says David Byrne, former European Union Commissioner of Health and Consumer Protection (read the full article here).

In a recent presentation I have posed the question of voluntary traceability schemes and I have pointed out that we haven't seen much progress in traceability since the EU regulation 178/2004 was put into place. The food industry has not been presented with an convincing argument and traceability got somewhat burned by focussing only on the food safety aspect. The industry is however much more interested in efficiency and cost reduction than safety given that most companies already control their food production very well.

In the presentation I develop 16 milestones towards a global traceability system. One of them concerns governments pushing stricter regulations and financing core components and rollout of traceability systems.

In some sense I am being pessimistic about voluntary traceability schemes, recognising that in some contexts (Norway for example) this might work.

Any opinion?