Food safety has always been an important issue. Food producers must take this into account if they want to be successful on the market in long terms. The further development of measurement and analysis methods makes it possible to monitor food production more reliably, and to identify and avoid undesirable properties of raw materials and processes.

Blockchain technology, for example, allows to trace back food easily and safely back from its origin to the plate. For individual food products, for example, an electronic or digital verification network can exist that works in real time. A data record or block is created, for example, for a farmer whose eggs are used in a processed product. This data record could contain the chicken breed, the feed, the history of the treatment with medicines and things like that.

Blockchain technology offers a secure insight into all transactions. Blockchains are able to store data permanently, loss- and falsification-proof, without the need for a trust-giving intermediary. In the seminar “Food safety in the supply chain” on 12 and 13 March 2019, current activities are presented which deal with the application of blockchain technology in tracing back food in supply chains.

Another important issue on food safety is food fraud. In the past, there have repeatedly been cases that have led to a loss of confidence in the food industry. Since the horse meat scandal in 2013, food fraud has been in the focus of official monitoring. Food fraud is also an important issue for the private standards of the food trade, and its importance is growing. Measures to prevent food fraud are increasingly anchored in the stan-dards. The topic “Food Fraud” will be dealt with in a whole thematic block in the seminar. In addition to the above-mentioned topics, many interesting topics await the participants, such as “Transparency in logistics through intelligent pallets” or “Food transports of liquid and bulk goods”.