In the European Union there is a broad set of Community legislation to guarantee that food and animal feed are safe and healthy. Such legislation covers all stages of the food chain from primary production to placing food and feed on the market. As well as the basic and specific regulations on food safety, there is a set of regulations that affects animal health, plant health, animal welfare,agro-food quality and ecological production. Such regulations make up the so-called European Production Model.

Since farmers, livestock breeders, industrialists, distributors, transport companies, traders and economic operators of food and feed companies are directly responsible for food and feed, they should ensure that legislative requirements are met in terms of their business activity. In this sense, all legislation on food, feed and animals and plants is based on this principal.

In order to monitor whether economic operators are fulfilling Community legislation, a harmonised framework for the organisation of Official Controls has been established on a Community level. Official Controls involve activity that the competent authorities of public administrations carry out in order to verify that natural or legal persons are meeting the relevant laws and regulations. It involves Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 of the European Parliament and the Council, of 29 April 2004, on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules.

This Regulation lays down the rules to be followed when carrying out official controls to verify compliance of regulations geared towards:

• preventing, eliminating or reducing to acceptable levels risks to humans and animals, whether they be direct or from the environment;
• guaranteeing honest and fair practice in food and feed trade and protecting the interests of consumers even at an informative level.

In order to ensure that official controls are implemented in an overall, systematic, uniform and coherent fashion, this Regulation requires Member States to design and apply a Multiannual National Control Plan in accordance with certain principals and guidelines.

Spain’s first National Plan was created in 2006 and approved by the Sectoral Conference of Agriculture and Rural Development of the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Foods, and by the Institutional Commission of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition. It was called the “2007-2010 National Food Chain Control Plan”.

In December 2010 the new “2011-2015 National Food Chain Control Plan” was approved. This provides Spain with a solid and stable but flexible framework from which to carry out official controls on food and feed.It also acts as a reference for public administrations,economic operators and consumers in terms of their obligations and guarantees. Based on transparency from within public administrations, the Plan encompasses the official control activities to be carried out throughout the food chain from primary production right through to the points of sale to the end consumer.

Spain’s National Plan contains two parts:Part A, which includes all the information on the structure of the national official control system and the existing support for official control, and Part B, which includes the control programmes.

Given that, as is established in the Regulation (EC) No 882/2004, the multiannual national control plans shall be adjusted for several reasons during their implementation, in Spain a system has been put in place whereby the Plan is updated and adapted on a yearly basis. Annual adaptation involves introducing the most relevant changes into Part A and/or the control programmes included within Part B of said Plan.

Given that throughout 2011 there were changes within the Spanish Government and some of the regional governments, the information in the appendixes of Part A regarding the structure of competent authorities has been updated. With respect to plan adaptation, after the suggestion from the Food and Veterinary Office in their various audits throughout 2011, a section referring to official control verifications has been included in both Part A and the programmes of Part B. The most notable changes in this new version are listed at the end of the document.

NATIONAL FOOD CHAIN OFFICIAL CONTROL PLAN 2011-2015 ( Pdf, 4.2 Mb )