RAsFF as the tool for ensuring food safety

Ensuring food safety and quality is, in the EU and globally, an important element in the care for the public health. To achieve this objective, harmonized action of different partners (legislative, regulatory and scientific institutions) is needed. This paper presents the European legislative framework in the field of food safety, food risk factors and the operation of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RAFF), which is, by utilizing the communication advantages of modern time and cooperation of the EU members and beyond, a key tool to ensure food respectively product traceability and awareness of the final consumer. The results present the RASFF system effectiveness including number of system notifications with supplements from 1997 to 2008 and the proportion of alert and information notifications according to product groups from 2002 to 2008. The overview of alert and information notifications regarding the cause of the withdrawal/recall of food products shows positive effects of internal control system on the principles of HACCP as a component of EU legislation in case of microbiological and chemical contamination.