Rintracciabilità e certificazione della qualità agroalimentare

The application of the instrument of traceability allows to give a strong guarantee to the customer by documentating the path followed by a food product, or its component, during all the phases of production (included the primary one), transformation and distribution. To such aim the agricultural food sector is carring out an integrated approach towards Total Quality, in order to better answer to its suppliers, by involving all the subjects of the food chain and considering each organization as a ring of a wider supply chain. With reference to the recent voluntary and mandatory standards for quality in the agricultural food sector, the present work deals with traceability, both in the agricultural food chain and in the agrofood industries, and focuses on bovine meats and fishing sector; it moreover shows that a synergic effect between traceability and certification (voluntary and/or mandatory certification, system and/or product and/or food chain certification) brings a remarkable improvement, above all with reference to food safety, for a sector always more oriented towards sustainability policies.