A year long trial of stricker animal feed transportation checking will start  July 1, Transport & Logistics Netherlands (TLN) and Product Board Animal Feed (PDV) has announced.

The certification body will no longer announce checks up to 24 hours in advance. In addition a certification body will check more bulk wagons at the gate so that checks can be carried out more effectively. The expectation is that this will reduce the costs for the carrier.

The trial will last for one year. If the trial is successful then the GMP Regulation on Transport will be modified accordingly. The stricter regime arises from a protocol drawn up by TLN for animal feed transport by road. In the meantime TLN and PDV will make use of the stricter regime to harmonize the GMP Regulation for Transport with European branch organizations in the transport sector. A total of 2,100 carriers are GMP-certified, of whom 961 are in the Netherlands.

Transport & Logistics Netherlands and the Product Board Animal Feed have also determined that the vast majority of companies comply with the quality requirements that have been adopted in the GMP Regulation. This is in contrast to recent reporting about structural problems in the transport of animal feeds.

Both organizations have also observed that there are however some who do not keep to the rules. In the transport sector in the Netherlands and in Germany a total of 13 GMP certificates were suspended in 2004 and 3 were permanently withdrawn. TLN and the Product Board Animal Feed therefore call on all companies to report irregularities to the Product Board. This enables specific action to be taken against those companies that do not keep to the rules and therefore compete unfairly.

More information: PDV website