EUROPA - Food Safety - Biological Safety of Food - BSE

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 million 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.

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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 such as:

Decision N° 92/562/EEC on alternative heat treatment for certain high-risk animal waste;

Decision N° 95/348/EC on rules on knackers' yards (for UK and IRL);

Decision N° 1999/534/EC on processing of certain animal waste (amending Decision N° 97/734/EC on trade in certain processed animal protein);

Regulation (EC) N° 1774/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 October 2002 laying down health rules concerning animal by-products not intended for human consumption;