Food Standards Scotland (FSS), who took over from the Food Standards Agency in Scotland on April 1, has committed itself to appointing its own chief scientific adviser, in marked contrast to the much-criticised axing of the same role by the European Commission.
FSS chairman, Ross Finnie, told the annual conference of the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers in Glasgow that the country’s new food body would be “science and evidence based” and that it would most definitely seek to support its activities by sound research.
In further outlining the distinctive aims and objectives of the new body, Mr Finnie said FSS would be seeking to establish an “effective working partnership and stakeholder engagement” across the whole food industry, while also striving to educate consumers.
That meant FSS would be “intelligence-led in its work and risk-based in its “proportionate enforcement” of the required food standards.
As part of that process, he said FSS would be appointing a chief scientific adviser. While such an appointment might be on a part-time basis, the role would be given high status attention, as deserving of such a position.
“By working together with the industry, I believe we can deliver great performance for consumers,” he said. “For that to happen, however, you (the industry) have to trust us and we have to trust you.”
That, he concluded, was the way in which Scottish food could, in the future, become the very “best in class”.