In the last decade severe large-scale food emergencies took place in Europe. Unpredictable accidents, speculative technological management and climatic adversities deeply affected market stability, consumer health and product supply. The actual structure of European agro-food supply chain, typically comprised of multiple companies, food chain players have realised to be impotent in managing quality and safety of foodstuffs and European consumers have begun to loose confidence in quality and safety systems.

Supply chain management is a key issue for improving this sector and to achieve this goal, an operative framework of vertical integration and trust-based alliances is needed.

The aim of e-MENSA project is to determine if an innovative infrastructure based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is applicable to the food supply chain. The operative objectives are:

·         To link research teams having research excellence in the concerned areas to develop future research initiatives contributing to the strategic objective of the European Research Area

·         To identify research agenda for future community research activities concerning food supply electronic platforms (e-platforms)

·         To foster debate among food chain stakeholders concerning the role for assuring higher quality ad safety foods to European consumers of supply chain e-platforms and their benefits and costs

·         To support regional, national and community policy development in the field of the food supply chain.