Health and food safety

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Medicated feed

Summary
Evaluation
Commission Proposal
Legal Act
Implementation

Overall state of play:

Commission proposal adopted on 10 September 2014, COM (2014) 556
Legal act adopted on 11 December 2018, Regulation (EU) 2019/4; Application on 28 January 2022.

State of play, main conclusions, outlook

The modernisation of the outdated Directive for production and use of medicated feed will remove barriers due to different national manufacturing rules. It will reduce administrative burden and compliance costs for the industries, allow the use of medicated feed in EU livestock farming at more competitive prices and open up an important innovation potential in novel medicated feed (pet food). In addition, the Commission proposal addressed the issue of antimicrobial resistance by tackling the misuse of antimicrobials.

Estimated savings and benefits

It is expected that the new Regulation, once applied, would result in cost savings in medicated feed production of EUR 12 million.

The gross margin increase due to better market access and innovation would reach EUR 30 million (short term, conservative estimate, midterm far beyond). The new proposal would also incur a reduction of resources/ administrative burden (not quantified) for industry directly and midterm for competent authorities.

State of Play:

Adopted; COM (2014) 556, adopted by the Commission on 10 September 2014

Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

The proposal aimed at a smooth functioning of a competitive and innovative internal market for medicated feed and a high level of protection of animal and public health.

It intended to:

• Make medicated feed available to farmers and pet owners at a competitive price;

• Harmonise manufacturing standards;

• Reduce production costs due to the possibility for anticipated production of medicated feed (before the concrete prescription is available);

• Remove national barriers for innovative, "novel" medicated feed.

SMEs would benefit from:

• More legal clarity on residues of veterinary medicines in feed;

• Less administrative burden to cope with different national standards for manufacturing medicated feed;

• Market potentials in new applications such as medicated pet food.

Estimated savings and benefits

The costs and economic benefits are not evenly distributed over EU as the status quo is diverging: In those parts with currently few rules for manufacturing of medicated feed, an increase in production costs of roughly EUR 20 million can be expected. In the rest of the EU expected cost savings will be over EUR 30 million.

The expected benefit of the innovation potential is in the short term in the order of EUR 30 million but can reach mid term several hundred million.

State of Play:

Legal act adopted on 11 December 2018, Regulation (EU) 2019/4
Application on 28 January 2022

Outcome of Legislative Procedure

The Council and European Parliament agreed to allow generally the anticipated production of medicated feed (i.e. before the specific veterinary prescription is available at the manufacturer) as originally proposed by the Commission. This will enable feed manufacturers, mainly SMEs, to benefit from economies of scale in the production of medicated feed as they will be able to increase production batches and will have to change the labelling of feed less frequently.

Moreover, the Council and European Parliament allowed the anticipated production of medicated feed under the cascade intended for aquaculture species (the cascade system allows the administration to a species of veterinary medicines authorised for other species). This will further increase the positive economic effects compared to the initial Commission's proposal as the potential for the economies of scale will be expanded.

Estimated savings and benefits

No updated estimates are available.