24 Production
HACCP in the animal feed
industry
Feed quality has several aspects: physical characteristics,
nutritional value and safety. Although the animal feed
industry pays attention to nutritional aspects, the main
concern is feed safety because it directly influences the
safety of food of animal origin.
By J. den Hartog, Product Board Animal
Feed, The Netherlands.
The Product Board Animal Feed in the Netherlands has
carried out a feed quality program since 1992, especial-
ly focused on quality assurance by means of a GMP-
scheme. This scheme has been improved from time to time,
based on practical experiences.
Experiences show that food safety crises related to feed
safety increasingly result in problems for the dairy, eggs
and meat processing industry. Quality of milk, meat and
eggs is all the more important for Dutch agriculture, be-
cause about 60% is exported. For an undisturbed product,
the product safety has to be irreproachable.
The Dutch animal feed sector chose for a quality assurance system which is also applied in the
European food industry. This emphasises that the animal feed industry and the preceding
ingredient suppliers are part of the food chain and have a shared responsibility for food safety.
To underline this, they use the slogan "Feed for Food".
Feed Tech Volume 5, Number 3
Especially the affairs including dioxin contaminated
Brazilian citruspulp (1998), meat and bone meal in ru-
minant feeds (1999) and Belgian feed oils (1999) were im-
portant triggers to enhance the quality assurance scheme
dramatically. The quality assurance system for animal
feed appeared to be insufficiently tailored to the preven-
tion of unforeseen contamination sources, and therefore
mainly of a reactive nature. For that reason, in June 1999,
the Product Board Animal Feed decided to enhance the
GMP quality assurance system for animal feed by choos-
ing for:
• a pro-active, risk analytical approach in the entire pro-
duction chain for feed materials with hazard analysis
at chain level and HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Criti-
cal Control Points) at company level;
• downstream extension of the quality assurance system
to the suppliers of feed ingredients; and
• development of an early warning system (EWS) for in-
cidental unacceptable contamination situations.
Objectives
The objective of the feed quality program, including the
assurance system, is:
• to produce, deliver and feed animal feed materials
which are safe for consumers of animal products, for
animals as such and the environment;
• and do this in a trustworthy way for all stakeholders,
that are chains partners, the consumers and the politics,
that means safeguarding has to be demonstrable and
transparent.
Part of the animal production and food chain
The GMP scheme is part of the Integral Chain (Quality)
Control programs, applied in the meat, eggs and dairy
chains. Livestock farmers, participating in these quality
control programs, are obliged to purchase feed materials
only from GMP-recognised suppliers.
With this approach, the Dutch animal feed sector chose
for a quality assurance system – GMP as well as HAC-
CP – also applied in the European food industry. This em-
phasises that the animal feed industry and the preceding
ingredient suppliers are part of the food chain and have
 Production 25

a shared responsibility for food safety. To underline this, feed ingredients, straight feedstuffs, feed fats (addi-
we use the slogan "Feed for Food". tionally to those for feed ingredients), storage and tran-
shipment of feed ingredients, and for transport;
Approach • minimum requirements for in-company inspections;
The risk analytical approach means that the feed quality and
program has been based on three components: risk as- • a set of product standards, consisting of legal stan-
sessment, risk management and risk communication. dards of the European Union, additional national legal
Risk assessment is regularly carried out by scientific ad- standards, and a number of supra legal standards agreed
vice and information analysis; that means hazard identi- with the partners in chain.
fication and characterisation, exposure assessment and risk Nowadays, the main points of attention are the intro-
characterisation. duction of the HACCP principles and the extension of the
Firstly, risk analyses are carried out on chain level for quality assurance scheme downstream to the suppliers of
all feed materials. These risk assessments on chain level feed ingredients worldwide. It is important to link up
are suitable for the companies to carry out their HACCP with (developing) quality assurance systems in countries
analyses on company level, for the auditors who verify of origin. For risk communication, it is important to
the companies and for public accounting to the society. publish all relevant information, especially generated in
Secondly, all suppliers of compound feed and of straight risk assessments. ●
feedstuffs have to carry out an HACCP analysis for their
company. That is an obligation for all participants in the Summary of a paper presented at 4th International Meeting of the
GMP-scheme from 2001. For that reason, the Product Noordwijk Food Safety & HACCP Forum.
Board Animal Feed, together with the TNO, elaborated
a HACCP guideline for animal feed (March 2000.)
Risk assessment forms the basis for risk management,
resulting in:
• identification of the relevant risks and critical points in
the production chain (risk evaluation);
• determination of control measures to eliminate or re-
duce and control these risks at an acceptable level, in-
cluding registration and traceability of the products;
• determination of product standards and action values
for the undesirable contaminants in the ingredients and
animal feed;
• performance of a measuring strategy (monitoring and
verification) on ingredients and animal feed for check-
ing whether the control measures are effective or not
The GMP-recognised companies are obliged to inte-
grate these measures in their quality assurance system.
Nowadays, the GMP/HACCP-scheme animal feed con-
sists of the following parts:
• a recognition procedure;
• general requirements for the quality system of the com-
pany, comparable with and based on the ISO 9002
standard and the requirement of HACCP level, in or-
der to make the quality assurance proactive and demon-
strable;
• a number of generic control measures in the production
process related to the use of additives, medicines, un-
desirable substances and hygiene (salmonella). These
additional control measures are stipulated for the pro-
duction and supply of compound feed, pre-mixtures,

Feed Tech Volume 5, Number 3