Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 1

Recent developments in the Food and Veterinary

Office(FVO) and especially in the fish and poultry field

Advisory group on food chain, animal and plant health

26 November 2012 F3 – Stefan Hönig

Health and Consumers

• European citizens/consumers: 503.490.000

• Intracommunity trade:

Some keydata (source Eurostat)

27/11/2012 2

1990 Value in Euros % Quantity in TONS %

POULTRY 25,007,595,572 20.12% 10,070,179 6.45%

FISH 7,431,057,136 5.98% 2,972,156 1.90%

FOOD 124,301,577,035 100.00% 156,155,242 100.00%

2011 Value in Euros % Quantity in TONS %

POULTRY 12,356,362,571 2.73% 5,988,085 1.51%

FISH 27,387,513,301 6.06% 6,935,365 1.75%

FOOD 452,004,564,131 100.00% 396,060,414 100.00%

Health and Consumers

• Imports and Exports

27/11/2012 3

1990 IMPORT EXPORT

VALUE in ECU 24,405,470,040 22,254,766,700

QUANTITY/ TON 36,359,781 45,890,186

2011 IMPORT EXPORT

VALUE in € 88,796,343,890 84,883,183,950

QUANTITY/ TON 69,674,313 70,708,787

Some keydata (source Eurostat)

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 4

Three conclusions from this data

• The European Consumer can buy more food and goods from all over the world than ever. Wherever it comes from it has to be safe and from reliable sources.

• Trade within the EU is based on common rules and mutual confidence in their enforcement (control systems).

• International trade is based on international agreements and on requirements from the importer, which has to be fulfilled and guaranteed by the exporter. These guarantees have to be controlled.

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 5

What is the Food and Veterinary Office?

• The Food and Veterinary Office is a Directorate (F) of the Directorate General for Health and Consumers (SANCO) within the European Commission Services.

• It is responsible for verifying compliance with EU legislation/standards for food safety, animal health, animal welfare, and plant health.

• It is active in Member States, Candidate Countries, and in Third Countries exporting, or wishing to export, foodstuffs/feedstuffs/live animals, plants and plant products to the EU.

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 6

What is the Food and Veterinary Office?

In other words:

The FVO is an official, independent audit and inspection service of the European Commission covering control systems worldwide for food and other goods intended for intracommunity trade or direct /indirect import to the EU.

(As such it has a quite unique role within the Commission. There is no comparable institution in other countries)

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 7

Where is the FVO ?

• The FVO is based in Ireland

• It has about 170 staff

• It carries out around 250 audits

per year, of which more than one

third are in TCs

• Reports are published and

available at: http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/index_en.htm

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 8

FVO Structure 7 FVO Units:

• 5 Audit Units, organised on a sectoral basis:

• F2: Food of animal origin: mammals

• F3: Food of animal origin: birds/fish

• F4: Food of plant origin; plant health; processing and distribution

• F5: Animal nutrition, import controls, residues,

• F6: Animal health, animal welfare

• 2 horizontal Units:

• F1: Country profiles, coordination and follow-up

• F7: Quality, planning, development and administration

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 9

Additional tasks

Already carried out:

• Audits on organics (incl. PDO, PGI) for DG AGRI (Protected

Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI)

• Combined activities with DG MARE

Possible future activities: • Medical devices

• Active pharmaceutical ingredients

• Clinical trials

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 10

What does the FVO look at during an audit?

FVO assessment of control systems:

• Aims to answer 4 questions:

• IS there a system?

• CAN it work (i.e. ensure EU standards achieved)

• DOES it work, in practice?

• If not, WHY not?

• The answers provide the basis for FVO report recommendations

• Assessment made against EU general and specific requirements

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 11

What FVO is not A police service:

• We have no police powers

A fire-brigade: • We don’t (and can’t) run after every incident

A research institute/lab: • We don’t take samples etc.

The Competent Authority: • We don’t do their job; where corrective action is needed • We don’t decide on or tell them how to implement the corrective action • We indicate the result which must be achieved

Health and Consumers

12

Fishery products

wild caught fish

aquaculture products

cephalopods, crustaceans, etc.

and also...

27/11/2012

Health and Consumers

13

mussels, oysters, clams

Unit F3 Fish sector

and also...

live echinoderms, tunicates, marine gastropods

27/11/2012

Fishery products

Health and Consumers

14

Fishery Products imports 2010 Quantity imported

(in tonnes)

FISH FILLETS 1,389,954.90 26.8%

FISH, FRESH OR CHILLED 806,681.50 15.6%

PREPARED OR PRESERVED FISH (canned fish mainly) 667,125.50 12.8%

FROZEN FISH 659,994.60 12.7%

MOLLUSCS (squid, octopus, oyster, mussel, clam, etc) 579,836.40 11.2%

CRUSTACEANS (shrimp, lobster, crab, etc) 516,902.30 10.0%

CRUSTACEANS, MOLLUSCS, PREPARED OR PRESERVED 215,316.60 4.2%

FATS AND OILS OF FISH OR MARINE MAMMALS 187,741.40 3.6%

FISH SMOKED, DRIED, SALTED OR IN BRINE 161,555.30 3.1%

5,185,108.50

Exports 2010: 2,230,000 tonnes Valued at €4.3 billion

Imports 2010: 5,185,000 tonnes Valued at €17.5 billion

Additional tasks

Health and Consumers

15 27/11/2012

Audit performance

2010: 31* fish audits 7 to MS (all GAs: DK, SE, FR, PL, LV, BG, IT) 22 to TC (Nicaragua, Gambia, Ghana, Gabon, El Salvador, Algeria, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Serbia,

