The main objectives of the COCERAL GTP guide are transparency and commonality.
- By disclosing their activities in the food and feed chain operators in agricultural trade demonstrate awareness of their responsibilities with regard to food safety and consumer health and the readiness to assume them. The European GTP guide is conceived as a modular part of a quality management system covering the whole food and feed chain which should rebuild and maintain consumer confidence. The relevant codes of good practices for other activities should be elaborated by the operators active in the respective fields.
- Traders are particularly aware of the importance of common rules in an enlarging Single Market. Codes of good practices are currently proliferating endangering the free movement of goods by creating potential non-tariff barriers to trade and confusion amongst operators and consumers. Therefore, COCERAL endorsed the idea of one single guide for operators in the European Union .
The main principles of the European GTP guide are its voluntary nature, verification and certification by independent third parties and a quality management in accordance with the HACCP principle.
The current version of the European GTP guide,version November 2008, can be found in English:
GTP Guide
In order to ensure independence, compliance with the European GTP guide is verified based on a checklist (see members area) by an inspection firm accredited under the standards EN 45011 (ISO 65) and/or EN 45012 (ISO 62) with relevant expertise in the food and feed sector. These inspection firms are published here.
Once a trader has been successfully verified he should send the confirmation letter with the verification report to the national member organisation concerned with matters related to the European GTP guide listed under: http://www.coceral.com/cms/beitrag/10012920/260620
After having checked the documentation received, the national member sends a copy of the confirmation letter to the COCERAL Secretariat. The COCERAL Secretariat then sends the official logo with the registration number to the operator. The certification of the trader is only valid if the registration number given in the logo and the name of the company is listed under http://www.coceral.com/cms/ziel/228196/EN/
Verification and certification of operators must be done annually.
For additional information, please contact a national member organisation of COCERAL or the COCERAL Secretariat .
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