Food Control Consultants (FCC) provides advice on veterinary public health and animal health issues for Competent Authorities and the food industry, including milk, meat and fish processing plants, as well as dairy plants and slaughterhouses.
Assessments of food safety, hygiene and food processing control
FCC offers its expertise in areas such as animal welfare, animal feed, veterinary border controls and veterinary medicines.
The company provides assessments and advice on food safety, hygiene issues and veterinary public health.
FCC creates and audits systems, including pre-requisite programmes, HACCP and other internal control issues for customers in the member states and non-EU countries exporting to the EU market.
The Scotland-based company provides advice and lectures to governments and agencies, as well as individual companies.
FCC is steadily increasing, with the number of assignments completed rising, along with its expansion into new areas, including cost-benefit analysis, animal identification and movement control databases.
Food and veterinary systems assessment
The company carries out assessments of food safety systems based on methods developed by the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) and the World Organisation for animal health (OIE). FCC then offers recommendations based on local conditions and requirements.
EU regulation compliance for meat
Compliance assessment is a key service for clients producing food of animal origin in the EU and in non-EU countries exporting to the EU.
Food establishment planning and construction advice
FCC provides advice for the planning and construction of food establishments, such as slaughterhouses, meat, dairy and fish processing plants, including project management during construction, installation and initial production phases.
Draft legal frameworks for food safety and hygiene
The company offers draft legal framework development services for food safety, veterinary public health, veterinary medicinal products, animal health and animal feed. Assistance with the implementation of such legislation is an integral part of this service.
Artisan slaughter equipment and bacteria sampling
FCC presents a range of equipment, including a new slaughter technique for artisan slaughter, which is compliant with EU requirements. Using this method, the hygiene quality of meat is greatly improved. The equipment is designed for slaughtering cattle in small slaughterhouses.
The company also offers equipment for the standardised sampling of bacteria from surfaces, used to sample meat surfaces, walls, floors and equipment.
Advice for controlling import of live animals and animal products
FCC provides advice to authorities for the best implementation of EU rules applicable to checking imports of live animals and animal products from non-EU countries into the EU.
The company also offers inspection and assessment of border inspection facilities.
Internal food establishment controls assessment
FCC conducts assessments of internal controls, including traceability, microbiological criteria, pre-requisite programmes and HACCP, in food establishments processing food of animal origin, which is an integral part of food supervision.
Inspection tools for animal and veterinary public health
FCC has developed a range of inspection tools using handheld devices linked to a central database via mobile networks or local area network (LAN).
The web-enabled system is platform independent and can be quickly installed and tailored to exact local specifications. This application of state-of-the-art information technology improves inspection practice and consistency, and is be the basis for risk-based inspection regimes.
The inspection tools are fully compliant with current EU and national legislation.
In addition to its role within food businesses, the inspection system can be used to record farm livestock data in a database and manage records of animal treatments, diseases, slaughter, restrictions on movement and the sale of animal products, providing the data for risk-based inspection at ante and post-mortems.