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Food Labelling.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 March 2004

Wednesday, 24 March 2004

Ceisteanna (12)

Liz McManus

Ceist:

12 Ms McManus asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the additional resources he plans to provide to ensure that food borne businesses can ensure the full traceability of foods; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9173/04]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

The responsibility of my Department for the production of food covers controls at farm level up to and including the processing of certain products. The main products coming within the remit of my Department are those of animal origin including meat and milk. I am satisfied that the level of resources employed and the systems currently in place provide robust traceability for these products. Traceability and labelling are two separate issues. Traceability is the ability to track products from its production right through to purchase or consumption by the consumer, while labelling is a tool used to inform the consumer.

At the production stage, excellent systems exist to trace animals to the point of slaughter. Examples of these are the cattle movement monitoring system, CMMS, the national sheep identification system and the national pig identification and tracing system. Under the CMMS, there is a comprehensive identification and tracing system already in place comprising physical identification, accompanying documents and a central database which holds information on the origin, identity and life history of all bovine animals in Ireland. More than €62 million has been spent since 1997 in construction, development and enhancement of the bovine system. In 2004 in excess of €14 million will be spent to maintain, monitor and further develop the system and, in particular, to deliver a modern, flexible, fully networked computer system to support the Department's numerous and varied animal health and welfare activities.

The national sheep identification system, which came into effect in June 2001, provides full individual identification and traceability of sheep from farm of origin to slaughter. It is designed to be multi-functional, facilitating aspects such as flock management, consumer assurance and disease monitoring and control. The national pig identification and tracing system was launched in 2002. This identification programme involves tagging and slap marking of pigs together with movement documentation. It also entails the notification of all movement of pigs to a central database to provide full national traceability for all pigs.

The slaughtering plants in which these animals are processed are required to keep records of their origin and other pertinent details that can trace the animal back to the producer. The operators must be able to identify the animal during any point of the process. Records of the movement and destination of the product from plants must also be maintained.

Milk processors are required to maintain a register of the milk production holdings, which supply them with their milk. Production batches can be traced back to the suppliers who provided the milk for the particular batch.

My Department monitors the traceability controls operated by these food businesses.

While this process ensures the traceability of animal products, it is important that consumers can be assured of this through the labelling of products. In the first instance, this is done through the oval stamp, which identifies the premises in which the product was last processed.

In addition, the EU beef labelling regulations, which were introduced in 2000, require operators involved in the marketing of beef to label their product with: a reference code to enable the beef to be traced back to the animal or group of animals from which it was derived; the approval number of the slaughterhouse and the country in which it is located; the approval number of the de-boning hall and the country in which it is located; and an indication of the origin of the animal from which the beef was derived For the purpose of these regulations, marketing means all aspects of beef production and marketing up to and including retails sale.

These labelling requirements, which are compulsory in all member states, apply to the marketing of beef within the Community, regardless of whether that beef was produced within the Community or in a third country. Where beef is imported in to the Community from a third country and not all the above details are available, that beef must, at a minimum, be labelled as "Origin: non-EC" along with an indication of the third country in which slaughter took place.

However, these regulations do not currently apply to beef sold in the food service outlets. These regulations are currently being reviewed. In that context, I wrote to Commission Fischler asking him to consider including a provision for the labelling of origin of meat in such outlets. It is expected that a report on the review should be issued shortly.

The series of actions I have taken on food labelling have been guided by the report published in December 2002 of the food labelling group, which I established, and the subsequent consumer research on origin carried out, at my request, by the consumer liaison panel. In this context, I recently introduced two regulations for the labelling of poultry meat. The first of these regulations requires poultry meat, loose and pre-packaged, originating in a country outside the EU to bear an indication of the country of origin when offered for sale in a retail premises. The second requires information regarding class, price per unit weight, condition and slaughterhouse details in respect of loose poultry meat, that is, non-pre-packaged, to be provided to the consumer. Heretofore, while these labelling indications have been compulsory for pre-packaged poultry meat, it had not been a requirement to provide this information for poultry meat sold loose.

I have also arranged that each sector will be reviewed on a commodity by commodity basis to identify any deficiencies, from a consumer viewpoint, in the labelling regulations for those commodities. I intend to take further action over the coming period in all commodity areas as appropriate.

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