Sanitary inspection is the core of the state-control system in the sphere of food safety: inspection is the only mechanism carried out without prior warning to the business operator. On this page we explain the types of state control, the six mechanisms and the principles under which the authorized person works — so that your enterprise's readiness is assessed in the correct frame.
Types of State Control
The law defines three types: food/animal-feed safety control, which serves to determine compliance with safety and labelling requirements and with the requirements for supplying information to the consumer; veterinary control, which determines compliance with requirements in the sphere of veterinary medicine; and phytosanitary control, covering phytosanitary requirements in plant protection. The three types are three directions of one system.
Inspection — Without Prior Warning
The mechanisms of state control are six: inspection, monitoring, supervision, documentary check, sampling and audit. Inspection stands apart: during it, individual aspects of the production, processing and distribution stages of food are examined to determine compliance with requirements and rules, without prior warning to the business operator. Inspection includes checking the operator's activity at those stages, a documentary check and, by the established procedure, the taking of samples with examinations in an accredited laboratory. The agency may delegate individual tasks to a controlling body — on condition of a precise description of the tasks and the body's impartiality and freedom from conflict of interest; the controlling body must be accredited by the corresponding body of Georgia or of a member country of the European Union or the OECD.
Monitoring and the Annual Program
Monitoring consists of pre-planned observations and measurements carried out within the annual program of state control. In developing the program the following factors must be taken into account: cases in previous years of food poisonings, intestinal infections, epidemics and other mass food-borne diseases among the population and animals; cases of microbiological, chemical or physical contamination; cases of environmental pollution; and cases of deceiving and misleading consumers. Within monitoring, samples are taken and laboratory examinations conducted, labels and presentation and storage conditions are checked, and documentary checks are performed. This means that an enterprise's risk history directly determines how often attention turns to it — preparation for the control year begins with an analysis of one's own incidents in past years.