14/10/2013 Inside Out East Midlands

Tonight we are at Leicester College for an Inside Out food special. With

food fraud on the increase, how safe are we? How confident can we be in

our food? How can we be certain that there won't be another horsemeat

scandal? How can we be sure that our food does what it says on the tin?

The dangers of eating out when you don't know what's in your dinner.

Some people just don't understand algae. They don't understand how

severe they are and what I will say, they will kill me.

And the top chef confronting critics. They are two faced and they

tell you that everything is fine and then they leave and you know who

they are through the comments they have made on Tr Advisor, that's not

true. This is Inside Out East Midlands.

Earlier this year when horsemeat was found obin a variety of products on

our supermarket shelves, many of us were left questioning how confident

we can be that the food we eat really is what we think it is. Well,

we asked food writer and critic Jay Raina to find out who is policing

our food and what he under covered could leave all of us more likely to

become the victims of food fraud. Spaghetti bolognaise is one of the

nation's favourite dishes and what could be better than lovely beef

simmered in some olive oil served over pasta made with free`range

eggs? What if the beef is some old beef. What if the free`range eggs

were captured in a kaying and what if the Virgin olive oil is less

innocent than it says. How confident can we be in our food? How can we be

certain there won't be another horsemeat scandal? How can we be

sure our food does what it says on the tin? What we have seen are

failings in the system with more fraud and less testing of our food

and a report just published by the National Audit Office has underlined

the problems. It says the Government failed to spot the possibility of

horse being passed off as beef this year. There is confusion over the

role of the Food Standards Agency which is in charge of food

regulation and it says that detection of fraud is falling short

of what we as consumers should expect. It is our local Trading

Standards who are the food police on the ground doing the checks and cuts

to their budgets are putting the whole system of detecting food fraud

at risk. I am going to take these three and do checks on these. So...

To understand the challenges Trading Standards face, I'm spending the day

with food enforcement officer, Isha Singh. We are visiting an award

winning yoghurt factory. This is the sheet they have got out. They have

got the wrong sheet out. This is the wrong sheet. The consumer needs to

know what they are getting and what Trading Standards are looking is at

a discrepancy between weights, it says it is 200 grams and 220 grams.

It looks like it is an oversight, but they have to get it right so the

consumer knows what they are getting. Isha's team had two

prosecutions recently. They found that consumers were being ripped

off. The problem is across England there are fewer officers like them

on the hunt f dodgy food. Against this, reports of fraud are rising.

The first six months of this year, 812 ibs dents of `` incidents of

food fraud has been reported to the foods standards agency. Trading

Standards are also reporting an increase and yet their budgets

nationally are reckoned to be down a third and the number of samples they

are sending for testing are down by a quarter. There is a crisis in the

regulatory services and in Trading Standards. We have lost a third of

our inspectorate talking to colleagues recently, they are

expecting to slash by a further 50% in some cases. We are start to see

the picture in some cases throughout the UK, we will have no Trading

Standards service intry years time. `` three years time.

With local authorities reporting cases of fraud up by two`thirds last

year, and limited resources, Trading Standards have to try and predict

problems. A the dairy, they are taking a a sample of milk away for

routine testing. One sample is what I'm going to send off for testing.

One sample will be retained by the business. And the other... Paul has

meant `` poor weather has meant milk yields are down. Recessions make

fraud more attractive so officers on the ground are very busy and so is

the foods standards agency. It is in charge of our food safety. Their

fraud branch has never been busier. The FSA has been criticised as being

not fit for purpose. It was accused of acting too slowly during the

horsemeat scandal. Is the current system tough enough? In the prior

year, there were over 90,000 samples collected and over 20,000 tests,

8,000 were on meat products. There have been several areas we have been

targeting or a number of years, it wasn't in the public con shsness. I

don't think the incident was a wake`up call. This is an area in

terms of food authenticity that we have been working with local

authorities on for years. This raised the public awareness about

authenticity and thinking about what's in your food.

