Map and analyse global food and feed supply chains

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Published on: Mon, 09 Dec 2019

In spring 2017, the EFSA‐BfR Framework Partnership Agreement on Risk Assessment Tools for the Safety of Global Food and Feed Supply Chains was initiated. Tasks and deliverables in Area 1 were centred onFoodChain‐Lab (FCL) and include further development of FCL, applying it in foodborne outbreaks and propagating its use by conducting training workshops and establishing an international network of tracing experts. This final report summarises all activities in Area 1 that were accomplished during the first project phase of the EFSA‐BfR cooperation until summer 2019 and gives a short outlook on future collaborations. The first project phase was very successful. Three fruitful Member State (MS)‐specific FCL trainings were conducted. Furthermore a joint EFSA‐ECDC workshop was conducted with six MS and tracing as well as FCL was a major part in the training. Another multi‐country FCL training workshop took place in Germany and a third one in Italy for EFSA staff and MS experts. During several events and activities the network of tracing experts could be initiated and expanded. They expressed their interests in future FCL workshops and in collaborating in tracing issues and data exchange formats. FCL was applied in tracing analyses during several MS‐specific or multi‐country foodborne outbreaks, either via support by the FCL rapid deployment team or autonomously by the MS themselves. Furthermore, the development of FCL was pushed forward regarding the development of an FCL web application and interfaces with other software to exchange data. A key achievement was also the development of web‐based pilot versions of an input mask for delivery data and a visualisation to improve reporting of tracing information e.g. in EFSA Rapid Outbreak Assessments.Advancing the FCL web application and its data collection and reporting modules as well as strengthening the tracing expert network and improving the exchange of experience between EFSA, BfR and MS will all be in the focus during the second contract phase.