HAPIH

About HAPIH

HAPIH, the Croatian Agency for Agriculture and Food, is a public-sector body that supports agriculture, food safety, and related quality-control activities in Croatia. Based on the dossier pages provided, it works across several specialist centers and laboratories, including food safety, wine and olive oil, plant protection, soil, livestock, and consumer information.

Its role is both technical and regulatory: it performs accredited testing, issues decisions for placing certain wines on the market, supports food-donation guidance, and communicates with consumers on recalls and food-safety topics. The agency also helps promote Croatian agricultural and food products and manages or oversees selected voluntary labeling and traceability-related schemes.

Core Values

• Food safety: A recurring theme across the dossier is protecting consumers through testing, guidance, recalls, and education on safe handling, storage, and preparation of food.
• Quality and traceability: The agency emphasizes quality control, accredited methods, and traceability-based labeling so that product origin and compliance can be verified.
• Support for domestic production: Several pages stress strengthening Croatian agriculture and food production, including promotion of domestic products and clearer market positioning for local producers.
• Scientific and technical rigor: HAPIH presents itself through accredited laboratories, formal standards, and expert analysis, showing a strong evidence-based approach to its work.
• Sustainability and waste reduction: Its food-donation guidance explicitly links safe redistribution of food with reducing food waste, and its broader work also touches on sustainable agricultural practice.

Unique Aspects

• First accredited sensory wine laboratory in the region: The dossier states that HAPIH’s sensory-testing laboratory was the first accredited laboratory for wine sensory testing not only in Croatia, but also in the wider region, and one of the few such laboratories in the EU.
• Broad accreditation footprint: The wine and viticulture laboratory has been accredited since 2002 for a wide range of analyses, and the dossier notes 27 analytical methods plus 2 sensory methods under accreditation.
• Official role in protected-origin wine certification: HAPIH’s certification body is accredited under ISO/IEC 17065 for certification procedures related to wines with protected designation of origin.
• Management of voluntary origin labeling: Since late 2019, HAPIH has been responsible for voluntary labeling schemes such as milk, meat and eggs from Croatian farms, honey from Croatian apiaries, and flour and bread from Croatian fields.
• National food-safety communication role: The agency is presented as Croatia’s national contact point for EFSA and as a public-facing source for recalls, consumer notices, and food-safety campaigns.
• Genetic-resource preservation: HAPIH has recognized status as a gene bank for domestic animals, supporting the preservation of genetic variability in native and economically important breeds.