Conference welcome for Food Standards Scotland

The launch of Food Standards Scotland (FSS) is a fresh start opportunity to create a high grade, high trust and high standard industry which is working together and pulling in the same direction, SAMW president, Alan McNaughton, told members and guests during his address to the Association’s annual conference in Glasgow.

“That’s a change which we should all celebrate,” he said, adding that while there will obviously be points to ‘discuss between our two organisations’ in the future, the arrival of FSS was a welcome step.

Ross Finnie, FSS chairman (left) with Alan McNaughton, SAMW president

“It’s extremely good to be able to start working with an open and accessible food standards body, freed, as FSS is, from the rigid and inflexible remoteness which so often controlled the former structure,” he said.

“We also remain confident, that the new body will be successful in stripping out costs in comparison to the old system.”

Ross Finnie, chairman of FFS, and a keynote speaker at the conference, said that ‘effective partnership working and stakeholder engagement’ were important factors in the development of the new body. He also said FSS would take ‘intelligence-led approaches to delivery that are risk-based with proportionate enforcement’ if required.

“By working together we can deliver great performance for consumers,” he told conference delegates.