The new CAP Common Agricultural policy takes into great consideration the security and quality of food. Today the consumer is more interested in finding out where the origins of their food comes from and want to know that the process of each stage of the transformation of this food is hygienically edible.

The concept of food traceability is becoming more defined and taking shape accordingly. It is applied to agrifoods and must allow each stage of production to be verified by the relative supply network sector from cultivation to rearing of livestock, breeding and finally to the table where it will eaten by the consumer. The aim of food traceability is to allow the consumer to be made aware of the journey of food products and aware of the factors that have contributed to its formation including import/export origin and to know the suppliers of the ingredients.

The EU food legislation :The white paper on food safety of 12th January 2000 which was produced in order to reassure consumers about the origins of a food source. The legislation CE 95/2001 on general safety of products and the regulations CE 178/2002 that foresees the traceability of products started from 1st January 2005. The national regulations UNI 10939:2001 for the traceability in the agricultural sector therefore has become the voluntary system of certification used for this aim.