Banned ingredient makes it into 500 products in 20 countries. David Labanyi reports
Do you know what phenylazo-2-naphthalenol is? It's a synthetically produced red dye which is particularly effective in colouring petrol, leather, plastic and floor polish. Knowing this would you eat it? Definitely not.
Yet thousands of people have unwittingly consumed this potentially cancer-causing red dye in hundreds of processed foods in an episode that highlights how vulnerable the food chain is.
Although banned in food the dye was detected this month in hundreds of ready meals, sauces and savoury snacks, all of which had a common ingredient, Crosse & Blackwell Worcester Sauce, produced at Premier Foods in Britain. This contained chilli powder adulterated with the dye which is better known as Sudan Red 1.
The dye is used to colour poor quality chilli powder because it is cheap and easy to use. The discovery of this illegal adulterant in the food chain reveals two things about the industry.
Firstly, traceability, at least of finished products, has proved to be relatively effective. More than 500 products in nearly 20 countries have been withdrawn in the largest food recall in British consumer history.
However, a weakness is that the globalisation of the food chain means that one rogue ingredient can spread to a bewildering array of products resulting in any food safety scare being swiftly multiplied across brands and retailers.
This is evidenced by the range of products being withdrawn from the Irish market. Everything from vegetable soup to red wine cooking sauce and seafood sauce has traces of Worcester Sauce and, in turn, minute quantities of Sudan Red. More than 70 products have been recalled from Irish supermarkets.
Alan Reilly, deputy chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), said while there were no safe levels of Sudan Red 1 in food "the risks to consumer health are likely to be very low" although people with a high consumption of these foods would have higher risk.
"It just shows you the complexity of our food chain. You can have one ingredient going into one product and that one product [then] being used in over 400 different foods.
"It's a very good example of globalisation and what can go wrong if any step in that global market breaks down."
According to Reilly, it is difficult to know how long Sudan Red has been used in chilli powder. It was banned in the European Union in 2003 after a laboratory in France unearthed it in British-produced foods and a Europe-wide alert was sounded. Since then all imported chilli powder must be certified free of Sudan Red.
The recall has caught the public imagination. The FSAI received more than 1,200 calls in just four days last week to its helpline. Under the authority's information plan, the public was notified first, followed by major food producers, distributors and retailers.
Environmental health officers (EHOs) were then instructed to inform the smaller, independent wholesalers and retail outlets. The EHOs are also contacting catering outlets. As the list of food being withdrawn is constantly updated, the FSAI has not imposed deadlines for the withdrawal of contaminated foods but it expects them to be removed immediately.
How the current batch of contaminated chilli powder got into the food chain and who is responsible is likely to only finally be resolved in the courts. What is known is that in September 2002 a British importer, East Anglia Food Ingredients, sold off a consignment of the powder to flavourings firm Umbar Rothon.
This company then sold the chilli powder to Premier Foods, the company which owns Crosse & Blackwell. Following a European alert on Sudan Red in 2003, East Anglia Food Ingredients issued a product recall.
But it appears that the Premier Foods consignment was not recalled and was later used to produce Worcester Sauce, which was then used to flavour hundreds of branded ready meals.
Reilly says the difficulty for consumers is that none of the foods recalled would have been labelled with Sudan Red 1 and many wouldn't even have Worcester Sauce listed as an ingredient.
"The obligations on the food industry and food businesses is to produce and market safe foods. That is their legal responsibility."
Indicating the size of the task facing regulatory bodies, Reilly said a supermarket might have 70,000- 100,000 product lines. "You could then be dealing with a list of 50 different possible contaminants. But there is no guarantee that even testing a food will throw up a contaminant.
"When it comes to accepting something is safe you can't test for every single possible contaminant in that ingredient or product. [So] consumers have to rely on the labelling and they have to rely on the brand they are buying. You have to rely, perhaps trust, that the foods you buy are safe. There is no other way for a consumer."
Prof Seamus Fanning, director at the Centre for Food Safety at University College Dublin, said that since ingredients were now sourced from around the globe, "food safety is dependent on full traceability in the food chain and this is a real challenge".
Asked whether a consumer could ever have access to a complete list of every ingredient contained within a product, Prof Fanning said providing such data "is achievable".
"It's not rocket science, it's just a question of companies listing, somewhere, every single component of a food. Why isn't this being applied at the moment? I'm not sure. It may have something to do with cost, the space required on labels and maybe corporate confidentially."
European legislation - which also applies in the Republic - was updated last month to require that producers not only ensure all products are safe but also requiring them to formally notify local authorities should a food be contaminated.
One lesson to be taken from finding Sudan Red in food, according to Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers' Association, is it highlights the need for a global food regulator.
"I know we have the European Food Safety Authority but this is a classic case of why you need a global agency, maybe under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. We need one, unified regulator over all food-producing countries." At the moment there is a rapid alert system linking all food safety agencies across Europe.
Responding to the Sudan Red episode, the European commissioner for health and consumer protection Markos Kyprianou demanded that all old supplies of chilli powder be dumped.
Criticising the food industry, Kyprianou said "certain industrial operators have not faced up to their responsibilities and cleaned up their stocks of raw material. If they do not do so, it is up to member states to take the necessary measures to force them to comply."
Over the past 18 months the Food Standards Authority in Britain has issued a series of warnings about foods contaminated with Sudan Red. The authority admitted that following this massive recall of foods it was going to undertake a critical review of its procedures.
Lawrence Hutter, a consumer consultant with Deloitte in Britain, said the cost of the recall was typically €127,000 per food item.
However, he said the really significant impact would be within the industry. "From here on, retailers will require their suppliers to impose stronger quality controls across the board."