The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme.

Codex Alimentarius, or “the food code”, is the global reference for governments, the food industry, trade operators and consumers. The main purposes of Codex are protecting the health of consumers, ensuring fair practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations. Codex safety standards are benchmark standards under the World Trade Organization Sanitary and Phytosanitary (WTO/SPS) agreements and also serve as point of reference for the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO/TBT) agreement for issues not related to food safety.

Codex has developed several standards for milk and milk products. Codex guidelines for dairy are:

Standards for milk products:

• Fermented milks
• Blend of evaporated skimmed milk and vegetable fat 
• Blend of sweetened condensed skimmed milk and vegetable fat
• Milk powders and cream powder
• Blend of skimmed milk and vegetable fat in powdered form
• Dairy fat spreads
• Butter
• Milkfat products
• Evaporated milks
• Sweetened condensed milks
• Cream and prepared creams
• Whey powders
• Edible casein products

Horizontal cheese standards:

• General standard for cheese
• Standard for cheeses in brine
• Group standard for unripened cheese including fresh cheese
• Standard for extra hard grating cheese
• Standard for whey cheeses

Individual cheese standards:

• Mozzarella
• Cheddar
• Danbo
• Edam
• Gouda
• Havarti
• Samsø
• Emmental
• Tilsiter
• Saint-paulin
• Provolone
• Cottage cheese
• Coulommiers
• Cream cheese
• Camembert
• Brie

General texts for milk and milk products:

• Guidelines for the preservation of raw milk by use of the lactoperoxidase system
• Code of hygienic practice for milk and milk products
• General standard for use of dairy terms
• Model export certificate for milk and milk products

Codex has also developed a number of texts on food labelling, methods of analysis and sampling, food import and export, and certification systems that apply horizontally to all food products (including milk and milk products), such as:

• General standard for contaminants and toxins in food and feed
• General standard for food additives
• Guidelines for the design and implementation of national regulatory food safety assurance programmes associated with the use of veterinary drugs in food producing animals
• Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) and Risk Management Recommendations (RMRs) for residues of veterinary drugs in foods
• Maximum residues limits for pesticides 

Updated in March 2019