EFSA highlights food fraud in future R&D plans

The European Food Safety Authority has identified its research priorities for the next five to 10 years, including projects to tackle food fraud.

One of the priorities, under its safe food systems programme, is to find ways to make the detection of food fraud quicker through improved surveillance systems. Another under its holistic risk assessment programme is to explore the benefits of using blockchain technology along the food chain, including for supply chain monitoring and the prevention of food fraud.

The agency says the new priorities list is “an important milestone of the EFSA strategy 2020: Trusted science for safe food” project and will “inform research agendas, such as the upcoming Horizon Europe research programme as well as the next EFSA’s strategy (2021-2027).”