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Berlin, Germany
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List of all "Spotlights"
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SPOTLIGHT ON ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH IN GERMANY
Bundesverband der Lebensmittelkontrolleure
The German Food Inspectors’ Association was established on 23rd October 1977. The first to become members were those from the federal states of Hessen, Nordrhein Westphalia and Schleswig Holstein. At the beginning of 1978 they were joined by Niedersachsen. After long discussions the Bundesverband der Lebensmittelkontrolleure (BVLK) was finally born on 21st June 1978. By this time we had 600 members and our first chairman was Werner Brüggemann.
By autumn 1978 the national professional profile was established as the basis for salaries and tax purposes. Our organisation continued to grow and in March 1980 Bavaria, Hamburg and Rhineland Pfalz became new members.
A milestone in food safety in Germany was the drafting in 1983 of the first federal food hygiene legislation. By 1985 our first BVLK training courses were held at the “Friedrich Ebert Foundation” in Bergneustadt.
Another major step forward was the development in September 1987 of our journal “Food Courier” with the assistance of the “Alpha” publishing house. This journal was to become a major voice for consumer protection and professional policy in Germany.
In 1989 we had our first professional contact with colleagues in France, the Netherlands and Great Britain. The main topics of interest at the time were meat inspection legislation and the salaries of inspectors. Also in this year we had our first exhibition booth at the “Green Week Berlin”, the most famous food and agriculture exhibition in Germany.
After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1991, we were joined by colleagues from the federal states of Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Saxony, Thüringen, and Saxony Anhalt.
We were much involved in the established in a “Working group Rhein-Mosel” in 1992 which was to become the forerunner of the international organisation – the European Working Community for Food Inspection and Consumer Protection (EWFC) which was to become a platform for food safety inspectors.
In response, we changed the name of our journal to “Food Inspector” as well as forming an alliance with a new publishing house.
Further international involvement also came in March 1992 when BVLK became a member of IFEH. Our alliances continued to grow and by 1994 the BVLK developed a cooperative agreement with the trade union KOMBA.
Since 2004 we have been extensively involved in the transposition into national law of new European food hygiene legislation and participated in many national working group meetings, and hearings in the Bundestag.
Today under the chairmanship of Martin Müller, the BVLK has approximately 1900 members.
The main daily activities of our members in Germany are food inspection, enforcement of food legislation, and in some federal States we are also involved the implementation of trading standards relating to price controls, display of price tags and the control of terrace seating areas in front of restaurants.
More information can be found on our website at
http://www.lebensmittelkontrolle.de
Bundesverband der Lebensmittelkontrolleure
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