14/10/2013 Inside Out North East and Cumbria

The next half an hour is a tasty treat ` here's an appetiser. I dish

the dirt on the food we buy out on the street. You put that phone to

your face, you may cough on it, you may sneeze on it. And then someone's

touching that and then going on to pick up and prepare food. Jay Rayner

asks the teams policing what we eat have they bitten off more than they

can chew? How can we be certain there won't be another horse meat

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

And the remarkable story of the 19th century Northumberland engineer who

revolutionised the gastronomic world. Without Bryan Donkin's

original canning, we wouldn't be here today. Stories from the heart

of the North East Cumbria. This is Inside Out.

When you're out and about the waft of some deliciously hot food is

pretty tempting, but do you really know what you're getting? During a

street food festival in Newcastle this year 500 people became ill,

including some with salmonella poisoning. So how safe is open`air

catering? I've set up stall to find out. There's the gourmet. There's

the exotic. Then there's Jacko's Snackos. It's my food stall. Where

the twist is, you don't really know what's being served up. I'm

delivering some culinary surprises about street food. We'll show you

the good, the bad and the downright ugly. I was being sick, diarrhoea,

Billy bad stomach cramps. This year street food's come under the

microscope. The cutting`edge of Newcastle's street food scene. It is

trendy and big business. Our foot culture is changing. People are

interested in experiencing new things, trying out what is local to

them that has maybe been lost in the past. We want to eat the stuff that

grows around here. Hygiene here is stringent, but elsewhere, careful

planning does not always mean that the deceit. There has been grumbling

over street food decently, sadly in the stomachs of hundreds of

unsuspecting punters. The festival was in aid of my brother`in`law, who

died of a brain tumour. We wanted to raise money for charity and we hit

on the idea of doing street food and having street food vendor is from

all over the world. But the event threw up a huge mess. Being sick,

diarrhoea, stomach cramps. It really knocked me for six. For a few weeks.

We started getting messages and I sent an e`mail to the council

saying, there might be a problem with the event. Coconut chutney

contain different strains of Salmonella. More than 400 people had

become ill. We found the source was curry leaves which I've become

contaminated in Pakistan and those curry leaves had been used raw and

not cooked as part of the chutney making process. It was horrific.

People just assumed it was something to do with hygiene, but it wasn't.

We had hand wash basins, and sanitisers. Many of those who became

ill are involved in a court case to get compensation. But no one was

prosecuted. Why did you not prosecute with so many people

falling ill? The evidence was the organisers and the cooks had

followed all the recommended practices and advice and there was

no major failing. So given that and given the legislation we work with

and our own enforcement policy, it was absolutely right not to take

action in this case. Health guidelines do not see curry leaves

must be cooked. Shock, disappointment. It was a restaurant

but was found to be responsible for that. So it was unclear that it was

thought to be street food. What has lingered far longer than the tummy

troubles is doubt over street food. I am not saying every single food

event has these consequences, but when something like that impact your

life, it does put you off. At this festival, there really strict. I

cannot turn this on sell anything to the public without the proper

training and certificates, but what about standards that other

festivals? I have been cooking up a plan and level me some help. This is

Jim Francis. He is an eagle eyed microbiologist. There is always the

potential for people to get ill if the bridge is not prepared

properly. I can record examples of what I see, both good and bad. He is

at two events in Newcastle, a weekly market and are an annual event, the

Mela. I have seen people wiping their noses and then going on to

handle food. We have seen people handling food with their bare hands

and then salads and meats. But at the market, something more

concerning. Remember the need to cook drawing duties properly?

Today, Jim spotted a schoolboy error. They put a lot of time and

effort into cooking the food and then they sprinkled trite Chile on

the top. Obviously that poses a risk, because it has not been

through the cooking process, so it's good introduce bacteria into the

food you have finished cooking. Jim is going to take samples back

protesting. We are patrolling this market because as far as I can see,

there is no one else to do it. We might not always make it to the

festival where the street food is being sold, but we always know about

the business. Each vendor should be registered with their whole local

authority, but when they are out on the road, counsels the budget cuts

mean it is impossible to police everyone. In Newcastle, they have

reduced the number of inspectors, but when unable to tell us by how

many. At the end of the day, it is still the person selling the food

who is responsible for making it safe. So it is only as safe as the

person serving. At the Mela, bad hygiene is getting Jim worked up.

