The European Union, by appointing the Normative CE nr. 178:2002, made food traceability mandatory starting from January 1st, 2005. It is defined as "the capability of reconstructing and following the route of a food, a fodder, an animal assigned to production, or a substance assigned or fitted to be part of food or fodder through all phases of production, transformation, distribution". In Italy, Normative UNI 10939:2001 defines traceability as "the capability of reconstructing the product history and transformations by documents".

Also, by traceability it is meant both the information flow from upstream the production chain, and the inverse process of tracing the information, spreaded along the chain, back to food origin. When correctly deployed, these processes, far from being a mere additional cost for both consumers and industry, yelds many and clear benefits:

To consumers:

• public health protection through product withdrawal in case of emergency;
• fraud prevention;
• control of diseases caused by food;
• vegetable and animal health control.

To industry:

• compliance to regulations;
• capability of performing immediate actions to withdraw from the market dangerous products, thus saving its reputation;
• cost reduction in case of product withdrawal from the market.