The recent scandals of Buitoni pizzas contaminated with E. coli bacteria or Kinder pizzas at the origin of an epidemic of salmonellosis have raised concerns about sanitary conditions in factories, and the controls carried out both by manufacturers and by civil servants, whose numbers have shrunk over the past fifteen years, according to the unions.
In mid-May, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that it would recover this competence from the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF), under the supervision of Bercy, and with it around sixty agents assigned to these assignments.
To this will be added "90 FTEs (full-time equivalents worked, editor's note) additional in 2023 responsible for + the health safety of plants, animals and food +", indicated the ministry in its draft budget 2023. They will join the departmental control services, bringing the total workforce to 150 agents.
Of the six billion total budget projected for 2023, 11% will be devoted to "food safety and health quality", details the ministry.
More broadly, "the PLF 2023 (draft budget law, editor's note) provides for a significant increase in the means of the ministry in the fields of food safety, animal health and protection, plant health and food quality, with 655 million euros, an increase of 7%".
The first union of the DGCCRF, Solidaires CCRF & SCL, had denounced in May the "breakage" and the "sacrifice of an administrative scapegoat" to hide the failures of the food industry, the controls relying largely on the internal procedures of the industrialists.
The DGCCRF, which has around 2,500 agents including 1,800 investigators, had "lost 1,000 jobs in fifteen years", also recalled the joint head of the union, David Sironneau.
© 2022 AFP