Data management

“Data structure monitoring” project

Until now a data communication procedure was used in the official monitoring in Germany which corresponded with the state of technical development in the 90s but its rigid structure no longer fulfils current requirements. It is the amount of data which is pushing the existing system to its limits. In 2000 only 800,000 data sets were reported, by 2015 this number had increased to 10 million data sets. Aside from that, the system was not designed for the numerous requirements which have been added in the past few years, due to the restructuring of the Food and Feed Law in Europe, for the federal states to report to the federal government and the EU. Against this background, a new and modern technical basis for the data communication for monitoring and consumer protection is currently being developed as part of the “data structure monitoring” project in the form of a data reporting portal and a catalogue portal and this is gradually being put into operation. Further information on the project can be obtained from the presentation in the sidebar.

Data reporting portal

The BVL gathers, maintains and utilises data from official food monitoring and the veterinary offices of the federal states. Food monitoring programmes are designed, extended or adjusted on the basis of this data. All datasets are uploaded to the data reporting portal, inspected and approved. Currently they are reported by the competent authorities in the federal states in a uniform format. The reporting office maintains and updates the verification routines in the data reporting portal. Once the forwarded data is approved, it is available to the BVL for assessment.

Catalogue portal

Together with the federal states, the BVL has drawn up a coding catalogue for the data communication for fulfilling the reporting requirements to the European Commission from official food monitoring, veterinary offices and other relevant facilities. The catalogue is updated twice a year by the "Catalogue maintenance" subcommittee. In future it will be maintained online via the catalogue portal. The catalogues are available to interested trade professionals as a text version (PDF document); in addition to this catalogue version there is a database-supported version available to the establishments directly connected to the reporting system. The catalogues will also be published on the BVL homepage (here) during an transition period.

BLtU database and List of sprout producing companies

Businesses that manufacture, treat, or process foodstuffs of animal origin and place them on the market must be approved therefor by the competent Laender authorities, apart from specific exceptions. The same holds for sprout-producing companies. This takes account of the fact that these foodstuffs can easily be a source of microbiological or chemical risks. The businesses receive an approval number, which forms part of the identification mark they must print on the packaging of their products before they place them on the market. Consumers, commercial parties, and government food control authorities can tell by the identification mark in which EU Member State or German Land, and in which business the product was last processed or packaged. So, the identification mark plays a decisive role when foodstuffs of animal origin must be traced back to their source.

The Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) publishes the list of German approved businesses in its database entitled “Lists of German establishments approved for trade in foodstuffs of animal origin pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 (BLtU Database)” and, respectively, in the “List of sprout-producing establishments approved pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 852/2004”. The lists are permanently updated. Please find the link to these lists at the bottom of this page.

Dioxin database

The Dioxin database database is maintained by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (UBA), the data management is performed by the UBA and the BVL based on the division of labour. The database contains data and findings from various measuring programmes of the federal government and the federal states on dioxins, PCBs and other contaminants in the environment and in food and feed. It offers information for an expert audience as well as for data suppliers, users of authorities and research project administrators. The information is categorised by user group. The reports from various measuring programmes and prepared data summaries are publicly available. Individual data is only available to authorised users.