At the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s Vienna Food Safety Forum 2025, global leaders and experts explored ways to strengthen food safety and control systems through innovative digital and data driven solutions.
“The IAEA’s role is to ensure that countries have both the technical capacity to assess compliance with regulations and standards and the confidence to engage fully in global food trade.”, stated Najat Mokhtar, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications.
The IAEA, through its Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, supports laboratories worldwide by building technical capacity, improving data quality and participating in international proficiency tests. The IAEA helps establish trust between countries, consumers and trade partners.
A key tool is the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), a digital platform supported by the IAEA that tracks samples from collection to laboratory analysis and final reporting. The IAEA is also exploring how artificial intelligence can help make food safer. For example, using AI methods like Decision Tree Classifiers, the project was able to more accurately identify where products like whole grain rice came from.
Traceability begins on the farm with appropriate agricultural practices, conscientious use of veterinary drugs and compliance with food safety standards. Integrated farm-to-fork digital systems that connect data from producers, laboratories, regulators and exporters are significant for early hazard detection and full supply chain transparency. The IAEA supports the countries required to implement these systems effectively and reinforce trust in global food trade by building both technical and institutional capacity.
It is recommended that the action plan of the person responsible for food safety in each country include organizational planning procedures for programmes like Atoms4Food.
The Atoms for Food Equipment programme directly tackles the question of how to implement food safety programmes using specialized equipment for food treatment with ionizing radiation (E-beam and X-Ray). Food processing technologies using specialized equipment, presented within the framework of the Atoms for Food Equipment programme, make it possible to destroy insects and their larvae, as well as pathogenic microorganisms with ionizing radiation and subsequently increase the shelf life of products.
Read more about Atoms for Food Equipment programme on our website: