Trade press reports have highlighted a spate of recent recalls relating to food and drink products in the UK resulting from labelling errors. Examples include foods recalled because of salt crystals not mentioned on the packaging (which represent a potential choking hazard), chocolate drinking straws with labels not in English (with allergen information therefore not easily comprehended) and several products which contained allergens, including sulphur dioxide and/ or sulphites, not correctly mentioned on the label.

Where a product is not in compliance with food safety requirements (and may have reached the consumer) a food business operator is required by law to effectively and accurately inform the consumers of the reason for its withdrawal from sale, and when other measures are not sufficient to achieve a high level of health protection, recall from consumers products already supplied to them (under Article 19 of the EU General Food Law Regulation (178/2002)). A ‘recall’ is any measure or set of measures intended to achieve the return of unsafe food and is likely to include measures intended to trace the affected products, communications to customers, management of returns and quarantining/ disposing of any returned products.