'Alimentos PT.ON.DATA' - Information Management System for The Analytical Data of Food Chain Official Control

BACKGROUND: According to Article 33 of the Regulation (EC) 178/2002, Member States shall take the necessary measures to enable the transmission to EFSA of the data they collect in the fields of (a) food consumption and the exposure of individuals to risks related to the consumption of food; (b) incidence and prevalence of biological risk; (c) contaminants in food and feed; (d) residues. In addition, specific EU legislation on data collection exists for specific data collection domains, namely, pesticides, contaminants and zoonoses and zoonotic agents, specifying that the data from official control should be reported to EFSA. According to EFSA mission under Article 36 of the above mentioned regulation, the development and implementation of joint projects for promoting European networking is foreseen. Within this task, Portugal has developed in 2011, a national information management system “alimentos PT.ON.DATA” for chemical contaminants and is currently upgrading the system for food additives, pesticide residues, zoonotic agents and residues of veterinary medicinal products.