EU-China-Safe will mobilise resources in Europe and China to develop a cohesive partnership that will deliver a shared vision for food safety and authenticity and work towards “mutual recognition”. Comprising 16 participants from the EU and 17 from China, EU-China-Safe contains key research organisations, government and industry needed to develop and jointly implement major advances in improving food safety and combating food fraud in the two trading blocks.

EU-China-Safe will build the core components needed for a joint EU-China food safety control system comprising: control management, food legislation, food inspection, food control laboratories, and food safety and quality information, education and communication.

The project will develop an EU-China Joint Laboratory Network that will achieve and demonstrate equivalency of results, and will develop a state of the art virtual laboratory, with interchangeable staff from two continents, that will be used as a “showcase” to communicate and demonstrate best practice. Innovative traceability tools will strengthen the most vulnerable supply chains. New or improved detection capabilities for chemical/microbiological hazards and food fraud will be implemented in a harmonised way across the EU-China network. Trade barriers caused by food safety and fraud issues will be analysed and recommendations of how to predict and prevent future events disseminated.

The project will focus on the most commonly reported foods linked to chemical and microbiological contamination and fraud (infant formula, processed meat, fruits, vegetables, wine, honey, spices).

Substantial knowledge transfer and training actions will build high-level and long-term collaboration, synergies and trust between a wide range of EU and China actors.

These advances, in addition to a wider range of confidence building measures towards food safety, authenticity and transparency, will address consumer expectations and facilitate an expansion of EU- China trade.