The Influence of Border Rejections and Official Controls on the Market on Alert Notifications in the RASFF

Abstract

The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was created in 1979 and allows for quick response to risks for public health. Alert notifications within the RASFF are sent when the product, which presents a serious risk, is already on the market and a rapid action is required. The explicit increase of alert notifications can be noticed since 1999 and particularly since 2003/2004, when official controls on the market began to be noted. While a decrease of alert notifications can be observed since 2008, when border rejections in the RASFF began to be noted. The influence of border rejections and official controls on the market (as two variables) on the number of alert notifications in the RASFF in 1999-2014 was examined with regard to products categories, hazards categories and the European Union (EU) countries, using multiple regression. In the case of the EU countries also the influence of additional variables was examined: the number of food audits, import of food, drinks and tobacco, average total population and total agriculture production of food in the gross production value. The variable official controls on the market was statistically significant and the relationship was very high or high in case of: bivalve molluscs and products thereof, dietetic food, food supplements, fortified food, fish and fish products, herbs and spices and soups, broths, sauces and condiments (products categories) and: allergens, composition, food additives and flavourings, heavy metals, migration, mycotoxins and pathogenic micro-organism (hazards categories). The variable number of border rejections was statistically significant and the relationship was very high or high in case of: dietetic food, food supplements, fortified food (products categories) and: allergens, composition, food additives and flavourings and mycotoxins (hazards categories). In the case of the EU countries the very high or high relationship was not found in models with the two variables and was high in case of France and Latvia in models with six variables. It can be assumed that variability of the number of alert notifications in the RASFF (especially within the EU countries) also can depend on other factors, such as: the amount of food on the market, the scope of food control, the level of preparedness of controllers or movement of people. However, it is difficult to quantify these factors (and take as variables) or the adopted variables would cause collinearity.