What is the Health Risk from Sudan 1?

Sudan 1 is a potential carcinogen which could contribute to an increased risk of cancer. However, a safe level or a quantification of risk has not been possible to determine. The current estimation of risk from the levels present in affected foods is very small.

What is a Food Alert?

The Food Standards Agency informs local authorities and consumers about food safety problems. The FSA issues two kinds of alerts:

• Food Alerts for Information. These alerts are not primarily about food hazards, but usually concern quality issues. For example, a large retailer carried out a full product recall, in January 2005, of "Cheesy Spirals" after being notified of a strong odour in some of the meals.
• Food Alerts for Action relate to potential hazards to the consumer. Information is provided by the FSA about what specific actions must be taken. Sudan 1 is one such case.

The Background

This dye was in a batch of chilli powder used by Premier Foods to manufacture a Worcester sauce, which was then used as an ingredient in a wide range of products. Since July 2003 all chilli powder imported into the UK has to be certified free of Sudan 1. The FSA and local authorities randomly sample every year over 1,000 consignments of imported chilli products. However, this particular batch predates this sampling procedure, and was only discovered after sampling Worcester sauce produced by Premier Foods and exported to Italy.

The FSA published an initial list of affected foods on 18th February 2005. Further lists have been issued since as the food industry alerted the FSA to further affected products. The vast majority of affected products have now been removed from the food chain, but some products may still remain in shops and in the catering sector.

The FSA is working with local authorities to establish how this failure in the food industry's legal duty to provide safe and fit food happened.

Why issue a Food Alert for Action?

Consumers should not be unnecessarily exposed to a potential carcinogen, and expert advice is that exposure should be as low as possible. Its use in food products is banned in the UK and throughout the EU.

Editor's Note:

Product recalls

Product recalls are very costly for the food industry, but may be essential to ensure consumer safety. In 2004 the costs of a product recall ranged from £40,000 to £500.000. The main reason for a recall concerned an error in the manufacturing process. Costs to a manufacturer covered loss of stock, retailers' charges, brand damage and downtime or extra work involved in rectifying errors.

The total cost of the Sudan1 product recall will be very large. The reputation of the food industry is also likely to receive a severe setback after the partial recovery in public confidence following the BSE crisis.

Legislation Issues

Food businesses have a legal obligation to withdraw unsafe food products. Four Articles in the EC Regulation178/2002 (Articles 14, 16, 18, and 19) were directly implemented, through the General Food Regulations 2004, into UK law from the 1st January 2005. The General Food Regulations 2004 align UK domestic legislation with the general principles and requirements of EU Regulation 178/2002. New enforcement powers are contained in the regulations regarding the above articles.

Article 19 requires food business operators to withdraw food from the market if it is suspected that the food may be injurious to consumer health. The food business operator must then immediately inform the enforcing authority (local environmental health department) if there is reason to believe that the food placed on the market may be injurious to consumer health.

For full details of the new regulations and guidance on the regulations, go to: www.food.gov.uk

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