EUROPE – The European Union has welcomed the political agreement reached at the Agriculture Council on new official controls to ensure the hygiene of food of animal origin produced for human consumption.

The proposal is one of five making up a ‘hygiene package’ of measures laid out in the action plan of the Commission’s White Paper on Food Safety, which provides for revised rules for official controls on milk and milk products, as well as fresh meat and shellfish.

The new rules relating to milk aim to ensure that where raw milk fails to meet the required health standards, corrective action is taken at farm level, and that milk that might constitute a health hazard to human health cannot be delivered for human consumption.

The rules are part of wider attempt to get food producers to apply strict hygiene rules from the farm to the factory.