Food Hygiene Regulations

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The2004 rules merged, harmonised and simplified detailed and complex hygiene requirements previously contained in a number of Council Directives covering the hygiene of foodstuffs and the production and placing on the market of products of animal origin.

The rules in place since 2006 innovate in making a single, transparent hygiene policy applicable to all food and all food operators right through the food chain ("from farm to fork"), together with effective instruments to manage food safety and any future food crises throughout the food chain.

A Commission report (2009) recounts the experience gained, including the difficulties encountered (in 2006, 2007 and 2008) from the implementation of the hygiene package by all interested actors. It does not suggest any detailed solutions to the difficulties reported and is, therefore, not accompanied by proposals.

A Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the future necessity and use of mechanically separated meat in the EU, including the information policy towards consumers, was adopted on 2 December 2010.

The Food Safety Act 1990 (as amended) provides the framework for all food legislation in the England, Wales and Scotland.

The main responsibilities for all food businesses covered by the Act are to ensure that:

The Windsor Framework was adopted by the UK and EU on 24 March 2023. The Framework provides a unique set of arrangements to support the flow of agrifood retail products from Great Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland (NI), allowing GB standards for public health in relation to food, marketing and organics to apply for pre-packed retail goods moved via the NI Retail Movement Scheme (NIRMS).

Businesses need to provide allergen information if the food contains any of the 14 allergens as listed in the 'FIC regulations'. Guidance for food businesses on providing allergen information and best practice for handling allergens.

A backstop criminal offence will be in place where there is failure to comply with an improvement notice, with an offender being liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5. Criminal offences will continue for the contravention of certain provisions, namely mislabelling of foods containing allergens because a failure to comply with the allergen provisions may result in a risk to consumer health and safety.

Institute of Medicine (US) and National Research Council (US) Committee to Ensure Safe Food from Production to Consumption. Ensuring Safe Food: From Production to Consumption. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1998.

Every organization and every person involved with the food chain from farm and sea to table shares responsibility for the safety of food. Our "food safety system" includes producers, processors, shippers, retailers, food preparers, and, ultimately, consumers. The government plays an important role by establishing standards and overseeing their enforcement. Supporting roles are played by trade and consumer organizations that inform policy and by professional organizations and academic institutions that engage in research and education. Great responsibility lies with consumers who must be cognizant of the level of safety associated with the foods they purchase and who must handle these foods accordingly. The food safety system in this country is complex and multilevel. It is also essentially uncoordinated. As a consequence, the government's role is also complex, fragmented, and in many ways uncoordinated.

The committee heard testimony from diverse groups asserting that the US food supply is among the safest in the world (Appendix D), yet found little evidence to either support or contradict this assertion. In fact, surveillance and reporting systems are insufficient in scope, resources, and statutory authority to generate reliable current measures of foodborne illness, much less to establish trends.

This chapter describes the main features of the current food safety system, including regulation, surveillance, research and development, consumer education, and international dimensions. This overview does not provide a detailed description of the system, but it does illustrate where current responsibilities and allocations of resources exist and how the system currently functions.

At least a dozen federal agencies implementing more than 35 statutes make up the federal part of the food safety system. Twenty-eight House and Senate committees provide oversight of these statutes. The primary Congressional committees responsible for food safety are the Agriculture Committee and Commerce Committee in the House; the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee and the Labor and Human Resources Committee in the Senate; and the House and Senate Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriating Subcommittees.

Four agencies play major roles in carrying out food safety regulatory activities: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS); the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA); the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the Department of Commerce. More than 50 interagency agreements have been developed to tie the activities of the various agencies together.

FDA has jurisdiction over domestic and imported foods that are marketed in interstate commerce, except for meat and poultry products. FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) seeks to ensure that these foods are safe, sanitary, nutritious, wholesome, and honestly and adequately labeled. CFSAN exercises jurisdiction over food processing plants and has responsibility for approval and surveillance of food-animal drugs, feed additives and of all food additives (including coloring agents, preservatives, food packaging, sanitizers, and boiler water additives) that can become part of food. CFSAN enforces tolerances for pesticide residues that are set by EPA and shares with FSIS responsibilities for egg products (FDA, personal communication to committee, March 1998). The FDA's statutes give CFSAN jurisdiction over restaurants, but it has always ceded this responsibility to states and localities. The agency provides leadership for state regulation of retail and institutional food service through the development of a model Food Code, which it recommends be adopted by states and localities (DHHS, 1995; 1997a).

FSIS seeks to ensure that meat and poultry products for human consumption are safe, wholesome, and correctly marked, labeled, and packaged if they move into interstate or international commerce. By the mid-1990s, roughly 7,400 FSIS inspectors were responsible for inspecting 6,200 meat and poultry slaughtering and processing plants by continuous carcass-by-carcass inspection during slaughter as well as by full daily inspection during processing (FSIS, 1996b). FSIS shares responsibility with FDA for the safety of intact-shell eggs and processed egg products. Because of the statutorily mandated continuous inspection requirements, FSIS's inspection budget is about four times that of FDA (Appendix E; Thomas Billy, FSIS, personal communication to committee, March 1998). Food scientists believe that inspection of each animal carcass is no longer the best or most cost-effective means of preventing foodborne diseases, but this effort is required by statute and so is fully funded. The sensory evaluation inspection methods used in FSIS inspections were appropriate when adopted 70 years ago, when major concerns included gross contamination, evidence of animal disease, and other problems that are no longer acute concerns. Those methods are not appropriate or adequate to detect the major microbial and chemical hazards of current concern.

Because of the FDA-USDA jurisdictional split along commodity lines, some food products that might be perceived by consumers as similar are regulated differently, depending on content. The most cited example is pizza, which is regulated by FDA unless topped with 2 percent or more of cooked meat or poultry, in which case it is USDA-regulated (FSIS, 1996a; 9 CFR 319.600). This means that inspection at pizza production facilities must be conducted simultaneously under two sets of guidelines by two different inspectors from separate agencies.

EPA licenses all pesticide products distributed in the United States and establishes tolerances for pesticide residues in or on food commodities and animal feed. EPA is responsible for the safe use of pesticides, as well as food plant detergents and sanitizers, to protect people who work with and around them and to protect the general public from exposure through air, water, and home and garden applications, as well as food uses. EPA is also responsible for protecting against other environmental chemical and microbial contaminants in air and water that might threaten the safety of the food supply (EPA, personal communication to committee, May 1998). In both programs, EPA works with state and local officials.

NMFS conducts a voluntary seafood inspection and grading program which is primarily a food quality activity. Seafood is the only major food source that is both "caught in the wild" and raised domestically. Seafood is an international commodity for which quality and safety standards vary widely from country to country. Inspection of processing is a challenge because much of it takes place at sea (NMFS, personal communication to committee, March 1998). Mandatory regulation of seafood processing is under FDA, and applies to all seafood related entities in FDA's establishment inventory, including exporters, all foreign processors that export to the United States, and importers. However, fishing vessels, common carriers, and retail establishments are excluded.

The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA oversee the USDA's marketing and regulatory programs. Together they play indirect roles in food safety and more direct roles in marketing, surveillance, data collection, and quality assurance (USDA, personal communication to committee, May 1998).

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