It will also fund an advertising campaign to attempt to improve standards of home hygiene. There are an estimated 4.5m bouts of food poisoning in the UK each year - and 60 people die. Each case is thought to cost up to 80 to the economy and health service when treatment and time off work is taken into consideration. This adds up to an annual bill of 350m for the country. The new initiatives will include schemes to increase the monitoring of businesses such as butchers and restaurants.
Food poisoning is common, it's a real illness that can kill people and it is preventable.
Current levels of illness are unacceptable and we will work with the food industry to improve standards and with local authorities to ensure they are effectively enforced. Two of the most common forms of food poisoning involve Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria - up to 750,000 people a year consult their GPs with these illnesses. The Food Standards Agency was only formed in April, and has 87m of public money a year to spend.