October 2011 update on the Animal Nutrition Section of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health

Thursday 27 October 2011

This update provides information about the Animal Nutrition Section of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) meeting held on 21 October 2011.

Feed additives
Votes were taken on two Commission proposals for a total of 13 feed additive authorisations – both of these received a qualified majority vote (QMV) in favour. A summary of these is given in the table below:

Feed additive authorisations - 21 October 2011 SCoFCAH (Animal Nutrition Section)

Undesirable substances

The Committee discussed some compliance problems that three feed products types had with meeting some specific maximum permitted levels for undesirable substances:

• natrolite-phonolite (a feed additive) – lead
• calcium magnesium carbonate (a feed material) – fluoride
• shrimp meal (for non-food producing animals) – dioxins

Initial discussions suggest that some relaxation in these specific limits could be considered as this would not be contrary to advice from EFSA and, hence, there would be no significant additional risk to the consumer.

Additional controls for dioxins and PCBs in feed
A Commission proposal (SANCO/10282/2011) for a regulation concerning additional controls for the presence of dioxins in feed oils/fats was presented for a vote. The main issues covered by the proposal were:

• approval to be required under Article 10 of Regulation 183/2005 for feed business operators that manufacture, blend or place feed on the market
• establishments that blend oils for feed use and blend oils for other purposes must ensure that these other oils comply with the controls contained in Annex I of Directive 2002/32
• containers used to store or transport oils should be dedicated for that purpose
• a mandatory dioxin/PCB monitoring regime (up to 100% of batches) for feed fats and oils (to include some non-feed products) and compound feeds
• laboratories to notify competent authorities of non-compliant results

The most controversial issue had been the adoption of the mandatory monitoring programme. However, the Commission provided sufficient additional concessions to Member States to enable the proposal to receive a qualified majority vote in favour.

Feed hygiene
Each Member State was invited to send a representative to a forthcoming working group meeting to discuss draft industry guides for primary production of food and feed.

The Commission has decided for now to work with the industry sector towards putting EU guides in place to control salmonella contamination in feed. The implication is that if this initiative is not successful, formal legislation would be put in place.

Codex Task Force on Animal Feeding
The Commission provided draft EU comments on two documents drawn up by the Swiss Secretariat (priority list of hazards in the feed chain and guidance on risk assessment methodologies). It was agreed that Member States should provide the Commission with any further comments on the draft by the end of the first week in November.

Any other business
The United Kingdom provided the Commission with data relating to the use of surplus foods in the feed sector, types of packaging used in the surplus foods and on likely residues of these packaging materials in feed. The Commission thanked the UK delegation and asked other Member States to provide equivalent data of their own to enable a discussion at a future SCoFCAH meeting.