Grocers dodge £280m traceability data bullet

Changes to EU legislation mean UK grocers can continue to store traceability data centrally

UK grocers no longer have to dish out an estimated £280m to overhaul their traceability IT systems, following the successful lobbying of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) against an EU law governing food standards.

The legislation, proposal 1490/2007, which is to be formally adopted later this year, would have seen British grocers completely alter the way they collect and store traceability data for animal foodstuffs.

Grocers with multiple outlets would have been forced to abandon their ability to save data at a central point, as they currently do, and have data available on-demand at each grocery store, forcing an expensive outlay on networks and data storage systems.

A spokesperson for the BRC said: "Storing data around animal foodstuffs at a head office as opposed to each branch of a chain is acceptable and proportionate to the risks involved."

The alterations were incorporated into the legislation at the Commission's Hygiene working group meeting on Thursday 11 November 2010. the legislation will be formally voted on at the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) meeting on Tuesday 21 December 2010.

The BRC has been lobbying against the legislation since 2007.