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Food Crime & Incidents

Listeria in Salmon since 4 May 2018

Request

Your request was about the following information:

‘Please provide information on listeria in salmon since 4 May 2018. Please include test results, food surveillance, sampling, results, emails, letters, warnings and any other information on listeria and salmon. Please include any correspondence with the EU, government agencies, supermarkets, salmon farming companies and any other parties in relation to listeria and salmon. Please consider this a formal request for information under the relevant FOI and Environmental Information regulations. Please provide the information electronically.’

We then asked you for some further information in order to identify and locate the information that you have asked for. In particular, we asked you if you could please clarify whether you need the requested information for listeria in salmon or for listeria and salmon. Also, we asked you if you could please specify whether you need this information for wild or farmed salmon or for both.

You replied that you need this information for Listeria in salmon and for both wild and farmed salmon.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing all the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This is because of the time it will take to identify all mailboxes and electronic files that might contain information within scope, to identify and retrieve the relevant emails and files, and to compile the material, applying appropriate redactions. Under section 12 of Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12 FOISA.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request further in order that the costs can be brought below £600. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on the website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

Please find following the information we can send you that would cover your areas of request about Listeria in Salmon (wild & farmed):

1. Attached you can find the table that includes Data held by Food Standards Scotland relating to sampling for Listeria in salmon.

2. On our website the following links lead to information on listeria in salmon:

Food Poisoning - Listeria | Food Standards Scotland

Fish | Food Standards Scotland

There are links within these pages to other related web pages and also to the Safe Smoked Fish Tool.

3. Attached you can find an email dated 28 May 2019, which references listeria in salmon. Section 38(1)(b) (Personal information) FOISA applies to the content. 

4. In FSS we hold a document in our possession called Technical Guidance Document on Challenge Tests and Durability Studies for Assessing Shelf Life for Ready to Eat Foods related to Listeria Monocytogenes, which contains some references to smoked salmon in this connection. It is available from the EU Reference Library at Mandate | EURL (anses.fr) and is not therefore provided being exempt in terms of Section 25 of FOISA (Information otherwise accessible). 

5. FSS holds a series of emails which do not fall to be disclosed as they are exempt in terms of Section 29(1)(a) of FOISA (Formulation of Scottish Administration policy etc.). We have applied the public interest test and have concluded that these emails relate to the development of Scottish Government policy and disclosure would:

  • Have a negative impact on the ongoing discussions surrounding development of this policy;
  • Discourage civil servants and/or ministers from openly debating potentially controversial or unpopular options when discussing similar policies in future. 

6. FSS has also in its in possession a draft document provided by an industry association in connection with ready to eat foods. The document is in draft format and provided to a restricted audience in that format. In FSS we do not possess the finalised document and therefore have no knowledge of what has remained in the document and what has been taken out. We consider that this document is exempt in terms of Section 36 of FOISA (Confidentiality). 

7. Since 4th May 2018 FSS has recorded 12 incidents relating to Listeria Monocytogenes in Salmon, of which investigations have concluded on 9 of these incidents, however, 3 still remain under investigation. In relation to the 3 incidents that remain under investigation, in this instance we are unable to provide any information as an exemption under section 34(1)(b) (Investigations by Scottish public authorities and proceedings arising out of such nvestigations) of FOISA applies to that information. 

8. Information about the 9 incidents where investigations have concluded can be found in the attached table. 

9. Please also find below some useful links relating to listeria in Salmon: