EU Issues Export Certificate Requiring 400,000 SCC, But…

The European Union issued an Export Certificate this week requiring dairy products entering EU countries be made from milk with less than 400,000 cells/ml from individual dairy farms. The effective date on the certificate is December 1, 2010. In the past, the EU had accepted dairy products made from comingled tankers or silos with less than 400,000 cells/ml.

However, EU officials met with their U.S. Food and Drug Administration and USDA counterparts in Brussels, Belgium last week, and indicated that U.S. exporters will not be held to the Dec. 1 deadline. Instead, the EU and FDA have agreed to continue to work out details on exactly what will be required.

What is firm is the 400,000 cells/ml standard, which EU farmers are required to meet. But exactly how those cell count averages are determined remains unknown and needs to be worked out, says Jaime Castaneda, VP of Strategic Initiatives and Trade Policy for the National Milk Producers Federation.

FDA and the EU will exchange letters on how FDA plans to respond the requirement. “Hopefully, FDA will work with industry in determining the program and simply not tell us what we must do,” says Castaneda.

He also expects the FDA program to go through an expedited Federal rulemaking process, which will require publication in the Federal Register and a public comment period. Such a process could easily push the deadline into 2011.

“National Milk is committed to work with FDA to find a solution that is workable,” he says. But NMPF also reserves the right to challenge the EU requirement through a World Trade Organization case if the requirements are unreasonable, he adds.