CTCPA, the French industrial technical center for the canned food industry, partly funded by tax levied from all food processors, is a center of reference for the establishment and validation of thermal treatment scales and of the professional usage codes (“decisions”) for the industry, as well as its public and private research activities.
The decisions are specifications defining the products according to the appellation recognized by the profession and by the state control service. The drafting, updating and dissemination of these codes of practice for the profession are part of the CTCPA mission of supporting businesses. An essential element when the centre was created in 1950, these decisions have existed for some for over 60 years and have been updated regularly.
The CTCPA decisions specify for about fifty canned and dehydrated products:
- product definitions and names,
- the characteristics of the raw materials and the general specificities of the codified product,
- qualitative criteria, with the definition of faults and tolerances (target values, defective units, etc.),
- the nominal quantities to be respected by format, in particular the total net masses and the drained net masses,
- methods of analysis.
These decisions have a regulatory validity and are applicable in France only and can be used by courts from two different angles:
- to avoid any deception of the consumer on the qualities expected by the consumers, in particular on the nature, the substantial qualities of the product, its composition, the quantity;
- to fight against unfair competition, allow fair transactions between the various operators in the sector.
The decisions, which have their source in practice, are not fixed and evolve over time. It is a question for the professions of modernizing their uses, by preserving the image of quality and by taking into account the evolution of the regulatory context in particular European and technologies.
The three decisions pertaining to tomato products (
canned tomatoes,
canned tomato puree and
canned tomato sauces) were dating from 1978 to 1989 and were thus in urgent need of being modernized. This has now been done and the new texts were adopted in December 2019 and entered in application of 20 February 2020. Processors have until 21 August 2020 to conform to the new specifications but can sell stock manufactured or labelled before 21 August 2020 until they are sold out.
Decisions (in French): 
