Food safety in Croatia - background and challenges

The governance of food safety in Croatia has evolved significantly in the past two decades. The evolution has affected the way in which food safety is assured globally. Food safety assurance is achieved through two main ways: statutory regulation and private regulation. Statutory regulations for food control primarily protect the health of consumers and spell out behaviours, mechanisms for enforcing them, and sanctions that should be applied. Private regulation of food safety is linked to the trend of major retailer. Most of the standards are similar in the sense that they all have one main objective: to protect consumer health through an integrated process-based food safety management, achieved through specifying the basic minimum requirements acceptable for food safety and third party audits. This article provides information and describes the current situation of food safety assurance schemes in Croatia. It contains legislations related to food safety and quality, infrastructure of food safety assurance schemes, information about main institution and information about the current situation of food quality assurance indicators.