A former supermarket operator has been fined a total of £750 for a number of food safety breaches, including selling out of date food. Convenience Stores (NI) Ltd of south Belfast was also ordered to pay court costs of £66 in relation to hygiene offences at the Mace store on the Lisburn Road.

Cork City Council has said tests have shown that the local water supply was not the source of an outbreak of cryptosporidium in the city suburb of Bishopstown. A number of children were affected by the bug which causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea. Two children were hospitalised as a result of the Bishopstown outbreak and have since been discharged.

More eggs have been found with salmonella, this time at the Andreas Vasiliou farm in Kato Drys in Larnaca, the Veterinary Services announced yesterday. According to the Services, the specific batch – labelled 1 CY4433.39 – was spotted during routine checks on the district’s poultry farms.

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has rejected media reports that it plans to scrap best-before labels in a bid to cut the 8.3m tonnes of food thrown away by households each year.

The BRC claims its new Global Standard for Food Safety will prioritise auditor training and time on the factory floor, but one technical manager has dismissed it as a "complete sideshow", as large food manufacturers struggle with more thorough customer audits.

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Another Australian supermarket chain has gotten into the BS business by claiming the lamb on its shelves is hormone-free. This despite hormones never being used in lamb production in Australia.

Rat poop may be the immediate health risk, but gnawing on wires is even more dangerous. We found this out the expensive way a couple of times in Kansas, when rats, seeking warmth, entered the car’s engine and decided to go for a chomp. It’s happened twice.

Eating raw or undercooked mollusks may pose a safety hazard if they are harvested from waters polluted with pathogenic microbes, so U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are studying ways to enhance the food safety of these popular shellfish.