Foods Standards Agency
Taking the fear out of food scares. How the Food Standards Agency is becoming more consumer friendly by revamping its Web site
BSE, salmonella, peanut butter toxins, GM foods... the list of food scares and animal-related diseases is endless. New stories break almost daily. Given that they could affect any one of us at any moment, where would you go to get accurate, up-to-date information on what they involve, who they can affect and what to look out for? And how do we separate the real dangers from the hype?
Enter the Food Standards Agency. Formed in April 2000, this independent government agency aims to advise, inform and protect consumer interests in relation to food safety and standards. It hopes to improve consumer confidence and avoid scares becoming a worry to the general public by establishing itself as the most authoritative and reliable source of information. The Agency’s mission is to dispel the myths and give consumers what they want: the hard, fast facts.
The Food Standards Agency uses a number of channels to spread its message, including the World Wide Web. Its site was originally designed to appeal to government officials and the scientific community, being primarily used as a repository for research, but appeared dense and forbidding to consumers. As a result, it decided it should revamp its site to make it more useful for consumers, offering up-to-date information and advice with the ultimate aim of being the first port of call for consumers wanting answers to queries.
Neil Martinson, communications director at the Food Standards Agency, led the six-figure project to make the site more consumer friendly.
Rob Banathy, government sector manager at Parity, headed up the project team.
Parity’s consultants worked with the Food Standards Agency's editorial team to refine the basic structure and then drew on their technical skills to ensure the site could cope with the anticipated five-fold increase in traffic. Once the basics were complete, their next challenge was making it interactive.
The Food Standards Agency site needed an infrastructure that allowed a large amount of information to be stored and accessed by many users. The site is constantly being updated and needs to be clear, concise and informative. Parity advised using state of the art content management technology.
Banathy continues,
Of course, the project wasn't without its challenges. The major issue for the Agency was to create compelling editorial content and fundamentally change the way the information was published. Whereas previously the content had been sent to journalists, scientists and local authority officials, it would now be going directly to consumers as well.
Parity’s challenge was to provide the infrastructure and technology to facilitate this change, and to work with the Agency to build the site at the same time as the creative and editorial concepts were taking shape.
Banathy says,
As a result of the project, the Agency has improved its profile amongst consumers and met its goal of being more accessible to the public. It is also a good reflection on the government, which is endeavouring to become more consumer friendly by making information more readily available.
