Brussels, 13/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - In 2013, the year in which it celebrated the 35th anniversary of its extension to food fraud, the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) of the EU once again showed how efficient it is in contributing to the safety of food products in Europe, covering both food produced in the EU and imported food. The 2013 annual report on the performance of the system, which was published on Friday 13 June, reports decrease of 9% transmitted through RASFF, compared with the previous year. 3,205 were original notifications, 596 of which were classed as alerts, 442 as information for follow-up, 705 as information for attention and 1,462 as border rejection notifications. These original notifications gave rise to 5,158 follow-up notifications. Follow-up notifications can lead to a series of actions for example: recall, withdrawal, seizure and destruction of food products.
“RASFF is a vital tool to respond to food safety risks in Europe (…). Although no food safety risk was identified [in the horse meat scandal], the RASFF system was used to notify food fraud alerts, thereby making it possible to identify the source of the adulterated foodstuffs and withdraw them from the market”, said Tonio Borg, European Commissioner for Health, presenting this report to the press. He went on to announce the launch, on 13 June, of an online tool - the “consumers portal” of the RASFF, which will permanently stream updated information on product recall notifications and public warnings issued by health authorities and economic operators in all countries of the European Union. “Feedback from users will help us to refine this tool”, he added.
Of the 3,205 original notifications made in 2013, 2,710 (or 84.6%) concerned foodstuffs, 272 (8.5%) animal feed and 223 (6.9%) materials coming into contact with foodstuffs, such as packaging. Among the principal problems flagged up were the outbreak of food poisoning due to the contamination of strawberries and berries with hepatitis A, adverse reactions caused by food supplements with potentially dangerous ingredients, shigatoxin-inducing E.coli (STEC) in meat and pesticides residues on plant products.
On the basis of the RASFF model, the Commission is currently developing an IT system for the rapid exchange of information between national administrations in order to facilitate cross-border administrative cooperation against food fraud. This system will support the work of the European anti-food fraud network and will be up and running next year, Borg announced. (AN)