Traceability

On 28 January 2002 the the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Regulation EEC n. 178/2002, which is in force from 1 January 2005 and established a comprehensive system of traceability within food and feed businesses.

But how does the traceability practically work? And why consumers should be more protected thanks to traceability?

Following dioxin alimentary scandals of the past years, the attention to consumers’ health and safety has increased rapidly, becoming a daily matter of discussion.

Nevertheless, there is still confusion on what exactly “traceability” means.

Actually, traceability means the ability to trace and follow a food through all stages of production, processing and distribution, in order to be able to identify and withdraw it from the market in case of danger for consumers’ health. Therefore, traceability allows to identify both foodstuff producers (from the primary production) and distributors.

At the same time, traceability means also the capacity to know foodstuff history, composition, characteristics and other necessary information, concerning its safety, place of production (place of rearing in case of animals) and also the production method (i.e. for eggs).

This double meaning provides consumers with lots of indications: concerning bovine meat, for example, we are able to acquire information about animals place of birth, place of rearing, slaughtering and dissection processes and also, in case of danger for consumers’ health, to easily locate a dangerous foodstuff and withdraw it from the internal market.

By the introduction of compulsory traceability, the relation between consumers and traders became more personal and transparent: thanks to an high level of trust in the internal market, consumers can buy and consume in safety overall the EU. Indeed, the traceability provides consumers with clearer information and, at the same time, makes producers totally liable for their actions.

By this way, producers are discouraged in operating unwisely and compromising foodstuffs quality. On the contrary, all operators involved in food chain will cooperate together in a guarantee and safety process.
 

However, this cooperation is as important as difficult, because each producer has his own traceability system, which must be compared with both suppliers and customs systems. Traders has got enough time to correctly apply the Regulation by adjusting their traceability processes. Nevertheless, some doubt still remains about both industries capacity and liability, as well as about the factual possibility to withdraw a product from the market thanks to the traceability system.