A former head of authenticity #208d us `` told us we are less equipped

to uncover fraud. He believes budget cuts are undermining the system. The

FSA rely on local authority results and local authorities now are under

financial pressure and therefore, the amount of sampling that they are

doing has been reduced. So I think the whole system is severely

weakened. It is clearly challenging in the current financial environment

for local authorities to do the work they need to do. But the FSA has

invested more in this area in the last year to boost their resources

and their efforts and it is clear that the system is detecting

problems, but it is going to be challenging in the future, but the

threats will keep evolving and the service that is there to protect

consumers will continue to evolve as things change.

Two weeks after our visit to the dairy, and the samples of milk have

been tested. Everything was OK. The sample of milk had not been watered

down, but I discovered a another problem in the system. The number of

public testing laboratories has shrunk. It is another sign that less

testing is taking a place, but food fraud has never been more attractive

to criminals. A Food Standards Agency report lists the products it

thinks could be or has been the subject of fraud and it is a list.

Wine, fruit juice, olive oil. But should all testing be paid for by

the public purse? What about the supermarkets? Tesco were one of

those found to be selling products containing horsemeat. I have come to

their lab to find out what they are doing now. You have got thousands of

products in Tesco. How do you deidentity what to test `` what to

test? We take a balanced view of where the biggest risk might be that

something could go wrong. We could be telling consumers that there was

chicken in the product and we need to be sure it was chicken and not

turkey. We have to be certain it is not chicken and that's when we DNA

test and we dot tests frequently. Since horsemeat were found in the

products they were selling, Tesco say they carry out eight times more

DNA testing. Crystal ball moment, do you think something like the

horsemeat scandal could happen again? Our objective in giving our

customers the best confidence we can in the products we produce is to

ensure that that kind of activity, if it were there, we would catch it

and because our supply chains are shorter and we understand them

better and we have got better controls and the testing is stronger

than it was before that that fraud should not happen again. 0

should not happen again. While Tesco are confident they have

learned lessons, the rest of the food surveillance system is under

pressure. The big question is, can it cope? The horsemeat scandal could

happen again. There is always somebody, particularly in times of

austerity prepared to cut corners and when we are faced an

inspectorate that is creeking and has gaps and is fragmented, that is

a perfect opportunity for someone to exploit the conditions and take

money, hard he wered money from consumers pockets.

Whilst the majority of our food is safe, food fraud is an established

crime and it is all about money and where there is money to be made,

criminals will be attracted to food fraud, but the thing is food is a

global industry now, it is complex and hard to police. Making sure it

is what it says it is, is very, very tough indeed.

Closer to home, what about the food we don't prepare for ourselves? From

restaurants and takeawas `` takeaways. There is concern about

fat and salt. One customer almost died. Sarah Sturdy investigates.

Takeaways and restaurants they are in a fast moving, growing food

industry, but with just a menu as our guide and no detailed labelling,

is our order good enough to eat? I ended up in A in anaphylactic

shock. Now according to one recent survey, we eat, spend more than ?100

a month on eating out. Half of that on takeaways, but do we really know

what's in our order? Hi there. I would like to order a

takeaway, please? Gabrielle White House is a Trading Standards Officer

in Derby and she is checking for nut traces in food which should be

nut`free. We have had an increase in the number of complaints that we

have received as a result of people ordering food, declaring their

allergy issues and eating food and becoming very ill so some serious

consequences. Three`quarters of severe or fatal

allergic reactions can be traced back to takeaways and restaurants. I

am going to go to four premises tonight. Ten overall in the project.

We are targeting mainly Asian`type restaurants, that's Indian, Chinese

because that's where we have identified the problem.

Looking at this menu, there is nothing here to tell me whether

things are cooked with nut oil or whether they have got nut

ingredients. There is a symbol for whether it is vegetarian and one for

how hot it is. In Nottingham Tessa Coates feels she

is lucky to be alive. She complained to Trading Standards after a severe

reaction. She thought she would be safe, but she wasn't. The meal came

out. After two or three mouthfuls, I knew something was wrong. After half

an hour, I was being sick and that's when I started to be unable to

breathe properly. Tessa checked before her visit and told the

waitress would would happen if her order contained nut tratesds, but

she had to be `` traces, but she had to be rushed to hospital and treated

with adrenalin. The side`effects of it are quite nasty for a few hours.

