Primary production of food
‘Primary production’ refers to the first stage of food production.
Primary production includes
- production of dairy and eggs
- beef cattle husbandry
- fishing and fish farming
- farming of vegetables, fruit, cereal and mushrooms
- honey production
- picking wild berries and mushrooms
- hunting.
However, primary production does not include
- processing the products, such as making cheese or jams, peeling vegetables, cleaning the fish on land or filleting the fish
- transporting milk away from the primary production site
- slaughtering animals.
Notification of primary production
The Environmental Health Services must be notified of primary production operations. The operator must also notify the authorities of substantial changes to the operations, the operations being paused, or the operations being ceased.
However, you do not need to submit a notification of primary production for:
- hunting
- handing wild game to consumers as a product of primary production (unskinned or unplucked)
- picking wild plants or mushrooms
- the primary production of plants and mushrooms if the operator is a private individual and the operations cannot be seen as a business.
Legal definition of primary production
According to the law, primary production includes the production, growing, farming, harvesting, milking of the products in primary production and all stages of animal production before slaughter. It also includes hunting and fishing and the harvesting of wild products (General Food Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Article 3).
Primary production also includes the transport of live animals and primary products other than milk to the next processing site in the food production chain, such as an establishment or retail shop. In addition to this, Section 22 of the Food Act of Finland also states that primary production includes handing low-risk primary food products directly to the consumer.