FSA heads are named

The Government has named the people who will lead the new Food Standards Agency (FSA), due to start work this spring.

Sir John Krebs, a research professor in zoology at Oxford University and former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, has been appointed chairman.

His deputy will be Suzi Leather, currently chair of the Exeter and District Community NHS Trust. She has 20 years' experience representing consumers on various bodies, including several food committees.

Chief executive will be Geoffrey Podger, head of the Joint Food Safety and Standards Group of the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Krebs said: "We already have high standards of food safety, but I want the agency to help strengthen the system even more, so that everyone can have confidence that public health is being properly protected." His top priority before the FSA's launch was to meet consumers' representatives and "all other stakeholders, particularly food manufacturers and retailers".

The remit of the FSA is to take an overview of food safety and standards "from farm to fork". But the British Hospitality Association (BHA) has attacked the European Commission's proposal, announced last week, to introduce an additional body, overseeing the same issues throughout Europe.

"A European-wide food agency is one more layer of bureaucracy," said Bob Cotton, BHA chief executive. "It will almost certainly lead to caterers having to meet yet more Draconian regulations, with all the cost and time that this entails."

The European Food Authority is the main proposal in an EC White Paper on food safety. Consultations are due to end in April and the authority could be in place by 2002.

by David Shrimpton