Hand washing. I haven't seen anyone washing their hands yet. When the

food handlers are preparing and working with food, the only thing

they should be touching is that implements and the food itself. So

not cigarettes and not your mobile phone. You put that phone to your

face, it touches your lips, your mouth, you make off on its sleeves

on it. Somebody's touching that the men picking up and preparing food.

A little weight of the nose, stroke of the beard. Let's hope your next

customer wants notice. And then there is eating while cooking for

customers. General is not amused. Whether you would specifically call

it a breach of regulations is another question, but if you put

them all together, you would have to say there are practices here that do

not comply. We saw people with hygienic gloves on, on their mobile

phones. That is irresponsible trading. It just shouldn't happen.

Hot dogs? Muffins? Can I interest you in something? Even the pigeons

are running away. At Jacko's Snackos it's been a damp squib. But I still

haven't revealed my special ingredient. Jim Francis visited two

different events in Newcastle. He recorded poor food handling at more

than a quarter of the 23 stalls. The results were worse at the busier

one`off event, the Mela. But don't forget, he also took samples back to

the lab. And I can reveal my special ingredient at Jacko's Snackos.

Enterobacteria. Of 13 samples eight contained unsatisfactory levels

according to health guidelines. That's nearly two thirds. So what

does it mean for the punters? Well, Enterobacteria is everywhere. The

good news is it won't make you ill. The bad news? Food inspectors say

the levels we found suggest bad hygiene. Often it is a case of pure

handling practices, maybe containers are dirty or they are not watching

things properly. It might be storage, the fridge might not

recalled enough. It is a high number and it is indicative of your

practices. That is no way to bring confidence from the public. It could

be detrimental to the industry. I have seen very different standards

in food hygiene. So I want to know how safe is it? How can we check and

say he's OK and she's not? Food hygiene is very simple, you keep hot

stuff hot and cold stuff cold. And you keep things clean. The good

thing with food vendors is you can see it all happening. So if it looks

like they're unclean, don't eat there. So the question is, is street

food safe? Street food is very safe, you should give it a try. Maybe I

will. After all I'm much better at the eating than the selling. Jacko's

Snackos is packing up and hitting the road.

There is more on this on my blog. We lost confidence in the food we buy

from big name supermarkets when the horse meat scandal broke. So we

asked food writer and critic Jay Rayner to investigate who is

policing what we eat and whether we've still anything to fear. It

seems we do. Spaghetti bolognaise, it's one of

the nation's favourite dishes and unsurprisingly so. What could be

better than some lovely beef simmered in some extra virgin olive

oil, served over pasta made with free range eggs. But hang on a

moment, what if the beef is some old pony that should be racing at the

three ten at Kempton? What if the free range eggs are actually

captured in a cage and what if the extra virgin olive oil is rather

less innocent that it claims? All of these items and many more have been

the subject of food fraud over the past few years. So how confident can

we be in our food? How can we be certain there won't be another horse

meat scandal? How can we be sure that our food does what it says it

does on the tin? What we've 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

earlier this year. There's 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's our local Trading Standards who are the food police on

the ground doing the checks. And drastic cuts to their budgets is

putting the whole system of detecting food fraud at risk. I'm

just going to take these three and do some checks on these. I'm just

going to take these three and do some checks on these. To understand

the challenges Trading Standards face, I'm spending the day with food

enforcement officer Ayse Singh. We're visiting an award winning

yogurt factory in Suffolk. 220 grams. Is the packaging only four

grams on these? I thought it was 12 grams, because this is the sheet

they've got out. The consumer needs to know exactly what they're getting

and what Trading Standards are looking at here is a discrepancy

between weights. It says it's both 200 grams and 220 grams. Looks like

it's just an oversight, but they have to get it right. The consumer

needs to know what they're getting. Ayse's team have had two successful

prosecutions recently. They found out consumers were being ripped off

by companies selling jam and sauce that didn't contain what they

claimed on the label. But the problem is, across England, there

are now fewer officers like them on the hunt for dodgy food. Against

this reports of fraud are rising. In the first six months of this year,

there have been 812 reports of food fraud reported to the Food Standards

Agency. That's an increase of a third on this time last year.

