Health approval and declaration of handling of animal foodstuffs
Verified 09 August 2023 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)
Your establishment produces, handles or processes food of animal origin for human consumption. If they are delivered or sold directly to the consumer, you must make a declaration. If you sell them to other professionals, you must apply for a license.
Sale to consumers
Activity concerned
This is the activity of any operator of an establishment which produces, handles or stores food of animal origin intended for human consumption.
Foodstuffs containing ingredients of animal origin (meat, dairy products, fishery products, eggs, honey) are also concerned.
The operator must then conduct a handling declaration (and not one application for approval).
Establishments concerned
The establishment is concerned if it sells directly to the final consumer.
These are:
- Restaurant
- Food trade: butcher's shop, delicatessen, cheese shop, fish shop, caterer for example
- Large food retailer
- Shopkeeper in an open-air market
- Delivery of food products or carrying meals at home: caterer for example
- Farmer, including slaughter on the farm of poultry and lagomorphs (rabbits and hares)
- Transporter of animals or products of animal origin
- Food distribution charities (any free distribution)
The declaration does not cover the following activities:
- Primary production: rearing animals until slaughter, hunting, egg production until packaging, production of milk on the farm without packaging
- Activities carried out in the domestic setting (preparation of meals for family and friends)
- Activities requiring sanitary approval (sanitary approval is sufficient)
Please note
For the same activity, if an operator holds the health authorization in the context of a sale to professionals, he does not need to make the handling declaration in the case of a direct sale to the consumer.
The request must be made before the activity starts.
It is done either online or by post via a form.
Online
To complete the online process, you must use the following service:
By mail
The form must be downloaded, completed and printed.
Declaration on the handling of food of animal origin (paper form)
The producer of raw milk who sells it as such directly to the final consumer must make a application for authorization.
The authorization shall be granted without any limitation as to duration, quantity delivered to the consumer and distance to the market in relation to the establishment producing raw milk.
This request is made either online or by postal mail via a form.
Online
To apply for online authorization, you must use the following service:
On-line application for authorization for the production and placing on the market of raw milk
By mail
The operator shall download, complete and print the following form:
Application for authorization to produce and place on the market raw milk (paper)
Sale to professionals
Any establishment that markets toother professionals of products ofanimal origin must apply for a health approval.
This refers to any company that prepares, processes, handles or stores animal products or foodstuffs containing them (e.g. meat, cold cuts, meat-based ready meals).
Please note
Establishments selling directly to the final consumer are not covered by the health approval.
The establishments concerned by thehealth approval requirement are:
- Slaughterhouse or cutting plant, except for slaughter on the farm of poultry and lagomorphs (hares and rabbits)
- Cheese manufacturer or milk processing establishment
- Manufacturer of minced meat, meat products or preserved products of animal origin
- Freezer vessel and factory vessel, including a crustacean and mollusk cooking vessel
- Auction market or tidal market
- Wholesale market or wholesaler of food products containing products of animal origin
- Fresh product conditioner: milk collection center, egg packing center in particular
- A food establishment that sells cooked meals to intermediaries
Please note
The list of EC approved establishments on health security (who have this health approval) is available online.
Sanitary approval is not not obligatory for the following activities:
- Primary production (cultivation/rearing): rearing of animals until slaughter, hunting, production of honey, eggs until packaging, raw milk on the farm without packaging, collection of snails, for example
- Transport of animals or products of animal origin
- Manufacture of composite products by blending products of plant origin (in particular bread, semolina and vegetables) and products of animal origin already processed (ham, smoked salmon, cheese). For example, pizza, quiche, sandwich, paella.
- Retail sale or direct delivery to consumers (subject to the obligation to handling declaration of food of animal origin)
- Storage of products of animal origin at the place of production
The application must be filed at least 2 months before the start of the activity.
The health approval is issued by the prefecture to an establishment for a given activity.
If the company has several different activities, several approvals must be requested.
Approval shall be granted after a visit by an inspector of the departments of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The purpose of this visit is to verify the premises, equipment, proper functioning of the site and the application of the sanitary control plan (good hygiene practices, withdrawal/recall procedures in the event of a health alert, traceability system in particular).
FYI
The applicant may consult the Good Hygiene Practice (GBPH) Guide for its activity.
Of files type of request can be consulted on the website of the ministry of agriculture, in the My Approaches section (examples: dairy farm, creamer-cheese-ripener, delicatessen).
The list of documents to be provided with this request are available online.
The request is made either online or by post.
By mail
You must download, print and fill out the following form:
In mainland France:
Who shall I contact
Overseas:
Who shall I contact
Is a refusal possible?
Refusal is possible.
It can occur either as a result ofexamination of the file of application, or after a health inspection.
