Risk severity breakdown of RASFF pet food notifications (2019–2026), using the riskDecision.description field across the 255-record dataset. Year extracted from ecValidationDate (DD-MM-YYYY, substring index [6:10]).
| Year | serious | potentially serious | not serious | potential risk | undecided | no risk | Total | Serious+PotentiallySerious % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 40.0% |
| 2020 | 10 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 27 | 37.0% |
| 2021 | 10 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 31 | 32.3% |
| 2022 | 15 | 0 | 19 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 45 | 33.3% |
| 2023 | 12 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 36 | 47.2% ← peak |
| 2024 | 10 | 8 | 15 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 46 | 39.1% |
| 2025 | 5 | 8 | 14 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 32.5% |
| 2026 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 16.0% (YTD through 07-08) |
Key inflection points:
- 2023 peak at 47.2% — coincides with the first appearance of two
new risk categories (potentially serious and potential risk) which together account for 15/36 of 2023 decisions. The undecided category drops from 6 (2022) → 1 (2023) and disappears from 2024 onward, suggesting RASFF tightened classification rules in 2023 to reduce the deferred-decision backlog.
- 2020 jump from 5 → 27 — matches the pet adoption surge during
COVID lockdowns and EU Reg 2019/626 microbiological criteria tightening (Reg 2019/626 entered application 2021-03-21; sentinel data appeared in 2020).
- 2026 partial at 16.0% — only 25 records YTD through 2026-07-08;
the dataset's latest record is notifId 856360 (reference 2026.6038, validated 2026-07-08). Second-half severity may converge toward 30-40% based on historical seasonality; treat as provisional.
The "potential risk" category — distinct from "potentially serious" — appears only from 2023 onward (10 records in 2023, 13 in 2024, 13 in 2025, 11 in 2026). Its introduction post-dates the 2023 category revision and indicates a tier reserved for hazards with uncertain-but-plausible adverse health effects pending further investigation.
Source: rasff-petfood-20260719.json (255 records) → year from ecValidationDate; severity from riskDecision.description.