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Good practice Imported

TraceMap — The European Commission's AI Platform for Tracing Food Fraud and Contamination Across EU Supply Chains

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Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 32% 67/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

TraceMap uses AI to cross-reference the EU's existing RASFF and TRACES food-safety databases so all 27 member states can trace contamination and fraud across agri-food supply chains in minutes rather than days. A prototype already helped trace a cereulide-contaminated baby-formul

6,558
Food-borne outbreaks reported in Europe (2024)
+14.5%
Year-on-year change in reported outbreaks (2024 vs prior year)
TraceMap — The European Commission's AI Platform for Tracing Food Fraud and Contamination Across EU Supply Chains

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
European Commission (Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety)
Period
Launched March 2026
Region (NUTS)
BE10
Keywords
food safety, public health, supply chain traceability, agri-food regulation

Context

European countries reported 6,558 food-borne outbreaks in 2024, up 14.5% year-on-year, while food-safety authorities in the EU's 27 member states relied on manual cross-checking of two separate mandatory systems, RASFF and TRACES, to trace contamination and fraud.

Objectives

Let food-safety authorities in all 27 EU member states cross-reference RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) and TRACES (Trade Control and Expert System) with AI to spot contamination patterns, trace supplier networks across borders, and flag likely fraud in minutes instead of days.

Activities

The European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety built and launched the TraceMap AI platform in March 2026, making it available to national authorities in all 27 member states simultaneously.

Results

A prototype version was used during 2026 investigations into infant formula made with cereulide-contaminated arachidonic acid (ARA) oil sourced from China, helping investigators trace the supply chain faster.

Conclusions

TraceMap launched at EU-wide scale from day one and has one documented investigative success, but the Commission has not published performance metrics, so its measured impact beyond this one case remains unverified.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — An AI cross-referencing layer built on top of two already-existing, mandatory EU data systems (RASFF, TRACES) rather than new data collection infrastructure, though development and EU-wide deployment by the Commission implies a medium-cost programme.
Time to results
Short (< 1 year) — Launched March 2026; still in prototype/early-use phase with only months of operational history at the time of reporting.
Staffing & skills
European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety

Conditions for success

  • Built on RASFF and TRACES, systems already standardised and mandatory across all 27 member states, avoiding bespoke per-country data integration
  • Simultaneous EU-wide availability at launch rather than a single-country pilot

Common failure modes

  • No detection-rate, accuracy or false-positive figures have been published since launch
  • The only documented real-world use to date is one contamination investigation

Where it fits

Governance type
EU-level regulatory body (European Commission)
Scale
all 27 EU member states
Income level
high-income (EU)

Commonly funded by

Digital Europe Programme

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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