CHAPTER I: GENERAL OBLIGATIONS

Member States shall ensure that official controls are carried out regularly, on a risk basis and with appropriate frequency, so as to achieve the objectives of this Regulation taking account of: identified risks associated with animals, feed or food, feed or food businesses, the use of feed or food or any process, material, substance, activity or operation that may influence feed or food safety, animal health or animal welfare; feed or food business operators' past record as regards compliance with feed or food law or with animal health and animal welfare rules; the reliability of any own checks that have already been carried out; and any information that might indicate non-compliance. Official controls shall be carried out without prior warning, except in cases such as audits where prior notification of the feed or food business operator is necessary. Official controls may also be carried out on an ad hoc basis. Official controls shall be carried out at any of the stages of production, processing and distribution of feed or food and of animals and animal products. They shall include controls on feed and food businesses, on the use of feed and food, on the storage of feed and food, on any process, material, substance, activity or operation including transport applied to feed or food and on live animals, required to achieve the objectives of this Regulation. Official controls shall be applied, with the same care, to exports outside the Community, to the placing on the market within the Community, and to introductions from third countries into the territories referred to in Annex I. Member States shall take all necessary measures to ensure that products intended for dispatch to another Member State are controlled with the same care as those intended to be placed on the market in their own territory. The competent authority of the Member State of destination may check compliance of feed and food with feed and food law by means of non-discriminatory checks. To the extent strictly necessary for the organisation of the official controls, Member States may ask operators who have goods delivered to them from another Member State to report the arrival of such goods. If, during a check carried out at the place of destination or during storage or transport, a Member State establishes non-compliance, it shall take the appropriate measures, which may include re-dispatch to the Member State of origin.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-01 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.