Manual for official controls
Legal requirements and standards for approved meat establishments.
Once your premises have been approved, you will find the Manual for Official Controls (MOC) beneficial for further information.
The MOC describes the tasks, responsibilities and duties of our staff carrying out official controls in approved establishments.
Manual for Official Controls guidance
The Manual for Official Controls documentation is accurate as of 3 July 2023. Recent changes to the MOC can be found in the revision log.
Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, officials from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) carry out meat hygiene official controls in approved establishments on behalf of us in Northern Ireland.
The MOC describes the tasks, responsibilities and duties of DAERA officials carrying out official controls in approved establishments on behalf of us. This is maintained and updated by DAERA and can be found on their website.
EU references in FSA guidance documents
The FSA is updating all EU references, to accurately reflect the law now in force, in all new or amended guidance published since the Transition Period ended at the end of 2020. In some circumstances it may not always be practicable for us to have all EU references updated at the point we publish new or amended guidance.
Other than in Northern Ireland, any references to EU Regulations in this guidance should be read as meaning retained EU law. You can access retained EU law via HM Government EU Exit Web Archive. This should be read alongside any EU Exit legislation that was made to ensure retained EU law operates correctly in a UK context. EU Exit legislation is on legislation.gov.uk.
In Northern Ireland, EU law will continue to apply in respect to the majority of food and feed hygiene and safety law, as listed in the Northern Ireland Protocol, and retained EU law will not apply to Northern Ireland in these circumstances.
England and Wales
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Manual for Official Controls revision log
The following revisions to Manual for Official Controls documentation have been made as of 3 July 2023.
Chapter 1
- Section 3.3.3 Added section on daybook security
- Section 4.1.2 Additional paragraph explaining how the FSA will decide whether to remove dual enforcement OPOAO.
Chapter 2.1
- Section 2.1.12 Added information about failures in the Salmonella testing window.
Chapter 2.3
- Section 1.2.11 Code of practice for meat chickens
Section 3.3.1 Updated guidance on referral
Section 3.3.2 revised DOA guidance and separate red and white meat animals
Section 3.3.4 Added procedure for heavily pregnant animals
Section 3.3.5 Added and revised guidance on FPD
Section 6.1.3 Added in guidance on dealing with animals unfit for human consumption and killing
Section 6.1.5 Added link to FDQ modules
Section 6.1.7 Added link to FDQ modules
Section 6.2.3 Changes to the CoC table, entries 14, 15 and 16
Chapter 2.4
- Section 13.2.5 Added a reference to the Poultry SHV checklist and the retention time for this.
Chapter 2.5
- Sections 1.1.3, 2.9.1, 2.9.2,2.9.4, 3.2.1, 4.,1.1, 4.4.4, 4.5.1, 4.10.4, and 5.2.2 Wording aligned with the requirements in Regulation 2019/627, Article 43
Section 2.11 Clarified identification requirements for pigs and of OV instructions in case issues are identified
Chapter 2.6
- Section 2.14 Added poor quality samples notification and required action
- Section 3.17.4 Added poor quality samples notification and required action.
Chapter 2.8
- Section 1.2.6 Added detail of two scenarios where ART 29 may apply to food businesses, which were missing from this part of the instructions.
Section 1.5.4 Clarified the need to stain decomposed cat 3, not to downgrade to cat 2
Section 4.1.1 Updated as in 1.2.6 above for consistency
Section 5.3.1 Clarified how to serve an ABP notice
Section 5.5 SLA with APHA to trace ABPs is no longer in place, replaced by a "reporting agreement" where the Officer can report concerns around ABP destination to APHA
Section 5.5.3 Deleted the table as the SLA is no longer in place
Annex 1 ABP 31 form removed
Chapter 2.10
- addition of Section 3: Inspection in co-located cutting plants
addition of Annex 5: Risk based decision tool for inspections to co-located cutting plants
addition of Annex 6: Guidance for the completion of the co-located cutting plant inspection report.
Chapter 3
- Annex 10: RMOP updated with section C4 and F4
- Annex 11: added and revised guidance on E. Coli official sampling
Chapter 4.1
- Section 4.7.3 amended guidance in relation to the need of UAIs in co-located CPs that are operating both on slaughter and non-slaughters days.
- Section 5.2.2 ''No critical during audit period'' added
Chapter 4.2
- Section 2.4.2 Removed SRM references as a hazard
Section 2.5.2 Removed SRM controls reference to CCP
Section 2.6.2 Remove SRM reference to critical limits
Chapter 6
- Section 2.2.9 Flow chart of procedure for suspect ND amended to match wording in previous sections
Section 8.2.2 Repeated sentence deleted
Section 8.4.2 Amended responsibility to reflect changes in SDP management structure
Section 8.4.3 Amended reference to Designation section
Section 8.7 Detailed description of FSA duties
new Annex 33 OV-FSA team checks during AI outbreak added
Chapter 7
- Section 2.5.12 Correction of reference number and spelling correction
- Section 4.1.2.3 Formatting changes
- Section 4.10.2 Addition of text to explain correct process for escalating repeat RFIs
- Section 5 Amended guidance around risk based enforcement and the use of the ENF11/29
- Annex 12 Removal of residual comment, blank page removed and page numbering adjusted. Addition of table to define Status options.
Chapter 9
- Section 2.6 DH ENF 11-6 updated to reflect changes in email address
- Section 2.7 ENF 11-6 updated to reflect change in email address
Chapter 10
- Section 3.4.5 Corrected retention period for ''Verification of competency'' form
- Section 3.6.1 Corrected retention period for PIA PM-1 form
Revision log
Published: 11 April 2018
Last updated: 7 August 2023