Carmarthenshire has been named as one of the UK’s best performing councils in terms of food standards interventions.

Which? – the national consumer advice and ratings organisation - identified Carmarthenshire County Council as one of the best local authorities for ensuring food standards and safety as well as praising the council as one of those which had carried out the most test samples.

Food standard interventions are designed to monitor, support and increase food law compliance within food establishments, and include activities such as surveillance, verification, audit, inspection, intelligence gathering, advice, education, sampling and analysis.

The council achieved 99.63% of standards according to FSA statistics for the latest year available.

In terms of the samples it has taken, in the last year alone the council conducted 341 standards samplings, according to the FSA data.

Sampling is a way to verify, through analysis, compliance with food law.

A spokesman for Which? said: “We want consumers to be able to be confident in the food they eat and welcome Carmarthenshire County Council's efforts on food enforcement.”

Which? is campaigning for better national co-ordination of food enforcement across the UK in collaboration with local authorities so consumers can be confident in the food they eat.

Councillor Jim Jones, executive board member for public protection, said: “We take food standards very seriously, an attitude which is quite clearly reflected in this recent FSA data.

“I’m very pleased that we are amongst the best performing councils across the whole of the UK, and thank every member of the team for all their hard work.”