HAMBURG: The contamination incident around excessive levels of dioxin found in feed and animal products in Germany was the most important topic during a panel debate on food safety, organised by the German federal consumer organisation VZBV on 27 January 2011 in Berlin.
The panel was made up of Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner, as well as senior representatives from farming, processing, trade and consumer groups.
All panelists condemned the allegedly criminal practice behind the contamination as unacceptable and agreed that processing and monitoring standards needed improvement.
At the same time, they also shared the view that the media and those countries that have banned German imports were completely overstating the risk for consumers. There was also consensus that overall, the level of food safety in Germany had never been higher.
The representative of German multinational wholesaler, METRO, reported that the outstanding reputation of German produce had suffered tremendously since the dioxin findings.
Consumers and retailers both in Germany and abroad were not differentiating at all, for example the incident had affected the German food industry as a whole. METRO commented "for two weeks now, we don't even get a German carrot sold."
Sales of German eggs and pork had gone down by around 20 percent. As a consequence, METRO had to purchase produce from other countries, despite the fact that average dioxin levels were often higher in imported produce than in German products (where not affected by the contamination).
All groups welcomed the action plan agreed by federal and Länder governments, which includes registration of feed producers, division of processing streams, better coordination of controls, and more consumer information.
A particular deficit identified was the lack of coordination between private and official controls.
With regard to possible lasting effects on consumption patterns, the panelists acknowledged that while it was too early to tell, the incident occured at a moment where an increasing number of consumers looked at the quality (not just the price) of the produce and considered reducing their consumption of meat.