When the `` one of the main things is you can't stop shaking. Your

muscles are voluntary and I remember my teeth just clattering. I cou hear

them. Tessa knows more than most about checking food outlets. She is

a Trading Standards Officer in Nottinghamshire. Some people just

don't understand allergies. They don't understand how they veer they

are and I have gone out of my way and what I will say, they will kill

me. I don't say I am allergic, I say I have got a severe allergy to it

and this may kill me. The fact that whoever had taken my order or the

chef at the other end just didn't take any heed of that.

It is quite frightening really. Back in Derby, the officers pick up

their first order to test. I will just give you the paperwork for

this. It will get sent off to the public analyst and we will come back

to you and let you know what the results are. With this meal in

particular, what we are looking for is any nut contamination and there

is my contact details if you have got any question about what is

happening, please give me a call. Is it OK for somebody with a nut

allergy to eat? Let me check for you. The person that served me that

explained that the dish that I had selected did contain nuts which is

alarming because on the menu, there was no nut.

On to the next place Gabrielle places another order. The Chinese

takeaway rings back. She has gone and spoken to the chef and got more

information and she told me that product isn't suitable to for `` for

somebody with a nut allergy. Luckily for most of us, eating out

won't result in a hospital visit, or will it? Kelly Evans led a can

successful campaign to encourage restaurants to reduce salt and fat.

What we found in many of the dishes we tested, it was alarming. Very

high levels of saturated fat, salt and calories in many of the dishes

including the nation's favourite, chicken tikka masala. We need to

look further at what what's in the food we are buying and takeaways are

on the increase. People love a good takeaway, we need to have Dirks that

will be `` dishes that will be better for us and better for our

health. A restaurant and takeaway in

Grantham has reduced the amount of fat and salt it uses. Jack Wright

advised the owner how to make his meals healthier. We don't use a dry

mix. We put the yoghurt in to reduce the colour. A lot better. A lot

healthier. Less fat. There is no oil. It is healthy. It does not cost

me anymore money. On the left, the amount of salt and

fat used in a meal before the changes and on the right, look how

little is used now. When teumts are tough `` times are toughks people

start to cut corners. With the city's trade Trading

Standards department cut, they are under more pressure. In a burgeoning

industry with takeaways and restaurants, how do you keep on top

of monitoring that? I would be lying if I said it wasn't a struggle. It

is hard. We work hard. We have to be sensible with the resources we have

got. In derby City we try our best to target the correct areas, the

areas that are going to have the most impact. Yes, 0

areas that are going to have the most impact. Yes, we can't do

everything we used to do. We use different techniques. We use

intelligence`led work to have the most impact.

From December next year, changes are on the way to help protect customers

as part of a shake`up in labelling laws, a restaurant or take keep away

must make it clear what allergens are in each meal or they will be

prosecuted. As for the meal which could have killed Tessa, Trading

Standards investigated. It said the business had robust procedures and

the incident was a temporary breakdown in communication. There

was no prosecution. For legal reasons, we can't identify the

restaurant. I just hope they have learned a

lesson. I told them I could have died and I nearly did. You can hear

more about food safety and worries about food fraud on the Mark Forest

Show. With so much worry about the origin

and safety of our food, it is time to meet a flamboyant Nottingham chef

who is keen to tantalise our taste buds with fresh, local ingredients.

His restaurant has just secured another year in the top plight of

the flight of the Michelin Guide. Rob has been to sample his food.

The only two Michelin chef in the East Midlands may look like he was

born to cook, but he covered gastronomy by chance. When I went to

college, there was lots of display areas where they were showing off

the courses and I noticed one with lots of girls as an advertisement.

Born in Derby, the son of a Punjabi shopkeeper, he was never afraid of

hard work. I was brought up as a fighter and someone that had to

drive and push. I had a great work ethic. From my father's discipline

of making me work from a very young age.

He worked for top chefs and opened his own restaurant in Nottingham.

The setting was unconventional. Because we were on a wild location,

we are on the banks of t River Trent in a rural part of Nottingham. It is

next to an industrial estate. We have a cigarette factory, a flyover,

and electricity pylons. That's all part of the journey. One is extreme

and harsh and almost industrial and then you have something that's

delicate and soft and natural and the two really play a good contrast

with our food and philosophy. And that food, well it is exotic,

but not well travelled. Very local and it is unusual in that hesen

bumen tile `` Heston Blumenthal snail porridge way. The first course

was a horseradish thing. The chicken liver muesli was superb.

