety plan to be followed,” he says, “I find it encouraging when I walk into a pub to see evidence that HACCP is in operation there via, perhaps, aid memoirs on the wall to staff.
“HACCP makes good business sense too. It’s not just an academic concept. This is about protecting your business from the damage that poor hygiene can do.
“Every business has some form of risk management which is covered by such things as insurance, security lights, locks etc. HACCP is simply an insurance policy against a disaster in catering.”
This outlook might also help digest the current set of allergen alerts that restaurant owners must put on their menus listing the full contents of all their dishes.
A European Union clampdown over labelling requires chefs to flag up foods such as nuts which can cause an allergic reaction. And the waiting staff are required to know the exact ingredients in meals - even the type of oil used in the cooking.
This is already relevant here, he says, with more people suffering from food allergies than ever before, allergies which can lead to anaphylaxis - and death.
“There’s very much an obligation on the caterer to alert the customer to a potential allergen,” he says, adding that this has already been provided for at European level.
There are nine major allergens that caterers should be aware of:

* peanut - the most prevalent,
* shellfish (eg mussels),
* crustaceans (eg lobster),
* sesame seed,
* milk,
* tree nuts (eg hazelnuts),
* wheat,
* celery and
* eggs.

“It’s common sense as well as EU law,” he adds.
A firm believer that one can achieve much more by education, he’d like to see a stronger focus on education “… as enforcement by itself is fairly inefficient in terms of people on the ground and footwork”.
Not a great one for sports, in his spare time he prefers, when possible, to spend it in a pub in County Kerry (where his wife hails from) but he’s not unaware of the sporting world either, so as he moves off to his next meeting, he informs me with a smile that for the time being, as a Corkman, he’ll be avoiding his local hostelry in Kerry until it’s all won and over with…..