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're sending for testing are down by almost a quarter. I think there

is a crisis in the regulatory services, in Trading Standards.

We've lost a third of our inspectorate. Talking to colleagues

recently, they're expecting to slash by a further 50 per cent in some

cases and I think we now start to see the picture. In some cases

throughout the UK, we'll have no trading standard service in three

years time. Back at the dairy, they're taking a sample of milk away

for routine testing. And one sample is the one I'm going to be sending

away for testing, one sample is going to be retained by the business

for them to sort of store until the results come back. Dairies across

the county are being tested to make sure milk isn't being watered down.

Recessions also make fraud more attractive. So officers on the

ground are very busy. And so is the Food Standards Agency. It's in

overall charge of our food safety. Their Fraud Branch has never been

busier. The FSA have been repeatedly criticised as being not fit for

purpose. It was accused of acting too slowing during the horse meat

scandal. So is the current system tough enough? This incident is one

that has raised the public awareness about authenticity and about what is

in your food. But a former head of Authenticity at the Food Standards

Agency told us we are now less well equipped to uncover fraud. Dr Mark

Woolfe spent nine years in charge and he believes budget cuts ARE

undermining the system. The FSA rely basically on Local Authority results

and obviously local authorities now are under financial pressure are

under pressure and therefore the amount of sampling that their doing

has been quite severely reduced, so I think the whole system is really

quite severely weakened. It's clearly challenge in the current

financial environment for local authorities to do the work they need

to do, but the FSA has invested considerably more in the last year

to boost their resources and their efforts and it is clear that the

system is detecting problems but it's going to be challenging in the

future but the threats will also keep evolving and the service that's

there to protect consumers will also continue to evolve as things

change". Two weeks after our visit to the diary, the samples of milk

have been tested. Everything was OK, the sample of milk had not been

watered down. But I did discover another problem in the system ` the

number of public testing laboratories has shrunk dramatically

over the past decade. Down from twenty to just nine. It's another

sign that less testing of our food is taking place. But food fraud has

never been more attractive to criminals. A Food Standards Agency

report lists all the products that it thinks could be or have been the

subject of fraud and it's quite a list. Honey, wine, fruit juice,

spices, olive oil. But should all testing be paid for by the public

purse? What about the supermarkets, after all we buy most of our food

from them. Tesco were one of those found to be selling products

containing horse meat. I've come to their lab in Wolverhampton to find

out what they are doing now. You've got thousands of products in Tesco,

how do you decide what to test? We take a balanced view of where the

biggest risk might be that something could go wrong, so we could be

telling consumers there's chicken in the product, we need to be sure its

chicken and not turkey. `` it is chicken. We absolutely have to be

certain its chicken so that's when we DNA test and we do those tests

frequently. Since horse meat was found in some of the products they

were selling,Tesco say they now carry out eight times more DNA

testing. Do you think something like the horse meat scandal could happen

again? Our sole objective is 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, we understand them better, we've got better controls and

testing's stronger than it ever was before then that fraud should not

happen again. The food surveillance system is under increasing pressure,

can it cope? The horse meat scandal could happen again. There is always

somebody prepared to cut corners. Most of our food is safe, but food

fraud is an established crime. It is all about money and we're there is

money to be made, criminals will be attracted to food fraud. Food is a

global industry, it is complex and hard to police.

Food safety is nothing new. 200 years ago, a Northumbrian engineer

created something that would gain Royal approval, revolutionise world

trade and help build the British Empire. Even now it touches all our

lives, there can't be a home in the land that doesn't have an example of

his remarkable achievement, yet Bryan Donkin remains an unknown

genius. He brought us the tin can. Today, billions of cans fly off the

production lines and into our homes. It seems mundane, but when it first

appeared, it was revolutionary. It can be traced back to Napoleon who

offered a prize to anyone who could help solve the problem that had been

hampering his ambitions to cost `` conquer Europe. An army marches on

its stomach. A Frenchman won the emperor's prize by developing a

means of heating food and sealing it. But that was in glass. It is too

bad. It is a glass bottle. When the fire is too hot, the bottles break.

When it is not hot enough, the food spoils. It was only when the idea

came into rival British hands that it was turned into something viable.

