Food safety first priority NVWA

In 2019, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) will devote 52% of its available supervisory capacity to food safety. This is stated in NVWA's annual plan for 2019, which was presented to the Lower House of Parliament on 24 December by the Ministers of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) and Medical Care and Sport (MZS).

Since the total budget of the NVWA in 2019 remains more or less the same at approximately 350 million, the NVWA makes choices in subjects on which more or less effort will be made in the coming year. In the area of food safety, the NVWA has opted in 2019 for a reinforcement in the area of special food and drink products (e.g. food for medical use, baby food, novel foods, food supplements and mention of nutrition and health claims) and investigations in the area of (food) fraud by the Intelligence and Investigation Service of the NVWA (NVWA-IOD). Other subjects on which the NVWA is particularly focused are animal welfare (pilot projects with camera surveillance in slaughterhouses) and strengthening digital surveillance and increasing knowledge about Internet trade. This extra effort is mainly at the expense of the number of inspections at catering establishments. The NVWA makes this choice because the intensity of supervision in the catering industry is the highest in comparison with other sectors.

Companies responsible

NVWA's monitoring of food safety goes far beyond the monitoring of foodstuffs sold to consumers. The supervision of, for example, antibiotic use, animal feed, the slaughter process, animal by-products and the production of foodstuffs also contributes to ensuring that our food is safe. Food producing companies and food companies are primarily responsible for the safety of the food they produce themselves.

In addition to food safety and animal welfare, the NVWA will of course continue to supervise animal health, plant health, product safety, nature legislation and tobacco legislation in 2019.