FMF Latest News

Thanks to the support of all our members in 2005, we have completed a successful first year of activities despite limited financial resources. The reputation that we have built has, subject to confirmation, enabled us to secure some external funding (through Advantage West Midlands) for the next two years ahead.

One consequence of this funding is that it enables us to offer membership for 2006 on a lower cost profile and we have decided to base the new fees on the size of the member businesses (in part to encourage more SME food businesses to participate).

The new fee structure is banded to the number of employees in the business as follows:

We believe that this will really put the Food Manufacturing Forum on a firm footing for growth and development which will be to the benefit of all our members and prove an irresistible opportunity to new members both large small.

Current members include both large and small businesses across all sub-sectors of food manufacturing and associated support businesses.

Benefits include:

• up to the minute presentations on topics of common interest across food manufacturing in the West Midlands
• superb networking opportunities enabling you to interact with other like-minded business people across the region
• access to a monthly Newsletter and other supporting sources of information designed to provide local support to busy professionals operating in the food manufacturing sector
• access to other sector specific knowledge transfer channels at preferential rates

If you are not currently a member but you would like to know more about joining please contact us at:

admin@food-manufacturing-forum.com

Our newsletter is published in HTML format which means that some recipients with stringent email controls cannot view the publication at its best.  To aid members who experience this problem, we included a PDF version of the newsletter in September as a trial, pending subsequent demand.

Anyone who would like to receive future versions of the newsletter in PDF format, please send an email to support@food-manufacturing-forum.com, with PDF Format Please as the subject line. 

The food product contamination problem experienced by sectors of the food industry earlier this year due to the Sudan and Para Red food colourings, and the associated difficulties faced in tracing and recalling implicated products, has led the Food Standards Agency to establish an incidents task force.

The FSA reports that the task force will be chaired by Dr Jon Bell, the FSA’s Chief Executive, and will include senior representatives from the food industry as well as representatives from the enforcement authorities and consumer organisations.  There will be two independent members. The task force will aim at reducing high and medium risk incidents by 25%.

This will be achieved by finding ways to reduce the risk of food product contamination; developing methods to establish the appropriate proportionality of response; agreeing the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders involved in food contamination incidents; establishing ways to learn from incidents; and establishing ways that the industry can be led by the FSA to make use of the risk reduction measures identified.

For those who have not caught up with the news, Sir John Krebs has been replaced as Chair of the Food Standards Agency by Dame Deirdre Hutton.  Sir John was Chair of the Agency since its inception in 2000 and has now taken the post of Principal of Jesus College, Oxford.  Dame Deirdre is Chair of the National Consumer Council, as well as Deputy Chair of the European Food Safety Authority.  Her initial appointment as Chair of the FSA is for four years, starting in July 2005.