Rules for business premises in Spain
Food traceability
Food traceability is being able to follow a food through every stage of production, processing and distribution. Art. 18 of Regulation (EC) 178/2002 requires every food business to know who supplied each product and which businesses it supplied in turn: one step back and one step forward.
Also known astrazabilidad alimentaria · one step back, one step forward · batch tracking · lot traceability
What the regulation asks for
Regulation (EC) 178/2002, the EU General Food Law, defines traceability as being able to find and follow the trail of a food, a feed or a substance meant to go into one, through every stage of production, processing and distribution (art. 3.15). Its art. 18, which has applied since 1 January 2005 and binds Spanish businesses directly, asks two things of food businesses:
- to be able to identify anyone who has supplied them with a food or any substance intended to be incorporated into it, with systems that allow that information to be given to the authorities on request (art. 18.2);
- to be able to identify the businesses to which they have supplied their products (art. 18.3).
AESAN, the Spanish food safety agency, sums it up as the ‘one step back and one step forward’ approach: immediate suppliers and immediate customers, except when the customer is the final consumer. For food of animal origin, Implementing Regulation 931/2011 also sets the minimum information that operators pass on to each other, including the batch or consignment. And if a business believes that a food it has already distributed is unsafe, it withdraws it and informs the authorities (art. 19.1).
An example: a restaurant receives a recall notice for a batch of mussels. With the supplier's delivery note on file, it knows whether that batch went into its cold room, on what day and how many kilos; if it also sells jarred sauces to the shop next door, it must be able to say which shop it supplied. What art. 18 does not ask of it is to know which diner ate which dish.
Worth knowing
Art. 18 says what you must be able to answer, not how. It does not set how long delivery notes are kept, or a format, or require each batch to be tracked inside the kitchen; that may be set out in your HACCP plan or in a specific rule. And it is not the same as allergen information: that says what is in the dish; traceability says where each ingredient came from.
Sources
Related terms
- AllergensAllergens are the substances that cause allergies or intolerances and that EU law requires to be declared: fourteen of them, from gluten to molluscs. A residence dining hall must be able to say which ones each dish contains, even when the food is served unpackaged.
- Pest controlPest control is the set of measures to stop insects, rodents and other animals getting into and settling in a business's premises, and to get rid of them if they do. In a food business it is compulsory: Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 requires adequate procedures to control pests.