Regulation 2004/853 - Specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

L 139/55

By Regulation (EC) No /2004 (4), the European Parliament and the Council laid down general rules for food business operators on the hygiene of foodstuffs.

Certain foodstuffs may present specific hazards to human health, requiring the setting of specific hygiene rules. This is particularly the case for food of animal origin, in which microbiological and chemical hazards have frequently been reported.

In the context of the common agricultural policy, many Directives have been adopted to establish specific health rules for the production and placing on the market of the products listed in Annex I to the Treaty. These health rules have reduced trade barriers for the products concerned, contributing to the creation of the internal market while ensuring a high level of protection of public health.

With regard to public health, these rules contain common principles, in particular in relation to the manufacturers' and competent authorities' responsibilities, structural, operational and hygiene requirements for establishments, procedures for the approval of establishments, requirements for storage and transport and health marks.

These principles constitute a common basis for the hygienic production of food of animal origin, permitting the simplification of the existing Directives.

It is desirable to achieve further simplification by applying the same rules wherever appropriate to all products of animal origin.

The requirement in Regulation (EC) No /2004 (5) whereby food business operators carrying out any stage of production, processing and distribution of food after primary production and associated operations must put in place, implement and maintain procedures based on hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) principles also permits simplification.

Taken together, these elements justify a recasting of the specific hygiene rules contained in existing Directives.

The principal objectives of the recasting are to secure a high level of consumer protection with regard to food safety, in particular by making food business operators throughout the Community subject to the same rules, and to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market in products of animal origin, thus contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the common agricultural policy.

It is necessary to maintain and, where required to ensure consumer protection, to tighten detailed hygiene rules for products of animal origin.

Community rules should not apply either to primary production for private domestic use or to the domestic preparation, handling or storage of food for private domestic consumption. Moreover, where small quantities of primary products or of certain types of meat are supplied directly by the food business operator producing them to the final consumer or to a local retail establishment, it is appropriate to protect public health through national law, in particular because of the close relationship between the...