Guidance: Cheese recovery guidance

This guidance has been developed by the Food Standards Agency in conjunction with Dairy UK Ltd and food authority and industry stakeholders, who provided details of current practices. The guidance was also informed by information on some of the handling and manufacturing processes employed by companies who use recovered cheese as a raw material. It aims to assist the dairy industry and local authorities to ensure that cheese recovery is carried out in accordance with the food hygiene legislation. 

In the context of this guidance, the term ‘cheese recovery’ covers the handling of the following types of cheese and their preparation and/or processing for human consumption:

All references to legislation refer to assimilated legislation in England and Wales and equivalent EU legislation in Northern Ireland (NI).

Establishments involved in cheese recovery operations must be approved under the terms of regulation (EC) 853/2004 and the approval needs to clearly specify the cheese recovery activities undertaken. HACCP plans and procedures, records and raw material specifications must demonstrate clearly how hazards associated with cheese recovery are controlled by the food businesses and that raw materials are fit for human consumption. In addition, appropriate traceability arrangements must be in place in keeping with article 18 of regulation (EC) 178/2002.

The FSA has given advice to enforcement authorities that the use of ‘floor sweepings’ in the food chain is wholly unacceptable, regardless of any further sorting or processing to which the sweepings may be subjected. Such material must be disposed of in accordance with regulation (EC) 1069/2009 on animal by-products and other relevant waste or environmental legislation. Advice is available from the Defra website for England, Scotland and Wales and from the DAERA website for Northern Ireland.