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European Heat Council · Position 02

Issued 2026-06-25

Under Council authority

Safe food, proportionate rules

The Council’s position on the proportionate, risk-based application of EU food safety rules to independent producers, grounded in EU law and public RASFF data.

Part I. Findings

The Council records three conditions relevant to the safe and proportionate application of EU food law. Each is supported by sources cited at the foot of this Position.

Finding 1. EU law already provides for proportionate, flexibility-based application of food safety rules to small producers.

Commission Notice 2022/C 355/01 sets out, in detail, how Good Hygiene Practices and HACCP-based procedures may be applied with flexibility in small food businesses, taking into account the nature of the activity and the size of the establishment, and expressly replaces the 2016 Notice in light of revised Codex Alimentarius principles and international standards[1]. The European Food Safety Authority has produced simplified Food Safety Management System templates for five categories of small business, making the flexibility operational rather than theoretical[2]. The legal basis sits in Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs and Regulation (EU) 2017/625 on official controls, both of which expressly anticipate risk-proportionate application[3].

Finding 2. Member State implementation of the EU Official Controls Regulation varies materially.

A peer-reviewed analysis of Italy’s adaptation of Regulation (EU) 2017/625 under Legislative Decree No 27/2021 documents distinctive features in dispute resolution and timeframes that other Member States have not adopted[4]. The European Commission’s own state-of-play document on implementation of Regulation 2017/625 records variation across Member States in the use of national control plans, the design of inspection regimes, and the integration of risk-proportionality[5]. The European Court of Auditors’ 2024 special report on food labelling in the EU documents enforcement divergence between Member States in how identical EU labelling and food-information rules are applied on the ground[6]. The result is that two producers compliant with the same EU Regulation can face materially different inspection regimes depending on the Member State of operation.

Finding 3. Food safety incidents concentrate in specific hazard categories and geographic origins distinct from European independent craft production.

Peer-reviewed analysis of European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed notifications shows the most frequent hazards are aflatoxins in nuts, fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices; pathogenic microorganisms in herbs and spices, meat, poultry and seafood; pesticide residues; and veterinary medicinal product residues and cadmium in seafood[7]. The majority of RASFF alerts concern products originating outside the European Union, with Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States the most frequent country-of-origin[7]. Among RASFF notifications on food contact materials between 2007 and 2019, 74 per cent concerned products originating from China[8]. The Commission’s own RASFF Window portal makes the underlying geographic and category distribution publicly verifiable[9].

Part II. Position

On the basis of these Findings the Council holds that:

  1. Food safety is non-negotiable. The Council does not advocate looser standards, lower limits, or reduced traceability obligations for any producer.
  2. EU law already provides for proportionate, risk-based application of food safety rules to small producers. Where Member State practice fails to use the available flexibility, the result is regulatory cost without proportional safety gain. The Council holds that this asymmetry is correctable within the existing legal framework.
  3. The Council holds that the application of food safety rules should reflect documented risk patterns rather than assumptions about producer scale. Public RASFF data shows the hazards, ingredient categories, and geographic origins that drive the bulk of EU food safety notifications. Proportionate enforcement reflects that distribution; uniform burden across producers of all sizes does not.

Part III. Commitments

The Council will:

  1. Publish a member guide summarising the flexibility provisions of Commission Notice 2022/C 355/01 and how to invoke them with national competent authorities.
  2. Submit comment in EU consultations on official controls, food hygiene, and HACCP implementation where the impact on small producers is material.
  3. Publish, on a regular cadence, a brief on where food safety risk is concentrated according to public RASFF data, so that members, regulators, and the press have access to the underlying distribution rather than to its summaries.

Revision

This Position will be reviewed annually, or sooner if Commission Notice 2022/C 355/01 is revised or if Regulation (EU) 2017/625 is materially amended.

Sources

  1. [1]Commission Notice 2022/C 355/01 on the implementation of food safety management systems covering Good Hygiene Practices and procedures based on the HACCP principles, including the facilitation/flexibility of the implementation in certain food businesses, OJ C 355, 16.9.2022. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52022XC0916(01)
  2. [2]European Food Safety Authority, simplified Food Safety Management System templates for small food businesses (butcher's shop, grocery, bakery, fishmonger, ice cream shop). https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/170302
  3. [3]Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs; Regulation (EU) 2017/625 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2017 on official controls. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2004/852/oj
  4. [4]Italian adaptation to Regulation (EU) 2017/625 on food official controls: a case study, National Library of Medicine, PMC11616583. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11616583/
  5. [5]European Commission, Official Controls Regulation (EU) 2017/625: state of play. https://food.ec.europa.eu/document/download/c28ff8f7-373b-48ab-9ea1-29629a993723_en
  6. [6]European Court of Auditors, Special Report 23/2024: Food labelling in the EU, 20 November 2024. https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/SR-2024-23/SR-2024-23_EN.pdf
  7. [7]Pigłowski, M., Food hazards on the European Union market: the data analysis of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, Food Science & Nutrition (Wiley), 2020. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.1448
  8. [8]Food contact materials recalls and international trade relations: an analysis of the nexus between RASFF notifications and product origin, Food Control (ScienceDirect), 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713520304345
  9. [9]European Commission, RASFF Window (public portal of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed). https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/

Issued under Council authority. European Heat Council, 2026-06-25.

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