A new AI platform unveiled by the EU Commission seeks to overcome time and resource constraints in the traceability of products and operators across the agri-food supply chain. Our Food, Agribusiness & Beverage team outlines how this tool will assist national authorities with screening processes and crisis management.

What you need to know

  • TraceMap is an AI-powered tool designed to accelerate the detection of food fraud and foodborne incidents and outbreaks across the EU
  • The platform utilises existing EU food safety and monitoring systems to find and extract relevant data
  • TraceMap has now become available for use by national authorities in all Member States

A new artificial intelligence (AI) platform, TraceMap, has been launched by the European Commission as a traceability tool for the detection of food fraud, contaminated food and foodborne disease outbreaks across the EU. The system uses AI analysis and traceability mapping, graphs and search functions to manage complex agri-food supply chains. By relying on several pre-existing EU food safety and monitoring systems, including the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES), TraceMap will help national authorities to:

  • Search, filter and extract relevant data
  • Identify high-risk operators and products
  • Identify links between operators and consignments across borders
  • Detect suspicious patterns in trade and production flows
  • Ensure that unsafe or non-compliant goods are removed from the market

Improving traceability

To date, tracing operators within the agri-food supply chain have relied largely on manual document checks and direct exchanges between national authorities. As such, the implementation of TraceMap is expected to dramatically accelerate and improve the efficiency and accuracy of traceability investigations and the management of food safety risks across the EU. The initiative will also increase controls on imported products, in line with the EU’s goal to reinforce inspections of agri-food products at EU borders, as set out in the Vision for Agriculture and Food.

Comment

Describing TraceMap as ‘a breakthrough’, the Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, Olivér Várhelyi, commented:

‘This is critical infrastructure for crisis prevention and control and should help boost all stakeholders’ confidence in our robust food safety systems’

Launch

Following the success of a pilot version of the platform, TraceMap is now available for use by national authorities across all EU Member States.