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CEFS, COPA-COGECA and FEFAC have issued a joint statement welcoming the official approval of the updated catalogue of aquafeed materials that they submitted to the EU Standing Committee of the Food Chain and Animal Health.
These organisations represent 39 associations of the EU feed chain, including suppliers of feed materials, traders, compound feed manufacturers and farmers,
The former catalogue, republished in March 2010 as the 1st version, was outdated with no significant changes since 1996.
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 on the placing on the market and use of feed, the EU legislator gave the representatives of the EU feed chain the mission to propose a more meaningful, up-to-date and comprehensive version of this catalogue in order to raise market transparency on feed materials currently in circulation on the EU market for users.
After 18 months of development, 39 EU organisations of the feed chain joined efforts to deliver an inventory of more than 500 feed materials – the most frequent on the EU market – with clear descriptions so as to ensure full transparency for transactions between feed chain operators, as well as appropriate labelling for end users of feed materials, the EU citizens and the public authorities.
This success story proves that organisations of the feed chain can work together in an efficient manner in close cooperation with public authorities, in a so-called co-regulation initiative.
It should be stressed that this catalogue of feed materials is not exhaustive; feed materials not listed in the catalogue may be placed on the EU market and used.
However, in that case, the representatives of the EU feed business operators remind operators placing such feed materials on the market that they shall notify them through the online register feed materials (http://www.feedmaterialsregister.eu/).
The catalogue remains a voluntary instrument, however feed business operators shall comply with the labelling requirements laid down in the catalogue when they use the terms of the catalogue.
Further steps are required before EU operators of the feed chain can take full benefit of this catalogue, and they include the translation into the EU community languages by the EU Commission services and the scrutiny by the European Parliament, which is expected to take approximately six months.
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