AFBI provides a service to environmental health officers and the food industry for the identification of invertebrate remains in food-stuff.
This service has been provided since the 1930’s and in accordance with the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991. The basic purpose is to identify invertebrate contaminants in food submitted to environmental health officers by members of the public.
The origin of contaminants can lead to legal proceedings and/or compensation, for example if the producer is found to have inadequate hygiene, or failed to control insect incursion. As such, proper identification of contaminants and their provenance is of utmost importance as it can lead to loss of reputation and income for the affected retailer.
The scope of this work is wide ranging and extends to domestic and commercial pest control advice.
A recent example of this was complaints of flies allegedly coming from landfill sites and involved the intervention of local Councillors. On average, we receive c.100 submissions for identification per year. The majority of these relate to domestic pests but also include exotic species, for example a black widow spider (Latrodectus mactans) on grapes.
The problems submitted are diverse but typically: the most common complaint was of booklice (psocids), followed by biscuit beetles (Stegobium paniceum), house spiders (Tegenaria sp.) and brown house moth (Hofmannophila pseudospretella). Some of the more unusual submissions were a death's head hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos) from the P&O ferry offices and a long horn beetle larva from an imported candlestick.
For more information contact:
Dr Archie Murchie
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute
Newforge Lane,
Belfast, BT9 5PX,
