FSA Consultation Letter, 2 September 2003

TRACEABILITY - Traceability in the food chain

Following the FSA Board paper on Traceability in the Food Chain, which was adopted in July 2002, the Food Chain Strategy Division of the Food Standards Agency has engaged with a number of stakeholders to explore the scope for strengthening current arrangements for traceability in a proportionate way, including through the identification and spreading of good practice.

Consultation details

The Agency encourages the implementation of 'best practice' traceability systems in food businesses to help ensure:

• rapid collation of reliable information in food safety incidents
• identification of the cause of a problem so that corrective action can be taken
• provision of reliable information to consumers about the content, and where appropriate, the source of individual foods
• deterrence of fraud.

It is clear that, legislative requirements aside, how traceability is implemented in individual food businesses remains a decision likely to be justified on an individual business case basis. However, discussions have indicated that there is scope for the Agency to provide some clear guidance on traceability, based on its work to date.

Working together with a group of stakeholders, the Agency has therefore drafted the text: 'An introduction to traceability for your food business'. They are writing to seek views on this text before they move any further with the preparation of these guidelines for publication.

They are inviting comments on any matters which might be relevant. In particular they are seeking comments on:

• Does the proposed document provide a useful introduction to the concepts and implementation of traceability systems?
• Are there key areas not covered within the document?
• Is the language used throughout clear and understandable?
• How could the document be improved?
• Translation - in what further languages should the document be made available?
• Dissemination - how should this material be made available? e.g. as a printed leaflet, as a downloadable leaflet, within the FSA website.

The closing date for responses to this consultation exercise is 15th December 2003