The Oval Identification Mark: What Is the Sanitary Approval Number For?

Pick up any pack of ham, cheese or smoked fish: you will find a small oval containing “FR”, a string of digits and “CE”. This discreet marking is the end point of the whole French sanitary approval procedure — and one of the most effective traceability tools in European food law. Here is what it means, who must apply it, and why it deserves professionals’ attention as much as curious consumers’.

What the oval says

The identification mark is required by regulation (EC) no. 853/2004: products of animal origin made or handled in an establishment subject to approval must bear it before being placed on the market. In France it reads as follows:

• FR: the code of the country where the establishment is located;
• the approval number of the establishment, assigned when approval is granted — it is built from geographic codes (département, commune) followed by a serial number, which makes the establishment traceable;
• CE: the mention indicating the establishment operates within the European Union’s regulatory framework.

The message is precise: this product comes from an approved, identified and inspected establishment. No more, no less. The mark does not attest the origin of raw materials (an “FR” smoked salmon may be smoked in France from Norwegian fish), nor superior quality: it is an establishment identifier, not a label.

Who must apply it — and who must not

Applying the identification mark is the flip side of holding approval: it concerns approved establishments — processing plants, central kitchens, warehouses and other establishments handling animal-origin foods destined for other businesses. The number inside the oval is the one assigned at the end of the procedure described in our guide obtaining sanitary approval step by step.

Conversely, establishments not subject to approval have no oval mark: a restaurant or butcher selling directly to consumers, or a shop operating under the exemption from approval, has none — logically, since the mark embodies the very approval they do not hold. In short: no approval, no oval; and a supplier delivering processed animal products without an identification mark must be able to justify its regime (the exemption, for instance).

Each number is specific to a given establishment, for given activities. A multi-site company has one number per approved site; an establishment that changes operator or relocates has its situation re-examined.

A central link in traceability

The oval mark’s strength lies in its function within the chain: it physically ties each product to its establishment of manufacture. Combined with batch identification, it makes it possible to trace back within hours from a product on a shelf to the workshop that produced it — and forward to every customer supplied.

This is the mechanism at work in withdrawals and recalls: when a non-conformity is detected (microbiological contamination, foreign body, undeclared allergen), the approval number and batch numbers precisely delimit the affected products, the distribution channels involved and the measures to take. Without this marking, every alert would force massive, indiscriminate withdrawals.

The scientific literature confirms how decisive these mechanisms are. The study by M. M. Aung and Y. S. Chang, “Traceability in a food supply chain: Safety and quality perspectives”, published in 2014 in Food Control, shows that the ability to identify a product’s exact origin conditions both recall speed and trust in the food chain (see the study). And the comparative analysis by S. Charlebois and co-authors, “Comparison of Global Food Traceability Regulations and Requirements” (Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 2014), ranks the European Union among the world’s most advanced regulatory traceability systems — the approval-plus-mark pairing contributes directly to that (see the study).

For professionals: a listing reflex

If you buy animal-origin foods to resell or process, your suppliers’ approval numbers belong in your own food-safety file:

• Check the status: lists of approved establishments are public; verify that the number matches the establishment, the activity and the product category you buy.
• Archive the supplier-product link: delivery notes, labels and batch numbers feed your upstream traceability — required by your own sanitary control plan, approved or not (see our page on HACCP and the sanitary control plan).
• Build the check into purchasing: a supplier unable to produce its approval number (or its exemption declaration) for products that require one is an immediate red flag.

On the seller’s side the reasoning is symmetrical: your approval number is a first-rate commercial argument. Most professional buyers — wholesalers, supermarkets, contract caterers — ask for it before any listing, and checking it takes two minutes.

Applying the mark: points of vigilance

For the approved establishment, a few practical rules prevent labelling non-conformities:

• the mark must be legible, indelible and clearly identifiable on the packaging or label;
• it must be applied before the product leaves the establishment;
• it must correspond to the establishment where the last manufacturing or handling operations took place — not a head office or another site in the group;
• if approval is withdrawn or suspended, use of the mark stops with it: continuing to ship marked products would be a clear-cut offence.

This last point is a reminder that the mark lives and dies with the approval: the breaches that lead to suspension are detailed in our article on refusal and suspension of sanitary approval.

Take action

Whether you need to obtain your own approval number or to secure your supplier listings, everything starts from the same scheme: our page Sanitary approval of food establishments gathers the conditions, the DDPP procedure and a free ebook to build your file.