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Jacob de Jong(1) and Aletta Debernardi(2)
1 CEN/TC 327 chair, RIKILT- Institute of Food Safety (RIKILT, Wageningen, NL)
2 CEN/TC 327 secretariat, Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut (NEN, Delft, NL)

Industry, trade, national governments and the European Commission have an interest in good quality animal feed controlled in a reliable way. This is not only a common market interest. Also the interests of food safety, public health, animal health and environment play an important part. When purchasing, producing or selling animal feeding stuffs or feed materials in the common market, validated and agreed methods are needed for a uniform judgement of conformity of products to the requirements, in particular in the frame­work of Quality Assurance, integral control of the production chain and for regulatory control.

In the European Union and the European Economic Area, European Standards can play an important role in harmonizing the national standards of the member states and in meeting the specific European demands of industry, trade and legislation. CEN is the organisation that is responsible for European standardization in a wide variety of sectors. One of the technical committees within CEN is the CEN/TC 327 “Animal Feedingstuffs – Methods of sampling and analysis”. The importance of European standardisation by CEN has been recognised by the European institutions: the Regulation (EC/882/2004) on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules (OJ L165, 30.4.2004, p. 1) states that, if community methods are not available, internationally recognised methods, e.g. CEN-methods should be applied.

CEN/TC 327 has restarted its activities in 2003 with a mandate from the European Commission (M 315), covering, among others, the drafting of methods for PCB’s, organochlorine pesticides, heavy metals (lead and cadmium) and aflatoxin B1. Recently, the second mandate to CEN was approved (M 382) and the corresponding contract has nearly been finalised. The second mandate covers, among others, methods for dioxins, several mycotoxins, heavy metals (mercury and arsenic), speciation of arsenic, hydrocyanic acid, fluoride, several coccidiostats, several probiotics and phytase. One of the most important requirements for standardization is the successful validation of a method by means of a full collaborative study. When necessary, this collaborative study is organised within the framework of the EC-mandates. Whenever possible, the HORRAT ratios are applied as a benchmark to measure the successful outcome of the collaborative study. 

CEN/TC 327 closely cooperates with CEN/TC 275 “Food analysis – Horizontal methods” and with ISO/TC 34/SC 10 “Animal Feedingstuffs”. Major stakeholders, viz. the European Commision (DG SANCO), FEFANA, IMA, EMFEMA and FEFAC are involved in the standardization process, both by setting the priorities and by means of active involvement in the standardization process itself. A liaison has also been established with AOAC International. CEN/TC 327 closely cooperates with the EC-Community Reference Laboratory (CRL) for feed additives authorisation. Recently, cooperation has also been established with the newly formed CRL’s for mycotoxins, heavy metals, dioxins and animal proteins.