If the application file remains unanswered for more than 2 months, the file shall be considered rejected. You receive a acknowledgement administration from the date on which it receives your file. If documents are missing or are not in compliance, they will inform you and you will need to complete or correct them.
You get a license conditional, which shall not become final until after the visit of the health services. Approval may be refused if certain major non-conformities detected during the inspection are not corrected.
In some cases, the initial approval is no longer valid and the application has to be renewed.
The validity of the approval shall not be limited in time, but shall be renewed in case of change in theactivity.
These cases include:
- Manipulating a new product category not in the original list
- Exercise of a new business not in the original list
- Significant change to premises, their layout, equipment or their assignment
The renewal of the application shall be carried out in the same way as an initial application for approval.
The documents accompanying the application must again be provided in their modified, updated version.
The request can be made either online or by post.
Online
To complete the online request, you must use the following service:
By mail
You must download, print and fill out the following form:
In mainland France:
Who shall I contact
Overseas:
Who shall I contact
In the event of non-compliance with infrastructure, equipment or operational requirements, or of non-conformity of a product endangering the health of the consumer, approval may be suspended temporarily or withdrawn.
Example :
In the event of deterioration of the health conditions of the establishment, the inspection (during an inspection) must suspend the approval until the conformity has been repaired.
Following a withdrawal or suspension of the health approval, the establishment may no longer manufacture or place its products on the market.
All products of animal origin from an approved establishment must be identifiable by identification mark, also called sanitary stamp or health mark.
The identification mark is oval in shape.
It shall include the following:
- Country Code
- Department Number
- Number of the municipality
- Serial number in the municipality granted to the establishment
- EC acronym indicating that it is an EU countryEU: titleContent
This brand is called:
- Health mark on carcases, half-carcases and quarters in slaughterhouses of slaughtered animals for slaughter
- Sanitary stamp on other products
If the approved establishment produces both approved and non-approved foodstuffs, it may affix the same identification mark to both types of foodstuffs.
Please note
It should not be confused with the EMB code (also oval-shaped) which gives information on the packaging.
The retail trade may be exempted from authorization.
A retail operator who supplies food of animal origin to another local retail establishment (e.g. a caterer) may apply for a waiver of health approval.
The exemption is possible if the company provides a limited quantity per week of certain specified products.
Product Category | Maximum quantity that can be disposed of (per week) | |
|---|---|---|
if less than 30% of the total output of the establishment | if it represents more than 30% of the total output of the establishment | |
Heat-treated milks | 800 liters | 250 liters |
Dairy products | 250 kg | 100 kg |
Fresh meat from slaughter * | 800 kg | 250 kg |
Meat products, prepared meals, meat preparations, fresh meat of other species than butchery * | 250 kg | 100 kg |
Products based on shell eggs and/or raw milk which have undergone a sanitizing treatment other than dairy products | 250 kg | 100 kg |
Unprocessed fishery products (chilled or frozen, prepared or whole) | 250 kg | 100 kg |
Processed fishery products (salted, smoked, cooked) | 250 kg | 100 kg |
Snails (whole, prepared or processed) | 100 kg | 30 kg |
* except minced meat
The quantities indicated are cumulative between products belonging to different categories (e.g. possible delivery of 800 kg beef + 250 kg cold cuts).
The distance as the crow flies between the establishment of the beneficiary of the derogation and the supplied retail trade must not exceed 80 km (distance may be increased up to 200 km by prefectural decision, due to particular geographical constraints).
The request for exemption can be made either online or by post.
Online
To make the exemption request online, you must use the following service:
Online request for exemption from the health approval requirement
By mail
You must download, print and fill out the following form:
Derogation from the health approval requirement: declaration form (paper)
In mainland France:
Who shall I contact
Overseas:
Who shall I contact
Establishments processing and operating aquaculture must obtain animal health approval to be authorized to place aquaculture animals on the market.
A separate application must be submitted for each site on an aquaculture holding (farm or mollusk farming area).
The person responsible for the aquaculture operation and the mollusk farming areas must:
- Keep a record of all movements into and out of aquaculture animals, indicating their origin, destination, number or weight and size
- Record mortality in each epidemiological segment in relation to the type of production
- Implement good animal health practices to prevent the introduction and spread of diseases
- Collect the results of the animal health surveillance plan approved by the prefect. This collection makes it possible, on the basis of the analysis of the animal health risks for each type of production, to detect any unexplained and significant increase in mortality.
The operator must complete the following form:
Application for animal health approval for aquaculture
The form must be downloaded, printed, completed and sent to the Departmental Directorate of Population Protection (DDPP).
Who can help me?
Find who can answer your questions in your region
Health approval requirement
Conditions for the health approval and the declaration of food handling
Attachments for all types of application for approval in Annex II to the Order
Online service
Online service
Ministry of Agriculture
Ministry of Agriculture
Ministry of Agriculture
