Radioactivity in food reporting by the Food Standards Agency
Reports from the Food Standards Agency and other agencies on monitoring radioactivity in food and the environment.
Radioactivity in food
Radioactivity has been around since the Earth formed. It exists naturally in the atmosphere, soil, seas and rivers.
We are also exposed to artificial sources of radioactivity, such as in medical applications used in hospitals and nuclear power.
Very small amounts of radioactivity get into our food and drink. Most of the radioactivity found in food results from natural rather than man-made sources.
Radiological monitoring programme
The Food Standards Agency collects data on radioactivity in food through the radiological monitoring programme.
The data includes results from monitoring food and the environment near UK nuclear sites. This is compared against data from other food samples collected at locations away from nuclear sites.
The results from the programme are used to check that radioactive discharges from UK nuclear sites do not expose people to unsafe levels of radioactivity through food.
Radiological monitoring data collected through this programme is available on our data site.
Consumer habits research programme
The Food Standards Agency’s radiological habits surveys are conducted to establish the habits of people living and working near nuclear sites in the UK.
This includes the food they eat and the activities they carry out in the area around nuclear sites.
The information from the surveys, combined with the data on the levels of radioactivity found in food and the environment, are used to estimate radiation exposure to people living near licensed nuclear sites.
In 2025, the surveys were carried out at:
- Barrow, Cumbria
- Sizewell, Suffolk
- Sellafield, Cumbria
If you would like a copy of the consumer habits survey reports, email radiation@food.gov.uk.
2025 Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE) report
The report covers sampling and analysis carried out in 2025 as part of the Food Standard Agency’s radiological monitoring programme.
The main purpose of the programme is to make sure that discharges of radioactive wastes to the environment do not cause unacceptable exposure to radioactivity through our food.
The report combines our monitoring results with those of the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Food Standards Scotland.
It brings together our data on food from habits surveys and data on environmental sources of radioactivity to provide a comprehensive picture for people who live close to nuclear sites and eat locally produced food.
The key findings of the 2025 RIFE report are:
- exposure to the public from all sources of artificial radioactivity in food and the environment was low and within the legal limit of 1millisievert (mSv) per year
- for the majority of samples and analytical results, between 2024 and 2025 there were no significant changes to the radioactivity measured (excluding naturally occurring radionuclides) in food and the environment