New tools and challenges for food safety

Ensuring a high level of human health and consumer protection is a key policy priority for the European Union. Following the crisis of the late 90's (BSE, dioxin), the EU launched a new approach of food safety. European countries have developed risk assessment tools to identify hazards and assess risks for consumers. These studies provide governments and chain actors better solutions to reduce food risks. The policy of research and management of animal health and food security is now facing several challenges: to involve the 27 individual Member State authorities in charge of setting up the rules of hygiene and safety as well as operators responsible for their daily use, to coordinate inspections at the EU borders and to ensure that EU rules are applied in the third countries, to re-establish consumer confidence in European food safety policy. This paper presents some new tools (toxicogenomic, emerging risk detection) and challenges (antibiotic resistance, natural toxins, nanotechnologies).