The nettle soup was delicious. I have no idea what was in the

strawberries. The mind boggles. I really enjoyed it.

Next out, grouse, but there is a twist. Went we open it up, it is a

still life of what surrounds the grouse. You have got juniper and

pine and as we put this down, you open it up and you see the still

life and the eat the sausage roll and the kitchen is getting ready the

second part which is the breast and again, the breast is served with

spices and herbs and it is served with a nice sauce.

A ten course tasting menu can set you back ?100. But this is an event.

A piece of entertainment. It is just fantastic. You have still got

curried lollipops coming your way. I don't like curry!

LAUGHTER That lolly and all the other weird

dishes were created here in the development kitchen. It is a mission

to extract one thing... I think to me, it has come down to one word, it

is flavour. Flavour is the most important part of my work today.

Here, he is fermenting locally milled grain. And the gastro vac is

making white chocolate aero. This technique blew me away. It is very,

very clever. What is he like to work for? He is a

legend. LAUGHTER

I'm on camera! There is plenty of dry ice and magic

here, but it is the core ingredients, largely local and

seasonal that make the difference. Some are foraged just a few hundred

yards from the restaurant to make NG 72 SA. Some horseradish, you are

eating the postcode. So you are no longer thinking of it as a negative.

There is no city centre restaurant who can do this. If they want plaque

berries, they can't go out and pick them. For us, we have full control

of the finished flavour. Blackberries make rich vin ga are

and the green elderberries, perfect with red meat. These are nice. These

are Cyprus. A specialised fruit and veg shop has got to know the style

and is now his main supplier of fresh produce. What we do here, we

need information into him as to what is available now. What will be

available in the coming weeks. Wild garlic which was a foraged product

but is used by chefs more and more in their chichen. Purple sprouting

broccoli which is diverse, a lovely flavour. Forced rhubarb, this is

Nottingham rhubarb, but we have stuff from Yorkshire as well.

Just a few miles away, Is sat helped launch a new cheese from this family

run creamery. We came up with a soft blue cheese. It is just another sort

of feather in the cap of what Cropwell Bishop can offer now.

Sat's a perfectionist and can loose his temper. He says his days of

throwing things and shouting are behind him, but Trip Advisor critics

be ware. They tell you everything is fine and they leave and you know who

they are through the comments they have made on Trip Advisor, that's

not true. Someone called his food disgusting.

They were invited to the restaurant for a chat. The question I asked was

I understand you use the word disgusting. It is a strong word. The

blows you are wearing, we could say to some people that's disgusting and

I don't think it went down too well because she was upset.

Sat works out his frustration on the badminton court, taking a on mates

in the city who run conventional Indian restaurants. He is a winner.

Whatever he does, he puts his heart and soul in it. Yes, he is very

competitive. He always wants to win. Aggression. Proper aggressive.

Power. He plays brilliant. There is no ifs, no buts, really.

That competitive vein runs deep on TV. A few years ago, Won the Great

British Menu and treats the omelette challenge on Saturday Kitchen like

his life depended on it. We're done, yes.

He is not seeking to become the next Jamie Oliver. I don't want a TV

career. I don't want to be the next household name. I do like my

privacy. I like the idea that I can shop in Sainsbury's and buy a roast

chicken that's already been roasted and walk`out of there because I am

going to eat it it in the next half an hour, not because someone is

going, " It is that guy off TV, he is not roasting his chicken." It is

my day off. Leave me alone. A roast chicken already cooked in the

supermarket is still a luxury! What next? Sat aims to open an

affordable new restaurant in Nottingham City Centre called

Plates. After that... It is the Del Trotter

dream. It could be London, New York, Singapore, Leamington.

If you weren't hungry before, you probably are now. Thanks to

Leicester College and if you missed any of tonight's programme, you can

stream or download it from the BBCi player.

How the weather is changing our landscape. A rise in landslides is

threatening lives and wrecking roads, but a team of Nottinghamshire

scientists are keen to keep us out of danger. Plus, the thrills and

spills of junior drag racing.