The FCA Standard aims at limiting, within the Feed chain, any potential food safety risks, through proactive, preventive and sector-specific control measures. It is however, impossible to exclude for 100% all contamination.

This training course is only available in French and Dutch

Comme chaque année, le but de cette formation est de parcourir les principales modifications et publications relatives à la législation « alimentation animale » des 12 derniers mois.

The additional monitoring of Aflatoxin B1 in maize, laid down in FCA document ‘BT-16: Temporary monitoring’ has been, since September 2015, evaluated on a regular basis and updated based on RASFF notifications and on analytical results provided by companies as part of this Protocol. 

Despite the summer period, the month of July 2016 has yielded some very interesting texts. Among those, we will discuss the Recommendation ‘nickel’ published in June, but we will also discuss the 3 authorization decisions relating to the GMOs, and also the publication of a new European labeling code.

For many years, the three OVOCOM members [(Synagra (collection / trade), Bemefa (production and compound feed) and the Royal Association of Belgian Millers (ARMB) (milling)] are, together, performing controls in order to obtain a ‘pre-harvest’ view relating to the presence of mycotoxines (Fusarium) in winter wheat.

According to several sources, high paraquat (herbicide) levels may be observed in  Brazilian soybeans (> 0,03 mg/kg) and products derived therefore (e.g. cakes).

Given that the risk categories remained unchanged during several consecutive monthly assessments (see FCA document‘ BT-16: Temporary monitoring’), there is now a change in the risk category of a country.

From 26 – 30th of October 2015, the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) of the European Commission organized a study visit to Belgium. Within that context, OVOCOM had the honor of hosting the FVO.

With this newsletter we would like to provide you with an overview of the mandatory communication which is to be sent to OVOCOM upon purchase of animal feed:

• According to the Gatekeeper-principle;
• Via Specific Purchase Protocols; or
• Via Temporary monitoring.

The 2016 Summary of all notifications issued by the RASFF (rapid alert system for Food and Feed), and of interest to operators belonging to the feed sector, has been updated on June 30th 2016. For these first 6 months, already 444 ‘hazard/product’ combinations have been proposed.

Following the publication of the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1100 as regards the BSE status of certain countries such as, in particular, Germany, Spain and Lithuania, the Status of these countries have been changed (countries with a controlled risk à countries with a negligible risk).

The current legislation does not always concern major changes to the basis texts applicable to the sector (placing on the market, hygiene package, animal by-products, etc).‘Small’ texts also deserve our attention, either because of their proactive nature, or because they respond to an evolving sector.

In addition to our previous newsletter (No. 44) relating to the presence of the mycotoxin zearalenone (ZEA), we recommend that companies pay particular attention to all soya products originating from Argentina.

Hulls (seeds) of soya (granular and non granular) (soya (bean) hulls (pellets) – code catalog 2.18.5 – Origin : Argentina) presenting a high level of zearalenone (ZEA) could be available on the market (including Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom). ZEA is a mycotoxin which has a negative influence on the production of animal feed (e.g. fertility).

In order to maintain its leading position in the international dairy community, the Dutch dairy industry has, since January 1, 2016, further tightened the quality assurance of animal feed within the Netherlands. To this end, the NZO manages the so-called “White List”. Only companies listed on the white list may directly supply feed to Dutch dairy farmers.

The mutual recognition agreement between OVOCOM and Gafta has been renewed. This agreement continues the mutual recognition of the FCA Standard and GTAS. GTAS is an independently certified HACCP scheme for companies operating in the international grain and feed trade.

As a reminder, every first working day of the week (unless exception), we post the most relevant legal texts, published throughout the past week, on our website.

The suspension as regards the certificate of the following company has been removed (07/04/2016).

Since March 2016 AMA-Marketing is an official member of the ICRT. AMA-Marketing is the owner of the pastus+ quality assurance system. The Austrian organization, which is located in Vienna, is the eighth member of the ICRT-committee.