Hello, my name is Davide and I am a scientist
working at EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority.
Today I'm going to talk to you about what we do at EFSA
in the area of data collection and dietary exposure assessment.
When EFSA evaluates the safety of a substance in food,
for example a certain contaminant or a food additive,
it follows a risk assessment process.
An outline of this process is here on the board behind me.
In the first two steps of the process, toxicologists set out to
determine a safety intake level for the substance in question.
In the next steps, scientists, like me, carry out
an exposure assessment, which is an estimation
of the amount of the given substance that consumers
are exposed to in their diet.
Then, only in the final step we look at the risk.
In simple terms, a substance can only be considered safe if the actual exposure
does not exceed the safety level defined in the previous step.
So let's go back to the exposure assessment.
How is this carried out? Well, in theory it's quite simple;
you just need to match data on the consumption of
food with data on the chemical occurrence – that means
the level of the substance in the same food.
However, in practice this can be quite challenging.
With regard to food consumption we are talking about data on the diet
of consumers for the whole of Europe.
That means more than 500 million people, and as you can imagine consumption
levels can greatly vary from country to country, or even from region to region.
Let's take coffee as an example,
for those of you who travel, you know how small
a cup of coffee can be served in Italy, an espresso,
with respect to a mug of coffee drunk in Germany or in the UK.
These might result in, of course, different
exposure levels for Italians and Northern Europeans to the
various chemicals found in coffee, such as acrylamide or furan.
It is also important to capture differences in
terms of consumption between population groups
such as small children, pregnant women but also others
such as vegetarians and so on.
In 2011 EFSA developed what we call
the comprehensive food consumption database.
This database is unique in that it brings together
food consumption information from 22 Member States for
different age groups, from infants to the elderly.
This database is used regularly by EFSA
when carrying out exposure assessment.
On the other side of the equation
we find chemical occurrence – that means the levels of
the given substance in food. In this area there is a big
challenge in ensuring that the data that we receive,
mainly from Member States, but also from research
institutions and industry, is harmonised and comparable.
Also, in this case it is important that this data
corresponds as far as possible to the food we buy and
consume on a daily basis.
One important aspect of EFSA’s role in the area of data collection
is to provide guidance to Member States and stakeholders.
A good example of this is a project called
‘What's on the menu in Europe?’ or ‘The EU menu in brief’.
The EU menu is currently in a pilot phase and will be the first pan-European
dietary survey ever carried out.
In practice it will allow the regular collection of accurate
and harmonised food consumption data for all Member States.
So, to sum up. We can say that the quality
of the final exposure assessment greatly depends
on the quality of the data that we receive.
EFSA’s cooperation with Member States
and other stakeholders is therefore essential.