The £1m fine imposed at Birmingham Crown Court on Cadbury on 16 July, 2007, while significant, is unlikely to be the largest penalty we will see in a food safety case. As with other safety-related cases in non-food sectors, it will focus attention once again on the debate around how to sanction breaches of safety legislation.
While this case inevitably attracted publicity throughout the two separate investigations that took place, the underlying legal principles are less likely to receive much coverage. Certainly there was a large fine – £500,000 – for placing unsafe food on the market, which was the main allegation. But there was another £500,000 for failing to report the problem to the authorities, and for the faults at the manufacturing plant, and this highlighted – perhaps for the first time so publicly – the new regulations that beefed up food hygiene and safety requirements across the European Commission (EU) over the past couple of years.
