EU food safety legislation establishes a cascade of methods that must be used for official control purposes. Preference is given to methods that comply with internationally recognized rules or protocols, like those described in CEN publications. Therefore, a majority of European Standards and other deliverables developed by CEN in the area of Food and Agriculture are supported by mandates, also known as standardization requests, from the European Commission.
The two primary technical committees working in this field are: CEN/TC 275 ‘Food analysis - Horizontal methods’ and CEN/TC 327 ‘Animal feeding stuffs - Methods of sampling and analysis’. The standards they develop enable regulatory authorities to determine if animal feeds on the market comply with the legal requirements laid down in the Regulation (EC) 882/2004, on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules.
CEN/TC 338 ‘Cereal and cereal products’ is the dedicated technical body responsible for the work on the standardization of test and characterisation methods for cereals and cereal products, including physical, chemical, biochemical and physico-chemical methods and pending sampling methods. The development of a corpus of common analytical rules, accepted and recognized by all stakeholders, contributes to facilitate the trade exchanges within the European Community for cereals and cereal products.
2017 saw the creation of the new, CEN/TC 454 ‘Algae and algae products’. This technical committee standardizes specifications, classification, terminology and determination methods for algae (genera) and algae-based products immediately derived from or used in algae production processes. This work is financed by the European Commission and EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and supports the Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC), which establishes an overall policy for the production and promotion of energy from renewable sources in the EU. The work is further sub-divided and covers practical applications, such as for the food and feed sector, cosmetics, and biofuels, amongst others. The current work programme mainly focuses on food and feed applications, by standardizing, amongst others, analytical methods for contaminants and nutrients.
CEN/TC 463 ‘Microbiology of the food chain’ continues to develop standards in full cooperation with ISO (under the Vienna Agreement) and works in close contact with the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety in order to establish priority areas for standardization. Besides the continuous works to improve standards, studies to improve the pre-enrichment step will also be conducted.
A new technical committee, CEN/TC 466 ‘Circularity and recyclability of fishing gear and aquaculture equipment’ was established in 2020 in order to address the future Standardization Request on Fishing gear, in support of Directive (EU) 2019/904. The technical committee is in charge of developing standard(s) for circular design of fishing gear, which should provide the level playing field for the industry to develop a higher quality and environmentally friendly fishing gear that is easily reused or recycled at the end of its life and will provide the industry the opportunity to act sustainably for a healthier planet.
Since 2019, CEN/TC 460 ‘Food authenticity’ has been the world's first standardization committee to cover and focus only on aspects relating to targeted and non-targeted analytical methods for testing food authenticity. This also includes data evaluation, including validation concepts and terms and definitions. The work supports Regulation (EU) 2017/625 and makes an important contribution to increasing European consumer safety, protection against food fraud and confidence in foodstuffs in general. There is close cooperation with several vertical CEN and ISO committees in order to establish and harmonize the procedures and standards worldwide.
