Delegates of TRACEBACK project met in Milan with food and traceability experts from multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder realities from over 15 countries for drawing out the future scenarioes of food chain integrity that resultes in the present Declaration.

1. Conference Declaration “Actions for future Food Chain Integrity”, 10-11 November 2010, Milan
INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR A RELIABLE
TRACEABILITY OF FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS
FP6-2005-FOOD-036300
A European Commission funded
Integrated Project within
The Sixth Framework Programme
International conference:
“TRACKING THE FUTURE”
10-11 November 2010, Milan, Italy
with the support of TRACEBACK project
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 and
quality 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 15 countries for drawing out the future scenarios of food chain integrity
that resulted in the present Declaration.
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2. Conference Declaration “Actions for future Food Chain Integrity”, 10-11 November 2010, Milan
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 chains
and 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 foods
combined 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 and
global 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 step
forward 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 Integrity” is 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 and
Innovation 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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3. Conference Declaration “Actions for future Food Chain Integrity”, 10-11 November 2010, Milan
Scientific and Technological research priorities:
• Advanced wireless interconnectivity over web and mobile phone based applications for
increasing supply chain efficiency.
• Interoperable food chain e-platforms based on internet of things.
• New processes and supply chain architectures for the implementation of “cooperative supply
chains” in food.
• Harmonisation in data formats and software applications.
• Methods and tools to integrate consumer as an active player in the food supply chain (e.g.
push as a receiver of multi-layered product and pull as a driver of the innovation: prosumer).
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, absolute
safety, 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.
Scientific and Technological research priorities:
• Nanotechnology based sensoring and materials for real-time and on-line detection of food
quality and safety critical parameters applicable at different levels along the food supply
chain.
• Systems approach to risk-based assessment of global and complex food chains that allow a
risk informed decision making.
• High-throughput alert systems based on physical systems to be applied at plant outflow or in
staple food supply chains.
• Food chain linked subsystems enabling the “credence attributes” claims along the food chain
(e.g. food miles, carbon footprint) for demonstrating to the consumer the environmental
value of a food chain.
• Improved strategies and approaches for acquiring objective data on food products and
storing them for increasing the speed and reducing the targets of recalls and withdrawals
including a cause analysis approach.
• Methods and tools for communicating transparent and trustworthy information about
products to consumers from farm to fork and ensure food and product safety and reliability.
• Methods and tools for a readily verification of credence attributes by consumers
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 its
pathway 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
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4. Conference Declaration “Actions for future Food Chain Integrity”, 10-11 November 2010, Milan
reducing the hazard and preventing incidents are necessary to protect future food
production.
Scientific and Technological research priorities:
• Intelligent materials or sensoring solutions for monitoring the integrity of food packaging
during distribution.
• Intrinsically secure transportation units for food chain designed logistic models.
• Stand-off alert systems for chemical and biological hazards applicable in warehouses.
• Surveillance for tampering at critical points along the chain, from production to catering.
• Knowledge-based systems, data-and model-driven decision support systems (DSS) that are
designed to assist managers in prediction and mitigation of problems associated with food
products in supply chain networks (e.g. early warning and proactive control systems, i.e.
decision support systems for prediction and prevention of performance problems along the
food chain).
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.
Signed on behalf of:
- Prof. Hannu Korhonen – MTT Agrifood Research Finland (FIN)
- Prof. Nelson Marmiroli – University of Parma (ITA)
- Prof. Neil Maiden – City University London (UK)
- Prof. Rolf Larsen – Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SWE)
- M. Blasco – Ainia Centro Tecnològico (ES)
- E. Dallaturca – Parmalat (ITA)
- L. Brugera Moreno – Consum Cooperativa Valenciana (ES)
- E. De Paoli – Tecnoalimenti (ITA)
Ethel De Paoli
CEO of Tecnoalimenti
Contacts: Raffaello Prugger - r.prugger@tecnoalimenti.com
Press contact: Marianna Faraldi – m.faraldi@tecnoalimenti.com
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