The Food Safety Team regularly take samples of food for analysis to monitor the safety of foods being sold in the District.

Each month, along with the other Environmental Health departments in Lincolnshire, samples of a certain type of food are taken. These are analysed microbiologically by the Path Links Laboratory Service based at Lincoln County Hospital. (The Path Links Laboratory is part of the Health protection Agency network). Sampling the same produce across the whole of the country allows for useful comparisons and trends to be established.

Food sampling has proved to be an extremely effective method of promoting food safety. It has highlighted several problems which if they had not been identified and resolved, could very easily have resulted in serious food poisoning outbreaks.