Richard Gray
Food and drink sold in Britain face a growing threat from groups who might try to poison supplies, MI5 has warned.
Industry chiefs have been told that their sector is vulnerable to attacks by ideologically and politically motivated groups, intended to cause widespread casualties and disruption.
The warning comes from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), which operates as part of the Security Service to provide advice to energy, water, food and transport suppliers in the UK.
In the past the main threat of deliberate contamination has been from criminals attempting extortion or from individuals with a grudge, but security officials now fear there is an emerging threat from extremists such as al-Qaeda, dissident Northern Ireland republicans and animal rights fanatics.
The CPNI has now issued guidance to food and drinks producers and major supermarkets asking them to identify their vulnerabilities and to protect their plants and depots against potential attacks.
Steve Barrass, from the CPNI, spoke about the threat at a meeting of food safety experts.
Addressing the spring conference of the Society for General Microbiology, he said: "The UK suffers from a low level of malicious contamination of food by the bad, the mad and the sad.
"Now it has to consider the possibility of food supplies being disrupted by politically motivated groups."
Although there is extensive food testing carried out in the UK, a document sent to producers warns of a number of threats to the supply chain.
Attackers could contaminate prepared food or drink with bacteria such as E. coli or chemicals, causing consumers to fall sick and even die.
Alternatively, by targeting the basic ingredients that are used in large numbers of popular foods, they could cause even wider panic and disruption.
Experts in the US have warned that the dairy industry is particularly vulnerable as adding just a few grams of botulinum toxin or ricin to a tanker load of milk could kill or hospitalise thousands of consumers.
Milk is also wildly used by food manufacturers and the contaminated milk could end up in thousands of products.
With imported food accounting for much of what Britons eat, the report warns that it is harder to guarantee the security of produce grown abroad and transported to the UK.
The report warns that such attacks could also gravely damage consumer confidence in brands, while causing severe economic harm.
In one example, a major UK producer of pastries was targeted by a malicious attack where peanuts were introduced into the production of a nut-free product.
The factory was shut down for five days and products were removed from sale due to the risk of anaphylactic reactions from allergy sufferers.
A police investigation ruled out accidental causes and the company lost five per cent of its annual sales.
In February, a South African farmer was arrested after allegedly threatening to unleash foot and mouth disease in Britain, causing widespread devastation to the livestock industry.
He was said to have been motivated by a belief that Britain was responsible for allowing Robert Mugabe to inflict losses on the farming industry in Zimbabwe.
The CPNI report warns: "The food and drink industry in the UK – the food sector of the national infrastructure – could be under threat from ideologically motivated groups.
"The threat extends that from criminals who use extortion and from individuals with a grudge. It is different in nature from the (natural) hazards which the industry is well versed in handling. The threat is unlikely to decline in the foreseeable future.
"This could cause mass casualties, economic disruption and widespread panic. In many ways the diversity of the food operations may seem to make the food supply highly vulnerable to attack."
The report singles out farms as vulnerable because they often employ casual workers from abroad, and urges all businesses to make comprehensive checks on new employees and visiting contractors.
Production facilities should have security and perimeter controls, while unscheduled deliveries should not be accepted, it says.
In the United States, food "bioterrorism" has become a major concern after documents were found in Afghanistan apparently referring to plans by terrorists to contaminate food supplies.
An al-Qaeda group in Yemen that built toner cartridge bombs in an unsuccessful attempt to blow up aircraft last October were also thought to be planning to poison salad bars and buffets in restaurants.
The US now also has special agents stationed in countries that export food to America to monitor vulnerable points where the food supply could be attacked.
Dr Richard Byrne of the Centre for Rural Security at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire, who has carried out research on the threats posed by terrorism to agriculture, said: "The US and Australia are much more publicly aware of the threat from terrorism to the food supply compared to here in the UK.
"Groups could go after consumer health in a short term way by using something like E. coli, or longer term by contaminating with cadmium or radioactive caesium, but the economic impact of an attack on food can have the greatest impact.
"Look at the resources we had to put into tackling foot and mouth – it tied up the police, army, fire service, private contractors and sapped huge amounts of money."
