BERLIN, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- German Minister of Food and Agriculture Julia Kloeckner called on Germany's federal states to provide "sufficient staff" to all authorities involved with food controls on Wednesday.
"It is unacceptable that states should not remedy the apparent shortage of human resources. When it comes to people's health, no savings must be made," Kloeckner said.
The aim is to "identify which companies posed a higher risk and to monitor them more intensively and more frequently," the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture said.
About every third mandatory inspection in German restaurants and food companies was cancelled because German food authorities were "blatantly short of staff," said the consumer group Foodwatch, a European advocacy group focusing on protecting consumer rights.
According to Foodwatch, only around ten percent of food authorities in Germany could meet their inspection targets. Last year, German authorities failed to carry out 250,000 mandatory food controls.
"The inspectors who do a hard job are left in the lurch by the politicians," said Martin Ruecker, managing director of Foodwatch Germany.
The consumer organization had contacted and surveyed all Germany's 400 food authorities, of which 19 refused to provide information.
Foodwatch said just hiring more staff was not enough and it demanded that each federal state in Germany should have a single, independent state agency directly responsible for food controls.
