Food recalls in National Level in Greece from 2005 until 2015

Abstract

An effective recall system protects consumers from food-born diseases and misleading information. In Greece the Hellenic Food Authority (EFET) publishes at its official web portal reports of food recalls. These reports consisted the basic material of our research. We elaborated meticulously food recall data for 10 calendar years, from 2005 until 2015 and we examined i. the type of product (food and food contact material), ii. the category of the hazard-cause of the recall, iii. the subgroup of the hazard-cause of the recall, iv. the context of recall and v. the country of origin of the recalled product. Most of the recalled products in Greece belonged to the category of confectionery (14.68%), while the chemical hazard was the main cause of recalls with a percentage of 32.7%. The 80% of recalled foods in Greece had as country of origin, in descending order, Greece, China, Italy, Ukraine, Germany, France, Holland, Turkey, UK, with a significant percentage of cases where the country of origin was not mentioned. The highest percentage of recalls 38.94% was observed during official food control from the competent authorities, followed by the recalls in the framework of RASFF (37.96%). In addition significant differences were observed between the type of the recalled product and the type of the hazard, as well as the country of origin of the product (p<0.01). © 2017 PHARMAKON-Press.