Sewage sludge: strengthening the rules

12 May, 2026

CFA has submitted a response to the Government’s consultation on sewage sludge regulations, ahead of the March 2026 deadline. Dr Rachel Hackett led CFA’s engagement on the consultation, which proposed three options: consolidating regulations under Environmental Permitting Regulations; retaining the current structure but reviewing its content; or continuing with guidance and good practice only. CFA’s position is clear. The industry has followed the ADAS Safe Sludge Matrix – developed in the late 1990s with CFA and retailers – for over 25 years, preventing human sewage sludge from being applied to RTE crops. The Matrix has been included in every edition […]

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CFA-led Listeria guidance supported by FSA and FSS tops 1,500 downloads

12 May, 2026

CFA’s guidance Assuring Safety of Ready-to-Eat Food (RTE) in Relation to Listeria monocytogenes and Regulation 2073/2005 has been downloaded more than 1,500 times since its launch in January 2026 – reflecting the demand across industry, enforcement and the wider food sector for authoritative, practical guidance ahead of the change to the law on 1 July 2026 in the EU and other jurisdictions applying EU law, e.g. Northern Ireland. This guidance is a major update of the 2010 CFA/BRC/FSA shelf life guidance and was developed by the CFA-led Industry Listeria Group in direct response to questions arising from the amendment to […]

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Supporting the circular economy: ENABLER project

9 May, 2026

CFA has provided a letter of support for ENABLER, a new research consortium led by the universities of Cambridge, Loughborough and Newcastle, applying for funding under the EPSRC Network Plus Reimagining Circularity programme. ENABLER’s mission is to create a circular data ecosystem that enables trackable, comparable and actionable insights for circular practices – addressing the fragmented and inconsistent data landscape that currently limits progress toward a circular economy. The project brings together academia, industry and policy communities to co-create robust data, metrics and frameworks, with artificial intelligence at its core. CFA’s support reflects the alignment between ENABLER’s objectives and CFA […]

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