Hygiene and HACCP · EU · AT · DE

Guide to good hygiene practice

A guide to good hygiene practice is help from the sector that shows how you can apply EU hygiene law in your business. It is not law: using it is voluntary, but the Member States assess the guides. In Austria the Ministry of Health publishes them; in Germany trade associations draw them up, for example for hospitality and bakeries.

Legal basis

EU — applies in Austria and Germany: Reg. (EC) 852/2004 Art. 7 and 8: the sector develops guides and the Member States assess them; operators may use these guides on a voluntary basis. Art. 1 calls them a valuable tool.12
AT — Austria: §§ 76 and 77 LMSVG: Austrian Food Codex; the Codex Commission also advises on hygiene guidelines. The ministry’s list contains no guideline with hospitality (Gastronomie) in its title; the WKO handbook refers to the guidelines for retail and for large-scale catering.345
DE — Germany: No state list consulted; guides come from associations, for example from the hotel and restaurant association for hospitality and from the central association of the bakery trade. We have not checked their content.16

What the inspector wants to see

Which guide do you follow, and where does your business differ from it?1
Austria: which hygiene guideline fits your type of business?5
How do you apply good hygiene practice in the business?7

Common mistakes

The guide treated as law, or as irrelevant.12
The guide for a different type of business adopted without adapting it.Practice

Practise, read, print

Guide and template are in German for now.

Practise · 4 minPersonal hygiene GuideHACCP-Konzept erstellen – Aufbau und Vorlage Template · A4Händewaschen — wann und wie

Sources

We read every source in the original on the date shown and checked it against the text: EU law in its German-language version, the links lead to the English one. All sources and what has changed (in German)

1Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs, Art. 7 and Art. 8(1), (3) and (4) · checked 23 September 2026
2Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs, Art. 1(1)(a), (d) and (e) · checked 23 September 2026
3AT — applies in AustriaLebensmittelsicherheits- und Verbraucherschutzgesetz (LMSVG), the Food Safety and Consumer Protection Act, Austria, § 76 and § 77 (1) · in German, checked 23 September 2026
4AT — applies in AustriaHygiene guidelines of the Austrian Food Codex (list of the Ministry of Health), parts A–F · in German, checked 23 September 2026
5AT — applies in AustriaAustrian Economic Chamber (WKO), handbook on hygiene in hospitality (as of July 2025), Austria, p. 22 (guidelines) · in German, checked 23 September 2026
6DE — applies in GermanyHesse: information sheet MB-001 on hygiene in food businesses (as of June 2024), pp. 1–3, 5 and 7 · in German, checked 23 September 2026
7Regulation (EU) 2017/625 on official controls, Art. 14(a)–(d) · checked 23 September 2026

Something out of date or missing? Write to us and we will check it against the source.