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ESSA Renews its Commitment to Engage with Authorities and Continue to Providing Quality Products
Sprouted seeds constitute a wide variety of ready-to-eat food categories which are appreciated by consumers all over Europe.
Following the EHEC crisis in 2011, the European Institutions and national competent authorities have been concerned about the microbiological risk of freshly consumed sprouts. Therefore, a number of sprout growers united and created ESSA in 2012 to establish a network to improve and assist authorities in designing and implementing European legislative requirements, aiming to obtain better microbiological risk controls of fresh sprouts over the supply chain. Since the establishment of ESSA there has been substantial progress in food safety controls following the implementation and enforcement of different European Union regulations.
“This progress in food safety controls could have not been achieved without the positive cooperation between public and private sectors. The new EU legal framework properly addressed many concerns related to microbiological risks in sprouts production and has established a sound basis for further development of sprouts production practices and the market of sprouts”, explained ESSA President Michal Stanek. ESSA also developed the ESSA Hygiene Guideline in 2016 for the production of sprouts and seeds for sprouting.
Beyond ESSA’s work on topics related to hygiene and production practices of sprouts, ESSA is focusing its efforts on other important European policy objectives. ESSA welcomes the goals set by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in the Mission letter of Commissioner-designate (2019-2024) for Health Stella Kyriakides and wishes to renew its commitment on the following objectives:
Implementation and enforcement of the extensive legislation in the areas of food safety and plant health. Support and continuous guidance to Member States on implementation and take swift action if EU law is breached. Audits will be a crucial tool for this, notably to ensure that food imports meet EU safety standards.
New ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy for sustainable food. This will cover every step in the food chain from production to consumption, and feed into European Union’s circular economy objectives.
Protection of plant health, reducing dependency on pesticides and stimulating the take-up of low-risk and non-chemical alternatives.
Develop a strategy with concrete measures against food fraud.
ESSA and its members commit to working closely with the European Commission and the EU National Authorities to ensure that:
existing legislation is implemented appropriately, and the new legislation is developed to achieve a sustainable and reliable food safety systems;
the EU consumers are provided with a natural, healthy and high quality product;
appropriate measures are taken to prevent food fraud.
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