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Conference Declaration Actions for future Food Chain Integrity, 10-11 November 2010, Milan

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INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR A RELIABLE

TRACEABILITY OF FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS

FP6-2005-FOOD-036300

A European Commission fundedIntegrated Project within

The Sixth Framework Programme

International conference:

TRACKING THE FUTURE10-11 November 2010, Milan, Italy

with the support of TRACEBACK

Conference Declaration

Actions for future

Food Chain Integrity

Preamble

The Integrated project TRACEBACK is a major EU project providing integrated food chain

traceability solutions to food industry. For four years, 27 partners active in food research and the

food industry throughout Europe have teamed up with two from Egypt and Turkey, plus relevant

SMEs, to develop and demonstrate a new tool based on traceability extended to food safety andquality for connecting food chain players and ensure food chain integrity.

On 10-11 November 2010 the international conference TRACKING THE FUTURE

supported by TRACEBACK, was held in Milan, Italy, in response to the evolving needs of food

traceability and food chain integrity to ensure a safe and quality food production. Delegates of

TRACEBACK project met with food and traceability experts from multi-disciplinary and multi-

stakeholder realities from over 11 countries for drawing out the future scenarios of food chain

integrity that resulted in the present Declaration.


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Declaration

Having established that:

Safe, secure, healthy and tasty food is a fundamental right of every human being.

Globalisation of food products unfolds new risks for the food chain. Global supply chainsand global markets require extended handling and transportation of foodstuffs which

increase the hazard of supply chain disruptions and discontinuities.

The increased market trend of fresh foods, ready-to-eat and minimally processed foodscombined with globally extended and complex food chains contributes to an increased risk

of downgrading quality (e.g. freshness, taste, texture) along the supply chain.

There is an increasing demand for individualized products according to customer wants,short response time, and dynamic adjustments of supply chain competencies according to

new market needs or technological opportunities.

Climate change, sustainability concerns, social uncertainty, intentional contaminations andglobal media coverage represent factors that exacerbate the size, the potential and the effects

of food crises, also due to deliberate or inadvertent manipulation.

Current legislation enforces companies to track only one step backward and one stepforward in the food chain. Existing traceability systems represent the major tool to control

and react to food incidents.

A new concept is introduced: Food Chain Integrityis the capacity of an entire food chain to

perform its expected function without deliberate or unintended malfunction. Food chains with

such integrity characterstics will be transparent, sustainable, competitive and certifiable.

They will assure safety to the European citizen and will document product quality on the

markets.

Food Chain Integrity will represent a unique occasion for a European-led certification, provided that

new tools will be developed for its deployment in food industry.

In order to support the development of Food Chain Integrity the following scientific and

technological research actions need to be taken with urgency by the Agrifood Research andInnovation Policy Makers in Europe:

1) Governing the emerging complexity towards food chain integrity

Objective: Impressive technological steps have been taken in the last years towards the realisation

of infrastructures linking all supply chain players for the best governing: e.g. traceability

systems, food safety certifications, e-procurement, e-refurnishing, logistic services,

Customer Relation Management services. Time has arrived to merge all these tools into

a single supply chain e-platform capable of providing a tool to govern the entire supply

chain as a single cooperative entity reducing transaction costs and redundancies while

boosting safety, efficiency and competitiveness.


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2) Assuring the desired food safety and quality along the entire food chain

Objective: Currently the food sector is under pressure due to conflicing objectives: consumers and

markets express on one side the wish of increased freshness, taste, quality, genuinity and

health but on the other side they require reduced processing, no preservatives, absolutesafety, extended shelf-life, increased convenience and ingredients from sustainable

sources. The solutions to these challenges need to be searched at food chain level. Novel

detection technologies deployed in critical spots along the entire food chain would

assure the product quality by objectively documenting the values of the final product.

3) Preventing intentional and unintended criticalities in the food chain

Objective: Currently, major food chains are international and many of them are really global. This

implies extensive handling of food ingredients and products until reaching the final

consumer. Food therefore remains exposed for long time and to many players along itspathway towards the final consumer resulting in a higher risk of intentional manipulation.

Further, unknown or emerging food pathogens are spreading due to the influence of

climate change on the primary production sector. Therefore, new technologies for

reducing the hazard and preventing incidents are necessary to protect future food

production.

This Conference Declaration was drafted by the Scientific Committee of the Conference and

submitted to the Session 2 of the Conference where it was approved on the 10 November 2010.

declaration tbk

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