Abstract

This review updates the available molecular techniques and technologies and discusses how they can be used for traceability, food control and enforcement activities.

The review also provides examples on how molecular techniques succeeded to trace back unknowns to their breeds of origin, to fingerprint single individuals and to generate evidence in court cases. The examples demonstrate the potential of the DNA based traceability techniques and explore possibilities for translating the next generation genomics tools into a food and feed control and enforcement framework.

Keywords: Deterministic approach, genetic traceability, molecular markers, probabilistic approach, SNPs, Radio Frequency Identification tags, traceability, Genetic traceability, microsatellites, genomic information.