The Commission presents a new AI tool to combat agri-food alerts and food fraud

The European Commission has unveiled TraceMap, a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform tospeed up the detection of food fraud, contaminated food and outbreaks of foodborne illnessesacross the EU. In line with the EU’s high safety standards for food and imported products, this new tool will strengthenconsumer safety and help national authorities work more effectively, innovating in the assessment, detection and response to food safety risks and fraudulent activities.

TraceMap will use AI to:

• Improve food safety risk assessmentsby streamlining access to and analysis of critical data.
• Quickly identify linksbetween operators and shipments.  
• Monitor the entire agri-food supply chainonce a risk has been identified, enabling unsafe or fraudulent products to be withdrawn more quickly.

Since 10 March, TraceMap has been accessible to national authorities in all Member States, enabling them to optimise controls and conduct more thorough investigations without the need for additional resources. It will use the EU’s extensive database of existing agri-food systems to quickly track trade patterns and production flows. The platform will improve the accuracy of analyses, speed up the detection of suspicious operators and help investigators detect food fraud and outbreaks of foodborne diseases, as well as quickly remove non-compliant products from the market. TraceMap enables Member States to remedy deficiencies, address vulnerabilities and strengthen their anti-fraud measures in the agri-food sector. It will also enable better control of imported goods, in line with the strengthened measures set out in the Vision for Agriculture and Food.

TraceMap has been created by the Commission using AI technology that processes, structures and interprets data from different EU food safety management platforms, such as theRapid Alert System for Food and Feed(RASFF) andthe Trade Control and Expert System(TRACES). A pilot version of TraceMap was recently used to facilitate the identification and withdrawal of infant milk formula made with contaminated ARA oil from China.

More information: Commision European