Safety Synergy: How EFISC-GTP and RASFF form a Unified Safety Net for the Food Chain

In today’s agri-food industry, product safety is not a static state but a dynamic risk management process. The EFISC-GTP (European Feed & Food Ingredients Safety Certification) standard establishes an architecture in which local control at the facility becomes part of a global shield protecting human and animal health across Europe.

A fundamental principle of European legislation (General Food Law) states that the ‘farm-to-fork’ chain is unbroken. Food safety begins with the safety of feed and its ingredients. Any incident in the feed sector — be it chemical contamination or the presence of pathogens — inevitably poses risks to the entire food chain.
The EFISC-GTP standard brings these areas together, requiring operators to adopt a systematic approach. If an ingredient can be used in both the food industry and animal feed, the incident management system must take into account the specific characteristics of both sectors, including different maximum residue limits (MRLs) and health impact vectors.

A key tool for transparency is the interaction between internal and external early warning systems.
   - Incident and Crisis Management: This is the ‘nervous system’ of industry standards. If an operator discovers that unsafe products have slipped out of their control, they are obliged to initiate the incident and crisis management protocol within 24 hours, notifying the Certification Body (CB) and EFISC-GTP. This allows other market participants certified under the GMP+, QS or AIC schemes to be notified immediately, preventing the further spread of the threat
    - RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed): The EU’s official tool for information exchange between national regulators. The operator’s diligent use of the incident and crisis management procedure enables government authorities to update data in RASFF in a timely manner. For the company, monitoring the RASFF Window portal is a way to proactively assess risks associated with raw materials from specific regions or from particular suppliers.

The EFISC-GTP standard is strict: a crisis management procedure cannot exist on paper alone. The company is obliged to conduct annual practical testing of the system, which includes not only internal traceability but also the simulation of external communications.

Staff must practise the actual procedure for notifying the Certification Body and the EFISC-GTP organisation. During the test (which must be clearly marked ‘TEST’), the validity of contact details, the time taken to prepare notification forms, and the crisis team’s readiness to make decisions under time pressure are assessed.

During the audit, the expert assesses not the existence of a folder containing regulations, but the actual integration of procedures into the company’s operations:
    - Use of the ‘decision tree’: How accurately does staff assess the severity of incidents?
    - Test results: Were any weaknesses identified and eliminated during the annual recall simulation? Was the notification of external parties practised?
    - Link to HACCP: Is data from the RASFF system taken into account during the annual review of the risk analysis?
    - Response time: Is the company able to confirm the status of a batch and notify interested parties within the stipulated 24-hour timeframe?
Transparent incident management is an investment in legal and reputational security. The timely use of incident management tools and RASFF monitoring enables:
    - Minimising financial losses: Rapid localisation of the problem prevents mass product recalls.
    - Strengthen trust: For global partners, holding an EFISC-GTP certificate and having a well-established response system is a guarantee of the supplier’s reliability.
    - Secure export rights: Compliance with European safety protocols opens the door to the world’s most demanding markets.

Incident management within the EFISC-GTP framework represents the highest level of safety management. It marks a shift from reacting to consequences to proactively participating in the protection of the global food chain. Only through regular testing and close integration with the EWS and RASFF systems can a company confirm its status as a professional and responsible participant.