Identification marks and health marks are the oval-shaped markings found on food products of animal origin in the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

, required by

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

food safety Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, food processing, preparation, and food storage, storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a simi ...

regulations. It identifies the processing establishment that produced and packaged the product and that is therefore responsible for its hygiene status. These marks are meant as a monitoring and tracking aid for food safety and customs inspectors, and each food processing facility dealing with food products of animal origin is required to keep records of its trading partners and their approval numbers (in the case they process said food products), both for buying and selling. The identification and health marks are not an indication for the specific origin of a particular piece of food by themselves, as they do not encode the location of the farm that provided the initial raw product or livestock.

Regulations

The

has multiple regulations regarding

and

quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach plac ...

in the

food industry The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, ...

. These are: * the EC/852/2004 regulation, regarding general food safety (commonly known as the Food Law), * the EC/853/2004 regulation, regarding processing and trading of food products of animal origin, and * the EC/854/2004 regulation, regarding the

veterinary Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in non-human animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all animal species, both ...

and laboratory examination of livestock and meat products. The EC/853/2004 regulation defines the ''identification mark'' (to identify the last plant or facility which processed the item), and the EC/854/2004 regulation defines the ''health mark'' (to identify the

slaughterhouse In livestock agriculture and the meat industry, a slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir (), is a facility where livestock animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a mea ...

for raw meat or the

dairy A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

facility for raw milk, the vet's name being optional). The former is in effect only when there is no need for the latter, though they use essentially the same marking style.

Meaning

The identification and health marks contains the following information in an oval: * the name of the country in which the product was processed, or more commonly a modified version of the corresponding

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country code'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It i ...

alpha-2

country code A country code is a short alphanumeric identification code for countries and dependent areas. Its primary use is in data processing and communications. Several identification systems have been developed. The term ''country code'' frequently re ...

(which could be AT, BE, BG, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, EL, FR, FI, HU, HR, IE, IT, LT, LU, LV, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SE, SI or SK). UK(NI) may be used for products processed in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

post-

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

; * the national approval number of the facility where the food was processed (the format of the approval number can be country-specific); * the letters EC for European Community (sometimes also the older EEC for

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

), or their equivalents in other EU languages (for example, EK instead of EC, or EGK instead of EEC), but only if the source materials were produced in/imported from another EC member state.

Examples

An example of a simple identification mark:

HU
260
EK

Where HU is the country code for

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, 260 is the national approval number of a processing facility (in this case, a dairy facility of the company ''Alföldi Tej''), and EK stands for ''Európai Közösség'' (European Community in Hungarian). Another example with a more complex national approval number:

FR
49.099.001
CE

Where FR is the country code for

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, 49.099.001 is a complex national approval number, which encodes some geographic data about the facility (49: ''Maine-et-Loire'' region, 099: ''Cholet'' commune, 001: facility number), and CE stands for ''Communauté européenne'' (European Community in French).

References

{{reflist

External links

* eucode.info - search system for many countries
eucode.info
* European Commission

* Germany

(similar to ISO 3166-2:DE) * United Kingdom
Approved premises in the UK
* Republic of Ireland

European Union food law Symbols

Regulations

Meaning

Examples

See also

References

External links