Protecting EU food integrity standards with cutting-edge technology

Are you really getting the fish you’re paying for? How real is the honey on your breakfast table? The rise in fraud in the agri-food chain is a growing concern for both consumers and producers.

Strengthening the integrity of the EU’s food system by integrating cutting-edge traceability technologies, digital innovations and authenticity systems into existing safety standards, the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) says in a new report. I am proposing to do so.

This initiative promises to benefit Europeans by ensuring that the food they consume is safe, authentic and of high quality.

Centralize food fraud data

A considerable amount of food chain data is already accessible at European and international level, enabling a transition to a digital, risk-based approach to protecting food systems. However, these data sources are spread across different food businesses, Member State competent authorities and Commission services and, unfortunately, are not always interoperable.

Securing Europe’s food systems requires applying a more holistic approach and using advanced digital tools to address doubts and issues.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety has launched a new innovative approach that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze vast amounts of data. These developments will detect fraudulent activities that may be indicators of fraud and integrate information related to produce fraud to generate early warning signals of potential fraud and assist in the management of suspected cases. Helpful.

These include machine learning models using the EU Food Fraud Network’s past food fraud cases to explore predictive analytics to uncover potential fraud. This result will increase the interest of EU Member States in using the Food and Feed Rapid Alert System platform to report all detected agricultural product fraud incidents.

This report also recommends the creation of:

An independent data trust to facilitate the sharing of food fraud data between the food industry and authorities and encourage industry participation. A public-private partnership to accelerate the adoption of interoperable digital tracking systems by food companies. This allows data sharing with authorities if required. A well-defined technology roadmap for building artificial intelligence (AI)-driven information technology systems for food integrity, combining large data sets and analyzing them with big data tools. The project will integrate the European Commission’s capabilities with relevant datasets, IT experts and data scientists.

Policy context

The Farm to Fork Strategy recognizes the need to strengthen efforts to combat fraud within the agricultural and food chain, while strengthening traceability and warning systems to improve coordination in combating food fraud. .

The Council concluded that successful efforts to tackle food fraud should be based on the prompt and effective exchange of relevant information, adequate reporting and close cooperation between authorities within Member States and between Member States and the Commission. It emphasizes one thing.