The final two workshops in the 2009 food hygiene and controls programme are to take place on 28 September-2 October. A workshop on hygiene and controls for fishery products and live bivalve molluscs (LBM) takes place in Seville and Cadiz, while a workshop covering meat and meat products is to be held concurrently in Toulouse. The last workshop in the other module covered by the programme, on milk and dairy products, was held in Brescia, Italy on 14-18 September.

Both workshops should be attended by around 20 participants. They will mainly be national authority control staff of EU Member States and candidate countries involved in checking compliance with EU rules by food and feed businesses.

At its conclusion the entire programme will have trained some 300 people. The training should contribute to ensuring a uniform approach to official controls on hygiene of meat, fish and dairy products across the EU.

The workshop on fishery products includes presentations covering subjects such as organisation of official controls, food safety, hygiene requirements and control and management of LBM production areas. Participants will also visit a purification centre, a processing plant as well as auction halls, landing sites and fishing vessels.

The meat and meat products workshop includes visits to slaughterhouses and meat processing establishments. Amongst other subjects, presentations will be given on good hygiene practice in slaughterhouses, hygiene requirements, controls on primary production and animal transport and animal health and welfare considerations.

These are the last in a series of 15 workshops during 2009 of which five have taken place on each of the three main subject areas. Training in this area is set continue with a further programme to be launched from early 2010 and to run for two years.

Activity levels are to expand considerably during 2010-11 with eleven workshops to take place on each of the three subjects covered. It is expected that the programme will cater for around 750 participants in all.