working group food monitoring

Responsibility for food law was formerly assigned to the Federal Ministry of Health. In 2001, it was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, now the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. One of the main areas of work is cooperation with the European Union, as well as with the federal states in carrying out legislative, control, monitoring and information tasks. As part of consumer information and to improve the general flow of information, the Federal Government, in particular the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety BVL , and the federal states have since created various internet portals with different objectives, such as www.Lebensmittelklarheit.de or www.lebensmittelwarnung.de. Due to Germany’s federal structure, the federal states are responsible for conducting official food monitoring and testing. The advantages of these structures, such as taking regional conditions into account, must continue to be utilised. However, the disadvantages, which can also result from longer information channels, must be reduced and, in the interests of everyone, lead to even more effective food monitoring. The Federal Government and the federal states are therefore still called upon to optimise the organisation and to ensure the appropriate financial and staffing resources required for this in the future. The "food monitoring" working group of the Food Chemistry Society, a Division of the GDCh, most recently updated the compilation of the legal bases and organisational structures of food monitoring in the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009 and 2013. Since then, the development that had already begun towards pooling tasks by merging testing facilities has continued. The Länder of Berlin and Brandenburg merged their testing facilities to form the Berlin-Brandenburg State Laboratory – LLBB, Institute for Food, Pharmaceuticals and Animal Diseases, an institution under public law. This established the first cross-state testing facility in the Federal Republic. In North Rhine-Westphalia, five institutions under public law have now been founded, predominantly from state veterinary investigation offices and municipal or district chemical and food testing offices. In addition, the cooperation between the municipal testing offices of Düsseldorf and Mettmann continues. According to Table 1, official food monitoring and testing in all federal states except Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt is subordinate to a single ministry, generally the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs; in Berlin, it is subordinate to the Senate Department for Justice and Consumer Protection. Each covers a wide range of specialist fields in different combinations. In Saxony-Anhalt, the tasks were assigned to two ministries, and in Rhineland-Palatinate to four different ministries. The responsibilities of the individual ministries are determined by their departmental structures, which may change as a result of political decisions even during the respective legislative periods. On-site food monitoring in the German Armed Forces is carried out by medical officers, pharmacists licensed as food chemists and veterinarians from four monitoring offices responsible for public-law duties. Laboratory testing is carried out at the two Central Institutes of the Medical Service of the German Armed Forces in Kiel and Munich. Coordination of food monitoring and testing is the responsibility of the relevant specialist department at the Medical Service Command of the German Armed Forces in Koblenz. The supreme monitoring authority, and therefore also the contact point for the supreme health authorities of the Federal Government and the federal states, is located in the Armed Forces Command Department at the Federal Ministry of Defence. The reorganisation of the German Armed Forces, which is associated with a reduction in troop strength, also affects the number and locations of testing facilities. The organisational changes required for this have already been initiated or implemented. Table 2 shows that the establishment of state offices, state laboratories and state enterprises has now been pursued even further. The objective is to integrate testing and operational tasks even more comprehensively; these tasks frequently extend well beyond food testing and monitoring, against the background of increasing legal requirements and the need to avoid further cost increases for the Länder. The merger of testing facilities and the further pooling of tasks will make it necessary to expand or establish new cross-state cooperation arrangements for specific testing priorities, such as the North German Cooperation NoKo. The Food and Feed Code (LFGB) of 1 September 2005 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 2618), which replaced the former Act on the Trade in Foodstuffs, Tobacco Products, Cosmetic Products and Other Consumer Goods (LMBG), regulates the trade in food, consumer goods, cosmetics and feed. Tobacco products were separated out; initially, the Provisional Tobacco Act, which was derived from the previous LMBG, applied to them, and since May 2016 a new Tobacco Products Act has applied, serving in particular to implement new legislation at EU level. The legal provisions in the federal states must continue to be adapted to the changed legal situation and organisational changes, meaning that Table 3 will also have to be updated in the future. Table 4 summarises all regulations concerning the professional title of "food chemists" and the training and examination of state-certified food chemists. With the exception of Bremen, all federal states have training and examination regulations for food chemists. In the German Armed Forces, food chemists are trained in cooperation with the federal states on the basis of the respective training and examination regulations and guidelines of the German Armed Forces. References
1.Brockmann, A. Lebensmittelchemie 63, 90 – 97 (2009)
2.Brockmann, A., Lohs, P. Lebensmittelchemie 60, 105 – 136 (2006)
3.Lohs, P., Brockmann, A. Lebensmittelchemie 56, 68 – 74 (2002) As at: 1 January 2016 Authors’ address
Anneliese Brockmann
Eggeweg5
33813 Oerlinghausen

Annette Neuhaus
Arminiusweg 23
32760 Detmold