Type of the alert, will be a generic Alert and one of AA (Allergy Alert), PRIN (Product Recall Information Notice) or FAFA (Food Alert For Action).

Optional, used for alerts which substantially update a previous alert

zero or more alerts that are related to this alert. The nature of the relationship is unspecified.

The food business reporting the alert, may not be present in the case of FAFAs

Optional additional businesses involved, e.g. distributing supermarkets

Unique identifier for the alert

Short title for the alert, guidelines suggest a length between 50 and 90 characters.

The main textual description of the alert not including the sections covered elsewhere (risk, product details, action taken, consumer advice). For most alerts (AA, PRIN) this will be the summary paragraph. FAFAs allow for more extensive text in the Alert description.

Short description to be used in SMS notifications

Short description to be used in twitter notifications

Shortened version of the title of the alert for use in social media

URL for the alert on the FSA web site, this is where the human readable presentation will appear and is the URL that should be referenced in social media announcements, a shortened version of this URL is provided in the shortURL field.

Shortened URL for this alert suitable for use in tweets and SMS.

Description of the action taken, or in the case of FAFAs then actions to be taken by enforcement authority.

Text giving the advice to consumers

Optional URL link to a supporting document or other media, typically a PDF of a product recall notice from the reporting business, but may also be an image of the product other supporting documentation. In some cases there may be multiple supporting documents (in which case the JSON value will be an array).

One or more structured descriptions of problems, or suspected problems, with the products that may pose a risk for consumers and that have led to the advice being issued.

One or more structured descriptions of products which are the subject of the alert.

The status of the Alert, normally this will be alert:Published but rare cases may be changed to alert:Withdrawn.

Country to which the alert applies. May have more than one value (e.g. England and Wales). Absence of a country value indicates that alert may apply to any country with the UK.

Text describing the problem in terms of the risk to consumers. Typically this will be based on standard text patterns for the particular risk but may be overridden in the editor to express the particular situation at hand.

Zero, one or more allergens drawn from the controlled list of allergens. For an Allergen Alert there will also be at least one allergen present on the problem statement.

Classifies the problem as being due to actual or possible contamination with a pathogen.

Classifies the problem as into one of the hazard categories. This information is useful for analysis and retrieval but does not directly affect the default textual presentation of the alert. Support for this field is under discussion.

Classifies the reason for the problem as being one of a standard set of reasons. This information is useful for analysis and retrieval but does not directly affect the default textual presentation of the alert. Support for this field is under discussion.

Optional place-holder to record additional explanation of the hazard or reason, especially in the case there 'other' is selected. This is not for presentation in the alert text and may not be use in first iterations of the system. Collection of information on exceptional cases via this field might support future enhancements to the controlled lists.

Name of the affected product

Identifying code for the affected product

Description of the package size affected - may be weight, volume or other description.

One or more descriptions of the product batches affected by the alert. In most cases there will only be a single batch description for each product detail but in rare cases there can be a table of such descriptions.

Zero, one or more allergens drawn from the controlled list of allergens. The overall problem statement will include all allergens, however in some cases a single Alert might involve multiple products with different allergens present in each. This field supports that situation.

Identifies the category of the affected product. This information is used to support search and analysis and does not need to be separately included in the alert presentation.

Use by date range for the batch expressed in text form for presentation.

Best before date range for the batch expressed in text form for presentation.

Batch number or code for the batch expressed in text form for presentation.

Lot number for batch expressed in text form for presentation.

Other textual description for the batch.

'Use by' date (or dates) for the batch. In some cases there may be multiple dates or the dates by might be given as month-year only. This field is used for API filtering and not for presentation, the presentation form is given by the useByDescription field.

'Best before' date (or dates) for the batch. In some cases there may be multiple dates or the dates by might be given as month-year only. This field is used for API filtering and not for presentation, the presentation form is given by the bestBeforeDescription field.

Default text describing the risk from this allergen

Default text describing the risk from this pathogen, or possible pathogen

Indicates the actual pathogen involved. The PathogenRisk may represent actual or possible contamination with this pathogen.

Name by which the organization is commonly known

Legal (registered) name of the organization. This field will not be supported in the initial version of the system.

Identifier for the organization, typically company registration number. This field will not be supported in the initial version of the system. In the future a register of food businesses may be used to obtain unique identifiers for relevant businesses.