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Proposed amendments to the Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements

Update – 29 September 2025

Following this consultation, we've released:

  • the final Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements
  • a technical tracking document showing changes we've made
  • a summary of submissions we received.

The new Notice comes into force on 20 October 2025.

Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements 2025 [PDF, 495 KB]

Technical tracking table [XLSX, 92 KB]

Summary of submissions [PDF, 86 KB]

Consultation background

New Zealand Food Safety proposed changes to the Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements.

In 2024, the Notice was published as a result of the amalgamation of 2 separate notices, the:

  • Official Assurances Specifications for Animal Material and Animal Products
  • Official Assurances Specifications for Dairy Material and Dairy Products Notices.

The Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements specifies requirements for businesses processing animal products intended for export with official assurance.

Consultation started on 23 July and closed on 22 August 2025.

What we proposed

The draft Official Assurance Requirements Notice proposed amending wording and structure to improve the readability of the document.

We also proposed to make some policy changes including:

  • operator exhaustion of transfer document clauses
  • transfer documents for wool requirements
  • requirements for certification ethics and professional integrity for eligibility submitters and official assurance verifiers.

We proposed some other minor amendments to help with clarity and future-proofing the Notice.

Discussion documents

Draft Official Assurance Requirements Notice [PDF, 485 KB]

Draft Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements [PDF, 293 KB]

Technical tracking document: Official Assurance Requirements Notice [XLSX, 96 KB]

Related document: the existing Notice

Animal Products Notice: Official Assurance Requirements [PDF, 432 KB]

Submissions are public information

Note that all, part, or a summary of your submission may be published on this website. Most often this happens when we issue a document that reviews the submissions received.

People can also ask for copies of submissions under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). The OIA says we must make the content of submissions available unless we have good reason for withholding it. Those reasons are detailed in sections 6 and 9 of the OIA.

If you think there are grounds to withhold specific information from publication, make this clear in your submission or contact us. Reasons may include that it discloses commercially sensitive or personal information. However, any decision MPI makes to withhold details can be reviewed by the Ombudsman, who may direct us to release it.

Official Information Act 1982 – NZ Legislation

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