How to register a food business: notification under Article 6 of Regulation 852/2004

What Article 6 requires

The core of the obligation is Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004: every food business operator notifies the appropriate competent authority, in the manner that the latter requires, of each establishment under its control that carries out any of the stages of production, processing and distribution of food, with a view to the registration of each such establishment Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. Registration is therefore a notification duty: the operator makes the activity known and the authority enters it in its lists. There is no prior conformity assessment and no issue of an enabling title that «certifies» the business. Its purpose is to let the authority know which establishments are active and to plan the official controls, which remain due irrespective of registration Article 6(1) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004.

Registration or approval: the decisive distinction

Registration (Article 6(2)) is the ordinary regime, applicable to establishments generally. Approval (Article 6(3)) is instead a distinct and more demanding act, normally requiring an on-site visit and an express decision of the authority: it is required only for the establishments for which Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 on food of animal origin so provides, or where national law requires it Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. In practice, establishments handling products of animal origin destined for other operators — slaughterhouses, cutting plants, dairies, meat or fishery product establishments — fall within the scope of Regulation 853/2004 Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 and need approval, not mere notification. The difference between the two, with the relevant criteria, is set out in registration vs approval. Confusing the two regimes is the costliest error: an operator that needed approval but merely registered is operating unlawfully.

What to notify and to whom

The Regulation lays down the principle — notify each establishment to the competent authority with a view to registration Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 — but expressly refers to national law for the operational arrangements: which body is the competent authority, on what form and with what data. The typical content of the notification concerns the identification of the operator, the location of the establishment and the nature of the activity (the types of production, processing or distribution carried out). Identifying the competent authority is a matter of national law: for Italy see the map of competent authorities. On the procedural side, in Italy the notification with a view to registration is made through a health SCIA submitted to the SUAP (the municipal one-stop shop for business activities), as illustrated in the page on registration by health SCIA.

When: before the activity starts

Registration is a precondition for operating: the notification must precede the start of the activity, because it is the notification itself that puts the authority in a position to know the establishment and to exercise controls. The moment of registration must be kept distinct from the obligations that accompany the running of the business — in particular the procedures based on the HACCP principles Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 — which must be in place when the activity begins. Primary responsibility for food safety remains with the operator Article 1(1) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, consistent with the general principle of food law Article 17(1) of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002.

Updates and cessation

The notification duty does not end at start-up. The same Article 6(2) requires the operator to ensure that the competent authority always has up-to-date information on establishments, by notifying any significant change in activities and the closure of an existing establishment Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. In practice, relevant variations must be notified — a change of ownership, an extension to new types of processing, a change of premises — as well as cessation of the activity, so that the official lists can be updated or the entry removed. Here too the procedure is the national one: in Italy it again runs through the SUAP.