EU feed regulation soon to be published

Negotiations on a European Parliament and Council Regulation on the placing on the market and the use of animal feed took place in 2008.

 

Agreement on a Common Position in Council was followed by trialogue discussions between the Presidency, the Commission and rapporteurs for the European Parliament.

 

The European Parliament agreed the text on First Reading at its plenary meeting on 4-5 February 2009, and the Regulation was adopted without further amendment by the Council of Ministers on 22 June 2009.

 

The Regulation principally replaces five existing Directives – on feed materials, compound feeds, dietetic feeds, bioproteins and prohibited ingredients – and brings their provisions together into one comprehensive document.

 

The current version of the Regulation, which it is currently expected will be published in the Official Journal in September, is available on the Council’s website (pdf).

It also introduces a number of new measures, for example on procedures for the authorisation of new nutritional purposes, and repeals the existing requirement for the mandatory percentage declaration of the ingredients of compound feeds.

 

Controls on the labelling of additives or premixtures of additives used or sold without being incorporated in feed will remain outside the scope of the Regulation, as will the labelling of feed containing or produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

 

The existing controls on undesirable substances will also remain outside the scope of the Regulation.

 

In the UK the Food Standards Agency has drawn up a descriptive note summarising, on an Article-by-Article basis, the provisions of the Regulation. Council and European Parliament Regulation on the placing on the market and the use of Animal Feed (pdf).