Introduction
Under European legislation, all fresh, frozen or minced beef marketed in the EU (with the exception of offal) is subject to a mandatory system of origin traceability and orgin labelling. The purpose of these rules is to ensur ethat beef on sale can be traced back to the animal or group animas from which it came.
The beef labelling regime, which applies to all parts of the supply chain, has two distinct but complementary elements:
- The compulsory system which requires food business operators to label their fresh beef products with certain prescribed information up to and including the point of sale to the consumer.
- The voluntary system covers any other labelling claim that processors or retailers wish to make concerning the origin, characteristics or production methods of the beef they are supplying. The claims made on product labels, marketing material or point of sale notices must be clear and cannot be misleading. Such claims must be approved by the Department of Agriculture before use. E.g. breed or cross breed, age or gender of animal, manner of production (e.g. farm assured, quality assured, grass-fed), age at or date of slaughter, period of maturation etc.
The legislation which sets out the requirements for beef labelling is Regulation (EC) No 1760/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 July 2000 establishing a system for the indentification and registration of bovine animals and regarding labelling of beef and beef products.
The information required under the Beef Labelling Regulations should be applied to or attached to individual pieces of meat or to their packaging material. Where beef is not wrapped, the information is requried to be provided in a written and visible form to the consumer at point of sale.
Applying for beef labelling approval
Every food business operator is legally obliged to submit to the Department of Agriculture a specification detailing the product claims that they wish to have approved. Businesses must be able to prove that these claims are true. Once approved, businesses can use these voluntary claims on their product labels.
A business whose labelling specification is approved by the Department of Agriculture is issued with a certificate which is valid only for the claims to which it refers.Any change to the approved labelling information therefore requires a new certificate.
businesses seeking approval under the voluntary labelling system have to submit to an annual audit by a nominated independent control body (approved by the Department and accredited to European Standard EN/45011) to verify the accuracy of their control systems and labelling information.
NSAI is approved by the Department of Agriculture as having authority to verify the control system and check the accuracy of the beef labelling information.
NSAI is accredited to EN 45011 by The National accreditation Board (INAB Registration No. 6001).
To get a quotation for a beef labelling inspection, fill in our online enquiry form.
Useful links
Department of Agriculture
Food Safety Authority