Last week the Food Standards Agency (FSA) requested we temporarily halt the dispatch of mustard and mustard-related products, following reports of a peanut contamination in certain batches of mustard supplied to us. The FSA has subsequently issued precautionary consumer allergy alerts to that effect on certain products containing mustard.
In the interests of protecting consumer health, we promptly complied with the FSA request and duly advised our customers not to use mustard and blends derived from affected mustard batches. We also embarked on a course of additional samples testing of mustard samples that had been retained on site – testing conducted within our own facilities and by an off-site industry-approved ISO17025 certified independent external laboratory. Testing of further customer samples using accredited test methods is ongoing and will hopefully assist us to understand where and how this issue originated.
We are also working with our long-time supply partner of natural mustard products, GT Agro in India, which equally has a nut-free site and relevant controls in place, on a thorough root-cause analysis of its procedures and processes.
FGS Ingredients does not include any peanut in its spices, and no peanuts are allowed on our production site in Leicester. We also follow very stringent working controls to prevent the accidental introduction of allergens, including staff hand swabs prior to anyone starting work.
As a family-owned business that was established 74 years ago and is presently in its third generation of leadership, we have grown to proudly become the principal supplier of natural spices to food producers across the UK and to businesses internationally. We have never previously been involved in any incident of food contamination. Nevertheless, we continue supporting the FSA investigation in every way necessary to help determine the source of this issue.
