On November 13, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) ruled in Ute Reindl v Bezirkshauptmannschaft Innsbruck that food retailers active only at the distribution stage are responsible for ensuring that the meat they sell is fit for consumption.  According to the press release, the Court ruled that “food business operators which are active only at the distribution stage may be fined for having placed on the market a foodstuff which fails to comply with the microbiological criterion.”  The Court added that if it did not require retailers to ensure the food they sold complied with regulations, it “would amount to undermining one of the fundamental objectives of food safety legislation, that is, to attain a high level of protection of human health.”