The Association "Het College" was founded April 20th, 1924 in Amsterdam, under the name “College van Keurmeesters”, by city-employed inspectors working as food safety control officers. In that time major cities had their own city or regional foodsafety offices and laboratory.
In those days there was already food controlling institutes checking out foodsafety and controlling if food was safe and not falsified (sand instead of pepper, added chalk to whiten flour and milk that was mixed with (dirty) water.
Nowadays food control is a modern institute of inspectors working for the Food and Consumer products safety Authority of the Netherlands NVWA, and is governed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Foodquality.

“Het College" is also a member of the EWFC www.ewfc.org where she plays a role in the contact with the EU Commission and the EU workforce in Foodsafety.

The journal (“Periodiek”) as it was published for 75 years by “Het College", is published 3-4 times per year by newsletter and E-mail and is downloadable from the website. (password protected)

Members gather at least once a year at the national general assemble with the board and further on there are regional meetings and also European meetings with colleagues from our neighbours Germany and Belgium, Austria, France, Ireland and Great Britain.

The Dutch Food and non-food products Safety Authority (NVWA) is a national body with headquarters in the city of Utrecht and self-supporting units and flex working offices all over the country. There is a national Foodsafety laboratory in the city of Wageningen and two non-food laboratories in the cities of Groningen and Zwijndrecht. In total there are +2500 staff working in the different fields of work.

All active members of our association are state employed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Foodquality ( www.minlnv.nl ) and work in the field of food safety control, non-food safety control (consumer related goods) and controls on the use and trade in tobacco and alcohol, under supervision of the national Food and Consumer Products Safety Authority (www.nvwa.nl)

All control officers are obliged to be trained for at least 8 months at intern courses, after which period they will go work into practice and learn on the job for appr. 2 years. A part of the control officers can prosecute like police officers and therefore need to have a special training in general and specific (police)laws of their own specialty also.

As a continued learning and training program is in place there is a national academy, part of the Authority, and there are e-learning programs and hired courses from specialists.

Yearly the control officers are audited conform ISO standards.