What is FEFAC?

FEFAC (Fdration Europenne des Fabricant d'Aliments Composs, European Feed Manufacturers' Federation) is a federation made up of organisations representing the animal feed industry in the European Union Member States.

FEFAC is the only independent organisation entitled to represent these organisations in debates on the level of European Institutions. Poland is represented in FEFAC by the Chamber of Commerce ( Cereals and Animal Feed Chamber), whose members include more than 100 companies from the animal feed and processing industry. LNB Poland is one of them and Wodzimierz Szkudlarek , Chairman of the Management Board, and Jerzy Krajna , an animal feed technologist, are members of the Chamber's Council.

One of the basic tasks of FEFAC is to represent the interests of the European animal feed industry on the EU legislative level. Therefore, the structure of the organisation includes five committees specialising in different sectors of the industry and appointing experts from member organisations to participate in its activities. One of these is the Premix and Mineral Feed Committee with LNB's Jerzy Krajna working in the capacity of an expert. The Committee deals with problems involved in the manufacturing of premixes and mineral feed mixes, as well as a customer group manufacturing feed mixes for their own needs. Taking into account the fact that premixes are mostly mixtures of feed additives, the committee also participates in the works on the EU legal regulations concerning feed additives, actively cooperating with other organisations, including. FEFANA (European Association of Feed Additive Manufacturers) or EMFEMA (International Association of the European Manufacturers of Major, Trace and Specific Feed Mineral Materials).

Useful links
http://www.fefac.org
http://acn.waw.pl/grain
http://www.fefac.org/html/who.cfm

Report from the "ad hoc" meeting of a working team concerning feed additives and the implementation of the Regulation (EC) 183/2005.

1. Guidelines for the evaluation of feed additives

Presentation and discussion of the European Commission's draft guidelines concerning dossier submitted as part of the re-evaluation of notified feed additives that will take place in accordance with the Regulation 1831/2003. Joint endeavours of FEFANA and FEFAC will be aimed at an achievement of maximum simplicity of requirements - the Commission shall not require applicants to submit a full set of data, as it is the case with new additives, particularly concerning effectiveness testing. One must bear in mind that these additives have been in use for a long time and some of them, chiefly microelements, were developed in response to a demand of the animal feed industry. For some manufacturing plants, the production of microelements is a sideline business and there are fears that the plants may not be able to meet excessively rigorous demands. Attention must be given to the fact that test results concerning main species may be applied to minor species and that literature data can be used in the process of re-evaluation. Also, it is vital that categories be arranged more neatly and their number reduced.

2. Feed additive and feed material status

The results of a meeting with FEFAC representatives and dr Willem Penning (head of DGSANCO D1 section) were presented and discussed.
A clear distinction between a feed additive and feed material is difficult to make, particularly in the case of plant material extracts. An assumption can be made that if the feeding agent content in the finished product is not markedly (several times) higher than in the initial product, the product thus obtained (juice, extract, mash) can be regarded as a feed material. Condensed extracts will most probably be defined as feed additives and they will have to be registered as such. If a feed material is merely a carrier for an active substance, the product in question will be a feed additive (e.g. selenium-enriched yeast). It is vital to define a transitional period so that it will be possible to specify/change the status of products that currently function on the market as feed materials and thus avoid unnecessary Rapid Alert procedures, as in the case of Selplex which did not involve any food safety hazard.

3. Distinction between premix and supplementary feeding stuff

The majority of countries ( Poland included) still apply the principles laid down in Art. 12 of the Directive 70/524. Regulation 1831/2003 does not introduce a clear division line. In the opinion of some of the participants of the meeting, the excessively restrictive provisions of Art. 12 should be abolished and a distinction based on the share in the finished mixture should be introduced.

4. Implementation of the Regulation 183/2005 laying down requirements for feed hygiene

The Regulation will become effective within the EU at the beginning of the next year. It still requires additional clarifications and explanations, however in practice it will concern the inclusion of all feed production stages in the feed and food hygiene chain and it will require the implementation of HACCP-based quality assurance systems for all links in the chain. A number of countries have not, so far, prepared official requirements to this aim. Companies have implemented private systems (GMP, QS, etc.). Some countries have introduced official requirements, e.g. on the regional level.