Professor Tim Lang, a food policy expert at City University, London, added: "Only 60 per cent of our food comes from Britain. That reliance on imported food is a huge vulnerability in the country's food supply chain."
Terry Donahoe, head of the chemical safety division at the Food Standards Agency, said: "We have a very robust set of procedures to detect threats and an emerging risks programme to identify risks that might be coming up so we can act at an earlier stage to prevent them from happening."
Addressing the spring conference of the Society for General Microbiology, he said: "The UK suffers from a low level of malicious contamination of food by the bad, the mad and the sad.
"Now it has to consider the possibility of food supplies being disrupted by politically motivated groups."
Although there is extensive food testing carried out in the UK, a document sent to producers warns of a number of threats to the supply chain.
Attackers could contaminate prepared food or drink with bacteria such as E. coli or chemicals, causing consumers to fall sick and even die.
Alternatively, by targeting the basic ingredients that are used in large numbers of popular foods, they could cause even wider panic and disruption.
Experts in the US have warned that the dairy industry is particularly vulnerable as adding just a few grams of botulinum toxin or ricin to a tanker load of milk could kill or hospitalise thousands of consumers.
Milk is also wildly used by food manufacturers and the contaminated milk could end up in thousands of products.
With imported food accounting for much of what Britons eat, the report warns that it is harder to guarantee the security of produce grown abroad and transported to the UK.
The report warns that such attacks could also gravely damage consumer confidence in brands, while causing severe economic harm.
In one example, a major UK producer of pastries was targeted by a malicious attack where peanuts were introduced into the production of a nut-free product.
The factory was shut down for five days and products were removed from sale due to the risk of anaphylactic reactions from allergy sufferers.
A police investigation ruled out accidental causes and the company lost five per cent of its annual sales.
In February, a South African farmer was arrested after allegedly threatening to unleash foot and mouth disease in Britain, causing widespread devastation to the livestock industry.
He was said to have been motivated by a belief that Britain was responsible for allowing Robert Mugabe to inflict losses on the farming industry in Zimbabwe.
The CPNI report warns: "The food and drink industry in the UK – the food sector of the national infrastructure – could be under threat from ideologically motivated groups.
"The threat extends that from criminals who use extortion and from individuals with a grudge. It is different in nature from the (natural) hazards which the industry is well versed in handling. The threat is unlikely to decline in the foreseeable future.
"This could cause mass casualties, economic disruption and widespread panic. In many ways the diversity of the food operations may seem to make the food supply highly vulnerable to attack."
The report singles out farms as vulnerable because they often employ casual workers from abroad, and urges all businesses to make comprehensive checks on new employees and visiting contractors.
Production facilities should have security and perimeter controls, while unscheduled deliveries should not be accepted, it says.
In the United States, food "bioterrorism" has become a major concern after documents were found in Afghanistan apparently referring to plans by terrorists to contaminate food supplies.
An al-Qaeda group in Yemen that built toner cartridge bombs in an unsuccessful attempt to blow up aircraft last October were also thought to be planning to poison salad bars and buffets in restaurants.
The US now also has special agents stationed in countries that export food to America to monitor vulnerable points where the food supply could be attacked.
Dr Richard Byrne of the Centre for Rural Security at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire, who has carried out research on the threats posed by terrorism to agriculture, said: "The US and Australia are much more publicly aware of the threat from terrorism to the food supply compared to here in the UK.
"Groups could go after consumer health in a short term way by using something like E. coli, or longer term by contaminating with cadmium or radioactive caesium, but the economic impact of an attack on food can have the greatest impact.
"Look at the resources we had to put into tackling foot and mouth – it tied up the police, army, fire service, private contractors and sapped huge amounts of money."
Professor Tim Lang, a food policy expert at City University, London, added: "Only 60 per cent of our food comes from Britain. That reliance on imported food is a huge vulnerability in the country's food supply chain."
Terry Donahoe, head of the chemical safety division at the Food Standards Agency, said: "We have a very robust set of procedures to detect threats and an emerging risks programme to identify risks that might be coming up so we can act at an earlier stage to prevent them from happening."
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The AEC stops monitoring the radiation comming in from Fukushima and MI5 gives us this. When I think of our national 'leaders', I see they shouldn't be so proud of doing their relatives. Not a prize winner in the bunch.
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