It is just plain daft to allow anybody to set up a food outlet without the checks and training that a licensing system would ensure

Sheila McKechnie, Consumers' Association

Butchers who had completed the training which accompanies licensing, and implemented food safety management systems, scored a significant improvement in hygiene scores.

Sheila McKechnie, director of the Consumers' Association, wants every firm along the food chain, including manufacturers, and caterers as well as outlets, to require a licence.

She said: "There is quite simply an unacceptable level of food-related illness in the UK.

Significant loss

"It is very nasty and sometimes life-threatening for consumers but it also adds significant loss to business through absence and avoidable costs to the NHS."

She added: "It is just plain daft to allow anybody to set up a food outlet without the checks and training that a licensing system would ensure."

It is not necessarily the best solution - it is costly in terms of both finance and inspection time

Spokesman, Food Standards Agency

She said that Food Standards Agency targets on food poisoning reduction - to cut cases by a fifth - would not be met unless licensing was brought in quickly.

Graham Jukes, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, said that the body had been calling for this change for 30 years.

"However, for it to be truly effective, the initiative will need to be adequately resourced," he said.

Increasing cases

In 2000 there were more than 96,000 reported cases of food poisoning in the UK - although the vast majority of cases are thought to go unreported.

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said: "The Consumers' Association is right to voice concern that more needs to be done to reduce food poisoning and to ask whether this needs further licensing.

"The agency is to launch a major food hygiene campaign directed at the catering industry, which has 370,000 premises, next month."

He said that the FSA would be prepared to look again at the issue of licensing.

He added: "The key issue however of any extension of licensing is whether it is the best way of protecting the public.

"It is not necessarily the best solution - it is costly in terms of both finance and inspection time."