UK Public Sector Contracts & Tenders

As part of the FSA’s commitment to ensure food is safe and is what it says it is, the FSA undertakes food safety risk assessments which underpin these decisions in line with the internationally recognised ‘Codex Working Principles for Risk Analysis for Food Safety’. A key component of food safety risk assessment is exposure assessment, which estimates the amount of a hazard consumed through the diet. Exposure assessment combines food consumption data with information on the concentrations of substances such as contaminants, food additives or pesticide residues in food to estimate the levels consumers may be exposed to. To conduct UK dietary exposure assessments, the FSA uses consumption data in combination with occurrence data for hazards and other substances in food. UK consumption data is primarily obtained from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). The National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) is a co-funded programme between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) and FSA. NDNS is a rolling programme which assesses the diet, nutrient intake and nutritional status of the general population of the UK. Tenders are invited to carry out the recoding of NDNS consumption data to FoodEx2, a standardised system for classifying and describing food.

In order to protect consumers, we need to understand their attitudes, knowledge and behaviour in relation to food. The Agency’s main source of methodologically robust and representative evidence regarding consumers’ attitudes, knowledge and behaviour in relation to food is our annual Official statistic Food and You 2 survey. This survey has an important role in measuring the FSA’s progress towards its strategic objectives, providing evidence to support FSA policy decision-making, communication campaigns and other activities as well as identifying topics for further research or action. The survey currently samples 4,000 households (including 1,000 households in both Northern Ireland and Wales). Since Wave 8, we have also worked with our counterparts in Food Standards Scotland, to achieve an additional 1,000 households in Scotland on an annual basis. This data is reported and published separately by Food Standards Scotland. The FSA is seeking an experienced research agency to continue delivering the FSA’s official statistic Food and You 2 annual survey, for waves 13-16 (one survey wave per year). This specification sets out key deliverables in 5 stages as follows: 1. Questionnaire development: Working with the FSA to develop the questionnaire and survey materials for Waves 13-16 2. Conducting fieldwork for Waves 13-16 including the distribution of invite letters and incentives. 3. Data processing: Processing and cleaning of the survey data 4. Production of data sets: The production of all data files and supporting documentation 5. Production of final outputs such as aggregate data tables and reports required for the project. In recent years, the FSA has produced data tables and findings reports in house. We welcome bids where data tables and reports are conducted by suppliers. More information is provided under this section.

FSA are looking to appoint a supplier to deliver a research project to undertake whole genome sequencing enabled source attribution analysis of infectious intestinal disease (IID), using data generated through The Third Study of Infectious Intestinal Disease (IID3) and relevant datasets. The contract will run for a minimum of 24 month, with an optional 6-month extension period if required.

A key component of the FSA work is to reduce the burden of foodborne disease in the UK. Campylobacter is the leading bacterial cause of foodborne disease in the UK, with chicken meat being the most common food source of exposure to this pathogen. Campylobacter is widespread in chicken farms, with 60% of UK broilers flocks carrying the pathogen at the point they are slaughtered. Interventions further down the food chain do not reliably eliminate this pathogen. Therefore, reducing Campylobacter colonisation on broiler flocks and contamination on chicken meat is a priority area for the FSA as this will contribute towards reducing human exposure and subsequent reported cases of foodborne disease. A clear evidence gap remains on whether probiotics can consistently affect Campylobacter levels in broilers, across commercial UK farms under routine production conditions, and what magnitude of log reduction is realistically achievable. To address this evidence gap, the FSA are seeking research proposals for an innovative field-trial based study carried out in real-life intensive broiler houses to assess the effectiveness of a range of probiotics on reducing or delaying Campylobacter colonisation in the gut of broiler flocks. The research should be designed to answer the following questions: • “To what extent can commercially available probiotic formulations reduce or delay Campylobacter colonisation in broiler flocks under commercial intensive housed farming conditions, and does this translate into reduced Campylobacter contamination of carcasses at processing?” • “What is the effect of these formulations on welfare and production performance indicators such as mortality, growth rate, feed conversion efficiency and flock health outcomes?” We envisage that the proposed study design will consist of several discrete phases. Given the complexity of controlling Campylobacter in broiler flocks, we would like the inclusion of break clauses at the end of key deliverables to allow sufficient time for the FSA, together with the researcher team, to review the phase findings and determine whether there is sufficient evidence and justification to proceed to the next stage of the project. If not, then the FSA reserves the right to terminate the project.