It needed someone with a bit of metal. Bryan Donkin was born in 19

`` 1798. His father was employed here on this estate. As a child,

Bryan Donkin would be found in the workshops of the blacksmith. He

spent every spare minute making contraptions, including a

thermometer. He became an land agent, but his enquiries in mind ``

his inquisitive mind wanted more and he became an apprentice.

He was most definitely hired. His genius led to a partnership in an

engineering business that would change the world. He was the sort of

engineer that could take an idea and turn it into a commercial reality.

In 1810, up a tent was taken out in England for heat preserving in tin

plate containers. He developed the process further and created a

factory, the world's first factory for canning and it all happened

here. It was great to find out that our school had hidden secret, had in

Jem, the first tin can factory was here. Why hasn't been forgotten? You

look at the building behind us and it does not look like the most

historic building. But once you start digging, you find all the

secrets out. It might have stayed a secret if Donkin hadn't found

customers for the new`fangled canned food. So he got endorsements from

the very top. They even got the Queen to sample their food. It had

to work. It's not easy to start worldwide industry just from

scratch. Like many inventions, it was driven by the military. Donkin

turned Napoleon's dream into reality. Tins became staple fare of

soldiers and sailors in all conflicts. But the humble tin can

was nearly done for by a scandal. Nearly as bad as our recent horse

meat skier. In 1852, meat inspectors opened cans destined for the Royal

Navy. All but 40 were unfit for human consumption. As supplier had

undercut his rivals by using putrid meat at his factory in Romania. I

will spare you the details, but suffice it to say, that the

inspectors had to run fleeing from where they were opening the scans

because the stench was unbearable. `` these cans. We believe this is

the earliest tin can that has survived. It was made by Bryan

Donkin around 1823. It contained veil. Originally, it weighed around

seven and a half pounds. It was taken by Sir William Parry on the

Northwest passage. Without tins pioneering explorers could not have

hoped to conquer the North and South poles. Tin cans were opened after

being 45 years at the Antarctic. Peter Scott said the food was still

good. For the makers of tins, this experiment was gratifying. The

following year, Donkin's tin was opened. But how would 120`year`old

meat compare? It was edible, that they said that because of the

contents had broken down a bit and the meat tasted rather bitter. Bryan

Donkin had a very interesting way of consumer control. He marked every

tins so he was able to track it back to where and when it was produced.

It may not be the most beautiful object in our collection, but it is

probably one of the most important. Brian is my great great great

grandfather. That means I am the sixth generation. We have all been

engineering is of one sort or another since then. `` engineers. He

also developed the first paper making machine and invented the

steel nib. That was the old scratchy tape where you dipped it in an ink

well. I bet you did not know it was his when you were using it? No.

Despite Donkin's brilliance in bringing us the can, he didn't

invent the tin opener. That wouldn't happen for another 45 years. Only

then could tinned food really take off. Organisations like the Co`op

could introduce a whole new way of eating. Refrigeration is not in

people's homes at this time. You could have canned goods so you could

eat fruit at any time of the year. People could get hold of goods that

they had never seen of or heard of before.

For those more used to the finer things in life, the tin wasn't

down`market at all. The customers here run the Empire. They could join

`` when they were abroad in the Empire, the expected food to arrive

from Fortnums in good condition. There was a facility at the top of

the building for this. What sort of things would be in the cans? Soup,

comestibles, fish. You would have the whole meal. You'd be hard

pressed to find a can on the shelves of the Piccadilly store now. So has

it had its day? At this plant in Carlisle, they've moved on from food

and now supply empty cans to the drinks industry. There's 313

employees here producing ?2.2 billion a year. Without Bryan

Donkin's original Canady, we would not be here today. Aluminium is

infinitely recyclable. 75% of the aluminium overproduced is still in

use today. It never loses quality with being recycled. It is

remarkable that a northern country lad would spark a noble revolution

in the way that we eat, trade and explore the very ends of the Earth.

His hands on approach was forged here where they indulged his

childhood fascination for just making things. The next time you

reach into a cupboard and pull out a ten, just think, it is down to one

very canny Northumbrian. `` ten. Next week, we kick back to the '70s

to relive the time a County Durham football club took India by storm.

See you next Monday. Till then, Goodnight.