EU-Zulassung von Lebensmittelbetrieben Zulassung

If you want to open a meat, poultry or dairy farm or other businesses that handle products of animal origin or sprouts, you may need EU approval. You can find out more here.

If you wish to place products of animal origin or sprouts on the market, you may require an authorization before starting your activity.

If you run a business that belongs to the following categories (non-exhaustive list), you require an authorization for the corresponding activity:

• Meat:

• Slaughterhouses

• Cutting plants

• Establishment that produces minced meat, meat preparations or meat products

• Seperator meat producers

• Game processing plants

• Shellfish:

• Dispatch centers

• Cleaning centers

• Fishery products:

• Freezing and factory ships

• Shrimp boats

• Companies that produce fishery products

• Milk:

• Businesses that produce heat-treated milk and dairy products from raw milk

• Businesses that produce dairy products from already processed dairy products (e.g. butter from pasteurized cream, cheese from pasteurized milk or milk powder)

• Milk collection centers

• Eggs

• Egg pre-treatment plants

• Egg whipping plants

• Egg processing plants

• Egg cooking plants

• Egg packing centers

• Frogs' legs and snails

• Establishments preparing and/or processing frogs' legs and snails

• rendered animal fats and greaves

• Businesses that collect, store or process the raw materials

• Gizzards and bladders

• Businesses that treat bladders, intestines and stomachs

• Gelatine

• Establishments that collect the raw materials
• Companies that produce edible gelatine

• Collagen
  • Establishments that collect raw materials
  • Companies that produce collagen
• Sprouts
  • Companies that produce sprouts
• Cold stores that store food of animal origin chilled or frozen
• Kitchens and canteen kitchens that do not sell food directly to the end consumer
• Establishments where the above products are re-wrapped, regardless of whether this activity is carried out in conjunction with other activities such as cutting or deboning

However, there are also exceptions to the authorization requirement. If your business only carries out primary production, transport activities, storage of products (whose storage does not require temperature control) or certain retail activities, you do not require approval as a food business. This also applies if you fall under the definition of retail and the distribution of food of animal origin is an ancillary activity (a maximum of one third of the production volume is distributed to other retailers) at local level (radius ≤ 100 km).

The activity requiring approval may only be commenced after approval has been granted. The procedure is subject to application. A site inspection is carried out to check whether the requirements under food law are met. Along with the approval, the establishment also receives the required approval number.

The approval decision does not affect any other permits that may be required, such as a building permit, immission control permit, etc. This depends on the specific individual case and should be requested from the responsible licensing authority.

• Informal, written application

• Company name and person responsible

• Business premises with name, street, zip code, town

• List of the activities applied for (e.g. cooking eggs, cutting meat, storing frozen food, etc.)

• Signature

• Operating plan: always A (general part) and depending on the activities B (specific part: egg products / fish / meat + (supplementary sheet slaughtering) / gelatine/collagen / canteen kitchen / cold storage / milk / mussels)

• a true-to-scale operating plan showing the flow of materials and personnel and the layout of the machines.
  The following is recommended:

• Extract from the real estate register for the site of your business premises (cadastral plan for the site or parcel)

• Current floor plan of your business premises with scale, taking into account all premises. Clearly identify all premises on the plan and their use (by numbers or keywords), e.g. by means of a legend and by marking the respective doors or gates.

• Machine layout / material flow / personnel flow: Machine layout plan as well as routing of personnel and description of the production flow (integration into the floor plan is possible here).

• (Slaughterhouse):Current floor plan with scale (depiction of delivery, holding pen, access and stunning pen/trap/plant with marking of operating areas, angle of inclination and facilities (weather protection, pens, drinking and feeding facilities).

Proof of the food business operator's reliability:

• Information from the Federal Central Register (certificate of good conduct of the food business operator, document type O) for submission to an authority, not older than 3 months.
• Information from the central trade register for submission to an authority in accordance with Section 150 (5) GewO

Other information:

• Organizational chart
  (in the case of slaughterhouses, additional designation of the animal welfare officer)
• Keyword-like description of the production processes, taking into account the production categories and numbered premises.
• Current extract from the commercial register of the operating company and/or confirmation of business registration

• The activity requiring authorization may only be commenced after authorization has been granted.

• The procedure is subject to application.
• Permit required under the Federal Immission Control Act, if applicable

Once the competent authority has received the complete approval documents, it will usually carry out an inspection of your business. The structural requirements, operational and occupational hygiene and self-monitoring systems will be checked.

If deficiencies are found, these will be discussed on site.

If no deficiencies are found, approval is granted.

If deficiencies are identified by the licensing authority and the business simultaneously fulfills all requirements with regard to infrastructure and equipment a conditional approval can be granted for three months. Full approval is only granted if a new official inspection of the establishment, which is carried out within three months of the conditional approval being granted, shows that the establishment meets the other relevant requirements of food law.

If there is clear progress, but the establishment does not yet meet all the relevant requirements, the competent authority may extend the conditional approval. However, the period of validity of the conditional approval may not exceed a total of six months, so that the application must be rejected after six months if not all requirements of food law are met. are not met.

You will be assigned an approval number with the approval notice. It consists of the state abbreviation (e.g. "NW" for North Rhine-Westphalia) and five digits. This is part of the identification mark with which you must label your foodstuffs to be placed on the market.

The approval number is then communicated to the BVL (Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety) by the approval authority. From there, the number, together with the approved activities and the company name, is entered in a list of companies. This list of companies is published on the Internet.

No activity requiring a license may be commenced without a license.

Appeal (appeal may be excluded depending on state law), administrative court action

• EU approval of food businesses Approval
• Meat, poultry and dairy establishments as well as other establishments handling products of animal origin may require EU approval.
• Companies that produce sprouts are also generally subject to an approval requirement
• The required approval number is also assigned to the establishment with the approval.
• Competent authority: Depends on the respective federal state.