Taking the biscuit?
October 27th 2009 Hundreds of council workers have been duped into filling in a fake health and safety survey about accidents caused by biscuits.
Reports in the Telegraph say that several council workers completed a spoof work place biscuit risk assessment sent out by the fictitious 'British Biscuit Advisory Board' (BBAD).
The BBAD is in fact the creation of Fox's biscuits which invented the board as part of a £3m marketing campaign.
In total 813 council employees are said to have clicked through to the online survey, 437 of whom actually took the time to complete it.
In their defence there are known to be some risks associated with eating biscuits. According to RoSPA, 400 people a year in Britain are taken to A&E for biscuit-related accidents. Examples include: Somebody falling over while reaching for a biscuit, someone slipping on a chocolate biscuit on their stairs and various choking incidents. RoSPA suggests there is no need to panic about biscuit injuries however and most of these risks can be dealt with with common sense.
Fox's biscuits claims to be surprised by how seriously the survey was taken: "We developed the idea of the British Biscuit Advisory Board as a parody of the nation's obsession with Health and Safety - but we never thought it would be taken quite so seriously," comments Mike Driver, Fox's marketing director.
Check out the British Biscuit Advisory Board website for yourself and see what you think. More articles from HSM News Desk: | 
