This Regulation covers the procedures and principles related to the self-checks conducted by food business operators, as well as the specific hygiene requirements and the responsibilities of food business operators producing unprocessed and processed food of animal origin. This Regulation does not apply to food containing both products of plant origin and processed products of animal origin. However, processed products of animal origin used to prepare such food shall be obtained and handled in accordance with the requirements stated in this Regulation. The Regulation repeals the Specific Hygiene Rules for Foods of Animal Origin, which was published in the Official Gazette dated 27 December 2011 and numbered 28155.
The main amendments include following issues:
• The requirement to apply a special health mark has been abolished;
• The collagen and gelatine production process, for gelatine and collagen are regulated; • Specific hygiene requirements have been established for some highly refined products (such as chondroitin sulphate, hyaluronic acid, other hydrolysed cartilage products, chitosan, glucosamine, rennet, amino acids permitted as food additives);
• Regulations have been made regarding special requirements for echinoderms by excluding the classified production areas of echinoderms that do not filter feed from the relevant provisions;
• An exemption from the obligation to cool carcasses to 7 °C in the slaughterhouse before transport has been provided and additional rules have been introduced regarding the conditions of this exemption;
• Young cattle and young sheep for rennet production without cleaning after emptying their rumen has been introduced, and transporting the feet and heads from the slaughterhouse to an approved facility without skinning or boiling to remove hair to be converted into food has been introduced;
• Regulations and slaughter rules have been introduced regarding the number of animals slaughtered on the farm;
• Rules have been determined for retail food business operators to be able to freeze meat for food donation purposes in accordance with the specified conditions;
• The bodies of hunted wild game animals must be transported to a collection centre before being transported to a game processing facility, and special hygiene rules have been introduced for the procedures at collection centres;
• The intermediary operator definition has been made and rules have been regulated regarding the model of the shipping document for the movement of live bivalve molluscs between enterprises and the application that batches of bivalve molluscs can also be sent to intermediate operators;
• Health standards for live bivalve molluscs have been regulated;
• Sale of farm-slaughtered poultry to the end consumer or local retailer;
• An amendment was made to increase the delivery time of eggs to the end consumer from 21 days to 28 days;
• Fat derivatives and sweeteners obtained from products of animal origin have been added to the list as highly refined products and certain special hygiene rules have been regulated;
• The infrastructure and imaging systems required to digitally track slaughtered animals have been added to the requirements section for slaughterhouses.
This Regulation has been prepared for the compliance with the EU legislation (853/2004/EC).
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