On October 5th 2011 Veg-i-Trade was invited to Freshfel Europe, the forum for the European fresh fruits and vegetables chain, to share knowledge from the research and expertise within Veg-i-Trade and to reflect on the recent German E. coli O1O4 outbreak. The complexity of the identification of pathogenic E. coli was discussed. In addition the ability (or inability) for the establishment of testing regimes and challenges on further improvement of “best practices” in the fresh produce chain were presented.