An analysis by the European Commission has found national authorities are largely doing enough to ensure companies are complying with the rules, but there are areas for improvement. A report covers data submitted by European countries on their official controls and related EU Commission activities in 2022. In 2022, there were 16.
4 million businesses within the scope of official controls and national authorities carried out around 5 million controls on them. These checks identified 1.2 million non-compliances, leading to more than 476,000 administrative penalties and 12,100 legal actions.
More than 1 million controls were carried out at both food service and food wholesale levels. Non-compliances were mainly found in food service and animal transport. Penalties were mostly applied in food service and food wholesale.
Non-compliances and penalties for microbiological criteria were highest in the fresh meat and meat product sectors. For pesticide residue issues, fruit and vegetables was the main category. For irradiation of food, 85 non-compliances were identified, leading to 63 administrative penalties and one case of legal action.
Reasons for non-compliance include ignorance of legislation by businesses and, in some cases, intentional misconduct. Problems mentioned include food hygiene issues, following documented procedures, and self-control systems, and labeling. Factors impacting controls National authorities only provided limited information on controls targeting fraudulent.
