RASFF in brief
RASFF stands for Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed. The European Commission set it up in 1979, and since 2002 it has been laid down in Article 50 of the General Food Law, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002.
Through RASFF, countries warn each other quickly when they find a risk in food, feed or materials that come into contact with food. Think of salmonella in chicken meat, aflatoxins in nuts, pesticide residues in herbs or an undeclared allergen. Several thousand notifications are added every year.
Who takes part?
The members of RASFF are the member states of the European Union, the European Commission and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland take part as well. In the Netherlands, the NVWA is the contact point.
Since 2021, RASFF has been part of the Alert and Cooperation Network, together with the network for administrative assistance and the food fraud network.
Kinds of notifications
Every notification gets a classification that says how urgent it is and what other countries should do about it.
- Alert notification
- A serious risk in a product that is on the market in other countries as well, which needs rapid action.
- Information notification for follow-up
- A risk in a product that is or may be on the market in other countries, but that does not need rapid action.
- Information notification for attention
- A risk in a product that is only present in the notifying country or no longer on the market. Other countries are informed, but do not need to act.
- Border rejection
- A consignment that was stopped at the external border of the EU because it poses a risk.
The risk decision
Besides the classification, a notification gets a risk decision: serious, potentially serious, potential risk, not serious, no risk or undecided. Together with the hazard category, such as mycotoxins, pesticide residues, allergens or pathogenic micro-organisms, it decides how much a notification matters to your company.
A notification is not finished when it appears. Countries complete notifications later, for example with the countries a product was distributed to or with a different risk decision. A notification that does not concern your chain today may do so tomorrow.
The RASFF Window
Anyone can view the notifications in the RASFF Window, the public portal of the European Commission. For each notification it shows, among other things, the product, the product category, the hazard, the country of origin, the countries of distribution, the classification and the risk decision. Company names are not included.
Why keep track of RASFF?
RASFF is one of the fastest sources of new risks in raw materials and countries of origin. A notification about your raw material or a country you buy from is a signal to ask your supplier for an explanation or analyses, before the problem ends up in your product.
Certification schemes such as FSSC 22000, IFS and BRCGS expect you to follow developments and risks in your chain and to monitor your suppliers. At an audit, an auditor wants to see which notifications you assessed and what you did about them.
Why tracking it by hand is hard
Whoever tracks RASFF by hand searches the RASFF Window every day for their own combination of product categories, hazards and countries. That takes time, and a notification that is later completed with your country or a heavier risk decision easily falls outside yesterday’s search.
Moreover, the RASFF Window does not record what you did about a notification. You have to keep that evidence yourself, in a spreadsheet or in your mailbox.
How Traecy keeps track of RASFF for you
Traecy fetches the notifications twice a day and checks them against your filters. What matches is in your team’s mailbox every weekday at 08:00, with the suppliers it concerns. Changes are tracked, and for every notification you record what you did about it.