EFSA Publishes Review of Data Collection Activities

The report highlights in particular EFSA’s annual Community Zoonoses Report and the Annual Report on Pesticide Residues in Food, as well as ad-hoc reports on the occurrence of Salmonella, Campylobacter and chemical contaminants including acrylamide and dioxins.

12 May 2010 --- The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a report outlining its current activities and future priorities in the area of data collection. The report underlines that accurate, comprehensive and comparable data on the occurrence of different substances or microorganisms in food, as well as on food consumption habits, are essential for EFSA to be able to deliver high-quality risk assessments and advice on nutritional and health concerns. This in turn helps to provide the best possible protection to European consumers.

EFSA bases its scientific advice on the most comprehensive and up-to-date data which are available and, working closely with EU Member States and other partners, the Authority has made considerable progress in recent years. The report highlights in particular EFSA’s annual Community Zoonoses Report and the Annual Report on Pesticide Residues in Food, as well as ad-hoc reports on the occurrence of Salmonella, Campylobacter and chemical contaminants including acrylamide and dioxins.

EFSA is currently in the process of extending its European food consumption database. However, EU Member States use different methods to collect food consumption data, which makes it difficult to carry out EU-wide analyses or country-to-country comparisons. In close cooperation with the EU Member States, EFSA is therefore supporting harmonised food consumption data collection. This should allow more efficient and accurate exposure assessments to be carried out.

In line with Article 33 of EFSA’s founding regulation, this report on EFSA’s activities in the area of data collection has been sent to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.