The European food safety strategy pursues three main goals: a) increasing the food safety of meat and meat products, b) implementing a system for continuous improvement of animal health, and c) contributing to a rise in animal welfare of farm animals. Tools for achieving these goals are the accentuation of the role of the food business operator as primary responsible person for food safety and the new approach of a risk-based meat inspection, where the method and the intensity of the inspection are to depend on a risk assessment for human and animal health. The objective of the paper is to evaluate data for the food chain information and how different data sets can be used as "tools" for improving food safety and animal health.