Cape Verde, Ecuador, Eritrea, Fiji, Georgia, Japan, Malaysia, Greenland, Senegal, Croatia, Kazakhstan)

* including ESA mission to Iceland and joint F3-F5 mission to Bangladesh

2011: 28 fish audits 8 to MS (EE, FI, DE, IE, ES, GR, FR, ES) 20 to TC (Mauritania, Gambia, Colombia, Tunisia, Seychelles, Russia, Tanzania, Philippines, Uganda,

Faroes, Peru, Thailand, China, Turkey, Venezuela, Honduras, Albania, India, Brunei, Sierra Leone)

2012: 21 fish audits 5 to MS (NL, UK, SE, IT, DK, all LBM) + EE, DE, PL (dioxins) + UK (PDO/PGI)

16 to TC (Venezuela, Panama, Brazil, Namibia, Guatemala, Brunei, Malaysia, Morocco, Madagascar, Vietnam, Turkey, Falklands, US, Korea, Croatia, Mexico)

Health and Consumers

16 27/11/2012

Risks associated with fish and LBM

• Histamine: tuna, mackerel, anchovy, herring • Contaminants

• Heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Hg): carnivores (tuna, swordfish, sharks, etc)

• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: smoked fishery products • Inorganic tin: canned fish • Dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs

• Residues in aquaculture products • Parasites: nematods larvae • Listeria monocytogenes: ready-to-eat products e.g. smoked fish • Salmonella: cooked crustaceans and molluscan shellfish • Microbiological contamination (E.coli as a marker): LBM • Biotoxins in LBM (lipophilic toxins, Amnesic toxins, Paralytic toxins) • Viruses in LBM • Poisonous fish (ciguatera, clupeotoxins, etc.)

Health and Consumers

Sustainability, cooperation with DG MARE

17

Factory vessel

Length: 229 metres

Processing capacity of

300,000 tonnes

Vessel involved in

Illegal Unreported

Unregulated fishing

activities (IUU)

27/11/2012

Major challenges

Health and Consumers

18 27/11/2012

Major challenges

• Sustainability

• Greater demand of fish on the world market. Can we still get high quality fish?

• Aquaculture: animal feed, use of veterinary drugs, animal health

• Live bivalve molluscs (LBM), ongoing audit series

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 19

Poultry and poultry meat products, Zoonosis

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 20

Poultry and poultry meat products, Zoonosis

Health and Consumers

21 27/11/2012

The sector

• 670,000 people employed in EU 27

• 11,606,000 tonnes of poultry meat produced in EU (with a value of €40 billion)

• main producers: FR, UK, ES

• Average per capita consumption was 21.8 Kg in 2007

• Imports account for approx. 7% of total production

• Main exporters: • Poultry meat: Brazil, 325,000 tonnes • Poultry meat products: Thailand, 192,000 tonnes • Others : Ukraine etc.

Health and Consumers

22 27/11/2012

Audit performance

2010: total 17 poultry audits 12 audits in MS (SE, HU, BG, DE, MT, CZ, ES, DK, RO, PL, PT, IT)

5 audits in TC (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Croatia, Serbia)

2011: total 18 poultry audits

11 audits in MS (LU, EL, LV, LT, SI, RO, CY, IE, EE, AT, NL)

7 audits in TC (Brazil, Serbia, Russia, FYROM, India, China, Saudi Arabia)

2012: 16 total poultry audits

12 to MS (ES, AT, EE, BG, EL, CZ, PL, UK, IT, DE, FR, NL) including 5 for MSM (UK, IT, DE, FR, NL)

4 to TC (Bosnia, Belarus, Turkey, USA)

Health and Consumers

23

Major challenges

Salmonella control programs

• 99,020 reported cases of human salmonellosis in 2010

• 22.1 % of verified food-borne illness outbreaks in 2010 were caused by eggs or egg products

• 31% of the total number of verified outbreaks were linked to Salmonella.

But the trend is going in the right direction:

• reported cases of human salmonellosis: divided by ~2 in 5 years

• RASFF notifications: 95 in 2009, 75 in 2010, 20 in 2011

• Main hazard detected was Salmonella (approx. 95 % of total RASFF on poultry for 2010)

Source: EFSA summary report 2009

27/11/2012

Health and Consumers

24

Major challenges

Baseline survey on the prevalence of Campylobacter and Salmonella contamination of broiler carcasses (2008):

Campylobacter: 75.8 % Salmonella: 15.6 %

• Overall good outcome of our audit series on SNCPs (overview report is in preparation). In 2010: • 0.7% of breeding hen flocks were positive to the top five Salmonella

serovars (2.8% in the 2004 baseline survey) • 1.9% of laying hen flocks were positive to SE/ST (20.4% in the 2005 baseline survey) • 0.4% of broilers flocks were positive to SE/ST (11% in the 2006 baseline survey) • 0.3% of turkey breeders flocks were positive to SE/ST (20.4% in the 2007 baseline survey) • 0.5% of turkey fattening flocks were positive to SE/ST (3.8% in the 2007 baseline survey)

27/11/2012

Health and Consumers

25

,

27/11/2012

Major challenges

• Salmonella control programmes

• Campylobacter , future approach

• Anti-microbial resistance in poultry (participation in the overall SANCO activities)

• Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM), audit series in Member States

• SNCP in third countries

Health and Consumers

27/11/2012 26

Thank you

Health and Consumers

Questions ?

27/11/2012 27