Recent food safety incidents in Europe such as “Mad Cow Disease” (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE), the spreading of dioxins in animal feed and animal derived foods, the emergence of pathogens like Escherichia coli 0157 and the market introduction of genetically modified (GM) food/feed crops have evoked broad public concerns about the safety of the European food supply and has led to low confidence of consumers in actions taken by regulatory authorities to protect them against risks emerging in the food/feed production chain.