What monitoring Food Standards Scotland carries out to make sure that food sold is free from contaminants and other harmful substances.

FSS collects and monitors Local Authority sampling data and commissions its own national food sampling programmes, which provide assurance on the safety and standards of food sold in Scotland. These include targeted sampling programmes informed by FSS horizon scanning activities, Horizon Scanning | Food Standards Scotland and commodity specific surveys to generate data on the prevalence and levels of contaminants in different foods for the safety assessments that are used to underpin the FSS Risk analysis | Food Standards Scotland. The sampling programmes data is published in FSS’ Our Food Our Food 2023: An annual review of food standards across the UK | Food Standards Scotland; the annual report on food standards in the UK, which is produced jointly with the Food Standards Agency, and DEFRA’s biennial UK Food Security Report 2024 published
- GOV.UK. Further information on FSS’s Food Surveillance System can be found on the FSS website: Food surveillance system | Food Standards Scotland.