Safety and Traceability

A number of acknowledged food safety emergencies have activated national and international alerts and recall procedures. With perishable food products, inefficiency in supply chain management can cause food spoilage, which leads to safety and quality concerns as well as production waste. This chapter provides an overview of the current objectives, methodologies, and solutions adopted in food traceability systems (TSs). It discusses the main drivers for food traceability, with special attention to food safety issues. The chapter then provides a comprehensive overview on international legislations and standards regulating food traceability in different countries. It also discusses the design of a TS, first by providing formal definitions of the main concepts involved in the design and management of a TS, then by overviewing the technological developments, and finally by describing how a TS can be effectively optimized to minimize the cost of a possible food safety crisis.