EFSA publishes guidance on food safety data exchange

To carry out its duties EFSA relies on a considerable volume of data from EU Member States, the Commission and industry. This data can be collected using different procedures and methods making it difficult to process and analyse accurately.

Harmonisation proposal ​

EFSA therefore formed the Technical Working Group on Data Collection (TWG-DC) to develop a harmonisation proposal.

The latest product of that work is a guidance document on data exchange that outlines procedures for the transmission of data between Member States and EFSA. This covers file formats and security requirements and includes 14 message exchange protocols (including validation messages).

A copy of the document can be viewed by clicking here.​

The publication of the guidance on data exchange follows on from the release in January of ‘guidance on standard sample description for food and feed’. This document outlined procedures for gathering and reporting data related to food and feed samples.

Next steps​

Together these two guidance documents represent only the first step in supporting the harmonisation of data transmissions between Member States and EFSA, according to the TWG-DC.

EFSA said that the documents must be supported by a maintenance and development programme that will ensure that they evolve to reflect the changing needs of data analysis and risk assessment stakeholders.

In addition, EFSA said there is scope to simplify reporting requirements further by extending the harmonisation work to areas not currently covered in the standard sample description guidance.

Finally, EFSA said it recognised that the ability of different Member States to transmit data according to the guidance will vary, and therefore said the documents should be taken into account when planning developments on a national level.