Food safety: the EU presents TraceMap, the AI against fraud and contaminated food

Brussels – The European Commission today (10 March) unveiled TraceMap, a new artificial intelligence platform designed to speed up and improve the detection of food fraud, contaminated products and foodborne disease outbreaks across the European Union. The Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, Olivér Várhelyi, called it “a game-changer that will revolutionise the EU’s ability to respond to food safety crises,” noting that competent authorities will have access to the AI platform starting today. 

Technically, TraceMap will simplify access to critical data for product food safety and speed up its analysis. “Before the introduction of this tool, tracing food along the production chain required physical documents and direct exchanges between various national authorities, which took time and resources,” reads the Berlymont Palace press release. TraceMap, on the other hand, will provide immediate digital access to various European databases containing critical information on products traded within the EU (the main ones being the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES)). Once a potential risk has been identified, the new AI platform will also make it easier to monitor the entire food supply chain, from producers to shipping services to points of sale. In this way, recalls of unsafe or fraudulent food—especially for products from non-EU countries—can take place more quickly. 

The introduction of TraceMap—whose pilot version has already been tested in the recall of infant formula from China produced with contaminated ARA oil—is in line with the call for strengthened food safety measures in the Vision for Agriculture and Food strategy presented by the Commission in February 2025. After all, the latest data on food safety in Europe are clear: according to the RASFF, in 2024, reports of contaminated products reached 5,250, a 12 per cent increase on the previous year. A third of these involved the rejection of suspicious foodstuffs at customs, with Italy (965), the Netherlands (1155) and Germany (1907) recording the highest numbers. Regarding foodborne diseases, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) received 6,558 outbreak reports in 2024, a 14.5 per cent increase compared to 2023. The most common diseases included campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, Escherichia coli infections and listeriosis.