Promoting food safety

CAOBISCO and its members give the utmost importance to food safety.

The production, processing, distribution, retail, packaging and labelling of food stuffs are governed by numerous laws, regulations, codes of practice and guidance.

Overarching legal instruments and principles – like Regulation (EC)178/2002 laying down the General Principles and requirements of Food Law – have been developed at EU level to form the base of the existing EU food safety policy.

CAOBISCO company members comply with these regulations and are engaged to provide safe and quality products to consumers. Consumers’ trust is important to our industries. And that’s why they have put in place food safety and quality systems for their ingredients and products.

In addition CAOBISCO has developed a Guide to Good Hygiene Practices. It is an information tool based on the HACCP scheme, the latest European legislation and the most recent standards and certification schemes. It provides clear and harmonised references and examples of how companies can implement a preventive food safety scheme. It also includes information on food ingredients, food contact materials, allergens and process contaminants.

Industry efforts to mitigate acrylamide

Caobisco is paying particular attention to the latest tools that can help European food manufacturers to mitigate Acrylamide formation in certain products.

Caobisco actively contributed in the updating of the EU Commission pamphlet promoting mitigation tools for acrylamide reduction in Fine Bakery Wares and in the FoodDrinkEurope “toolbox”, which offers more complete information on those mitigation tools. A factsheet and an infographic are also available to better understand what is acrylamide and which actions the food industry has taken.

CAOBISCO promotes these tools to all its manufacturers, in particular small- and medium-sized enterprises, which often do not have the resources to access latest research findings. Several industry workshops have been organised in various EU countries, in conjunction with CAOBISCO member associations, to train industry on how to reduce acrylamide levels in products to as lowest as possible.

These tools are the fruit of several research and industrial scale projects that our industry has conducted since acrylamide was first discovered.