Food Standards

Food production and trade are a complex, growing business. IDF work around food standards covers mostly the work of Codex Alimentarius on international standards for milk and milk products, to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in the food trade.

IDF has served as technical advisor to Codex since 1963, the year it was established, and strongly supported the now adjourned sine die Codex Committee on Milk & Milk Products, which originated from an IDF Committee of Experts, and which developed Codex Standards of Identity for dairy products.

Codex also develops a number of texts on food labelling, methods of analysis and sampling, food import and export, and certification systems that apply horizontally to all food products including milk and milk products.

Codex defines milk as follows: ‘Milk is the normal mammary secretion of milking animals obtained from one or more milkings without either addition to it or extraction from it, intended for consumption as liquid milk or for further processing’ (see Codex General Standard for the Use of Dairy Terms CXS 206-1999).

IDF also closely monitors the activities of other Codex Committees, including those involved in the development of new standards relevant to the dairy sector, texts or guidelines about safety practices applicable to dairy, as well as the use of terms and labelling in dairy products, and to ensure that regional standards do not negatively impact the International Codex standard within the dairy sector.