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For Your Information: F7/06 European Union: Production Date Range

New Zealand Food Safety Authority
Date: 22 November 2006
From: Phil Ward, Market Access Counsellor (Europe)

1 Use of date range on EU simplified export certificates

1.1 Consignments have been detained recently in the UK because the production start and end dates did not appear on any of the packaging labels. The label dates were within the range shown on the export certificate. The export certificate was considered to be inaccurate.

1.2 Products on a source eligibility document are sometimes split between shipping containers. The ED production dates are copied across to the health certificates for each container and the original date range is often left intact even though the range in each container will be narrower.

1.3 E-cert has a date override facility. The operator, when raising a new eligibility document or export certificate, can reduce the date range supplied by the source eligibility document to match the sub lot. The requirements do not specifically state that this facility must be used but, by default, non-use results in inaccurate documentation. Operators should be using this facility whenever consignments are split.

Disclaimer: This ‘For Your Information’ is intended for use as a guideline only and should not be taken as definitive or exhaustive. NZFSA endeavours to keep this information current and accurate. However, it may be subject to change without notice. NZFSA will not accept liability for any loss resulting from reliance on this information.