Regulation (EC) N° 1774/2002 of the European Parliament and the Council laying down health rules
concerning animal by-products not intended for human consumption was adopted on 3 October 2002.
The Regulation is, after the TSE Regulation adopted in 2000, the second key action of the White
Paper on Food Safety and is a major component of the Commission strategy to combat and eradicate
feed-borne food crises such as BSE, foot and mouth disease, swine fever and dioxin contamination.
It is key to the exclusion of dead animals and other condemned materials from the feed chain and
to the safe processing and disposal of the 16 millions of tonnes of animal by-products produced in
the Union each year. Under the Regulation, only materials derived from animal declared fit for human
consumption following veterinary inspection may be used for the production of feeds. It also bans
intra-species recycling, so-called "cannibalism". It sets out clear rules on what must and may be
done with the excluded animal materials, imposing strict identification and traceability system
requiring certain products such as meat and bone meal and fats destined for destruction to be
permanently marked to avoid possible fraud and risk of diversion of unauthorised products into food
and feed. The Regulation introduces new alternative disposal methods such as biogas, composting and
co-incineration. It creates a new transparent, comprehensive and directly applicable legal framework
that replaces and simplifies a multitude of scattered directives and decisions which have developed
over more that a decade in response to internal market requirements and crisis situation.
