Advice 05-2014 of the Scientific Committee of the Belgian Food Safety Agency on the food safety of the short supply chain

food. Foodstuff that is made available via this short supply chain have a positive image. Farmers and food companies from both the conventional chain and the short supply chain must comply with European and national legislation. In the European legislation, a certain flexibility is foreseen in terms of short supply chain, giving Member States the possibility to lay down certain own national rules for producers (both primary producers and processing companies) in the short supply chain. There are a number of initiatives in our country to assist farm producers in this, such as the ‘Steunpunt Hoeveproducten’, an initiative of the npo KVLV in Flanders and ‘DiversiFerm’, a project of the Walloon Region. 
In this advice, an evaluation of some food safety aspects of the short supply chain was made, based on the results of inspections conducted by the FASFC and on the results of analyses conducted by the ‘Steunpunt Hoeveproducten’ and ‘DiversiFerm’ in the short supply chain. The findings were already discussed at the symposium “Food safety of the short supply chain”, which was organized by the Scientific Committee in 2012. Further, also results from the scientific literature and expert opinion were taken into account.