Abstract

Food recall and withdrawal is a fundamental tool for risk management and different Countries stated the mandatory application of a "system" for food; the present work is an analysis of different systems applied in different countries. The main objective of analysed systems is the consumer health protection through an audit system and the application, by producers, of system to rapidly recall/withdrawal of food. The comparative analysis of different national systems (i.e. European Union, Australia, Canada, United States and China) shows differences both of the terminological and legal aspects; the words recall and withdrawal have different significance in EU legislation than in other Counties legislations; from a legal point of view two main recall/withdrawal system could be identified: a mandatory one (EU and China) and a voluntary one (USA, Canada e Australia); all the investigated systems have a cooperative approach between Authority and Food Business Operator but different hint on their respective roles could be identified.