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EU regulation 178/2002

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EU regulation 178/2002

Awareness of consumer and product safety has probably never been so high. Significant food crises in Europe during the last years have raised doubts in the consumer’s mind and created a lack of trust and confidence in products put on the market. Previously, product safety was perceived and positioned as the voluntary responsibility of companies but the publication of EU Directive 2001/95/EC on General Product Safety in December 2001, and EU Regulation 178/2002 on Food Safety in January 2002 brought about a significant change. Today, European legislation constitutes a set of requirements that each company manufacturing, distributing, importing and/or exporting products to and from Europe must comply with.  

The EU regulation 178/2002 contains general provisions for food and feed traceability that should be applied from 1 January 2005. These provisions cover all food and feed, all food and feed business operators, without prejudice to existing legislation on specific sectors such as beef, fish, GMOs etc. Importers are similarly affected as they will be required to identify from whom the product was exported in the country of origin. Unless specific provisions for further traceability exist, the requirement for traceability is limited to ensuring that businesses are at least able to identify the immediate supplier of the product in question and the immediate subsequent recipient, with the exemption of retailers to final consumers. The most important topics of this regulation are:

• Gives principles on how food operators have to ensure traceability: the principle of tracking and tracing one step backward and one step forward

• Regulates that food and feed operators are responsible for the feed, food and products they put on the market

• Is  applicable  to  products  imported  into  and  exported  out  of  the  EU Community

• Establishes the European Food Safety Authority, who may demand information from food operators

• Imposes 1st  January 2005 as the deadline for conformance by all food operators

The articles that deal with traceability are: Articles 13, 14, 17, 18 and 19. The statements set out in these articles represent the minimum requirements that each company needs to implement in order to comply with the law. Some national and EU legislation or local commercial practices may require additional aspects to be covered.

However, despite all the efforts deployed to ensure optimum product quality and all the precautions taken every day, incidents do occur where inappropriate products reach consumers. Once identified, such products must be rapidly located and removed from the market. This principle is linked to the ability of a company to trace products along the supply chain, to withdraw them from distribution channels whenever necessary and recall them from consumers whenever required.

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