AMedP-4.7 inspection of catering facilities in deployed operations

What it is

What AMedP-4.7 covers

AMedP-4.7 is the NATO Allied Medical Publication that gives national military veterinary and preventive medicine services a standardized inspection form and procedure for catering facilities in deployed operations. Its own aim is "to establish a standardized approach to inspect catering facilities during all field operations (exercises, Article 5 or non-Article 5 operations) and ensure compliance with AMedP-4.6 and AMedP-4.12," and to provide a template for inspection reports. It does not set its own catering or food-safety requirements: it is the checklist, the report form, and the instructions an inspector uses to check a deployed catering operation against AMedP-4.6, and against AMedP-4.12 for food defence. This page keeps to what the document is, who carries out the inspection, and what an inspection produces, without reproducing the form's checklist items, scoring or the temperature and time figures it records.

How it comes to bind

Nations' agreement to use AMedP-4.7 is recorded in STANAG 2556: "the agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 2556." A nation applies the document once it has forces, or a contracted operation, in a deployed setting the arrangement covers. Nations can ratify with reservations, and several did. France's limits its own implementation of AMedP-4.6 and AMedP-4.7 to stabilized theatres with established catering infrastructure. Denmark's notes it agrees with the principles but cannot fully implement them at national level because parts of this work are carried out by its own civil authorities. Czechia's reservation records that it "obeys the principles of good manufacturing and hygiene practices, Codex Alimentarius, hazard analysis and critical control points and national legislation" during food handling - AMedP-4.7 does not itself adopt any of those civil food-safety schemes; this is one nation's account of how it meets the same aim through its own regulatory route. For an organisation, there is no separate commercial route in: this is a NATO inspection arrangement between nations, reaching a catering operation through the chain of command or the contract that put the operation there, not a specification a supplier buys or certifies against directly.

Who inspects, and who is inspected

The document assigns the audit/inspection to "personnel of the national military veterinary or preventive medicine personnel who have a meaningful amount of academic training in food safety and quality management systems, as well as sufficient experience doing food safety audits or inspections." On the other side of the inspection is a catering operation in the field: the document's own inspection form asks separately about food defence arrangements at locations run directly by NATO and at contracted ones, so a contractor's kitchen is inspected on the same basis as one NATO runs itself. The person in charge of the facility signs the completed report, an act the document describes as "acknowledgement" of the findings and corrective actions noted, not agreement with them.

What an inspection covers and produces

The report (Annex A) works through the document's own groupings: administration, management and records; food procurement; receipt of food supplies; food storage; food preparation and handling; cooking; service; recovery of leftovers; personnel; cleaning and sanitation; utensils, equipment and linens; pest control; facilities; and food defence. It "is formatted to follow the flow of food through the facility from receipt to service," and separates infrastructure findings (buildings and equipment) from hygiene findings (practices, personal hygiene, sanitation and administration).

Findings are recorded as critical, major or observation, defined by the kind of risk each represents: a critical finding is one that "causes food to be unsafe for consumption" and cannot be corrected by a later step; a major finding "is not an imminent food safety concern, yet affects or can affect the safety or usability of the products." Infrastructure and hygiene each receive their own rating - Compliant, Partially Compliant, or Unsatisfactory - and an unsatisfactory rating "indicates the food operation is not conforming to the catering requirements prescribed in AMedP-4.6 and AMedP-4.7, which significantly increases the risk for a food-borne illness occurrence." Where a rating is unsatisfactory, "the inspector may recommend closure of the food operation," though the document is explicit that "not all unsatisfactory ratings justify a recommendation for closure," and a follow-up inspection is then scheduled. The report itself states that "deficiencies cited in this report must be corrected within the time frames specified" in it. This page does not reproduce the form's numeric thresholds, temperatures or time frames.

The document recognises five kinds of inspection: routine, described as "the unannounced, periodic or cyclic inspection normally scheduled by the medical authority or representative to assess compliance with food sanitation and safety provisions"; complaint, "an unscheduled survey conducted when there are customer reports or complaints involving food quality, employee hygiene, or facility sanitation or structural issues that warrant investigation"; follow-up, to check on corrective action after an unsatisfactory finding; preoperational, "conducted for new food operations before they are opened to consumers"; and other.

Where AMedP-4.6, AMedP-4.12 and AMedP-4.5 fit in

AMedP-4.7 is built on top of AMedP-4.6: "page one of the report provides a summarized list of food catering facility and food safety provisions identified in AMedP-4.6," and a separate table (Annex C) maps every item on the form to the specific AMedP-4.6 clause it checks. AMedP-4.12 supplies the same role for the form's food defence items. Where a facility draws on local food sources, Annex C also notes those sources need to have passed an audit under AMedP-4.5 before they can be used; AMedP-4.7 does not itself describe that audit. None of these three is optional reading: they are what AMedP-4.7's checklist is built to check compliance against.

Edition and what this page does not cover

The edition in front of this page is Edition B, Version 1, effective on receipt and promulgated March

1. It supersedes Edition A, Version 1, which the promulgation letter directs be destroyed under

local document-destruction procedure. This page does not reproduce the inspection form itself, its scoring or thresholds, or any temperature or time figure it records; a facility's actual obligations come from AMedP-4.6 and AMedP-4.12, and from whatever contract or order puts AMedP-4.7 in force for a given operation.

Standards it references

• AMedP-4.6Background
• AMedP-4.12Background
• AMedP-4.5Background