Innovative Customer-Oriented Safe Solutions

Project acronym: ICONSS
Funded by: EIT Food
From 2020-07-01 to 2020-12-31
Coordinated by: INL (Portugal)

Objective:

The ICONSS proposal aims to develop, in the time frame of the project, an integrated solution targeting consumers and food operators. This integrated solution will consist of two modules: the first one, an app that will look at nutritional aspects for vulnerable population groups and allow to assemble a food box from retailers ready to be picked up or for home delivery, to minimize exposure in indoor environments particularly for vulnerable people. The second module, also connected to this unique app, will be a miniaturized device for fast, reliable and easy to use testing of workers and surfaces in order to ensure the safety in food-related environments, with special emphasis on retailer spaces. This miniaturized kit and device will include sampling, a simplified RNA extraction and isothermal amplification and detection, ready to be used on decentralized settings with minimum interaction from users, and giving a simple and easy to read answer.

Mobilization of Olive GenRes through pre-breeding activities

Project acronym: GEN4OLIVE
Funded by: EC
Funded under: H2020-EU.3.2.
Grant ID: 101000427
From 2020-10-01 to 2024-09-30
Total cost: EUR 7 385 558
EU contribution: EUR 6 998 282
Coordinated by: University of Cordoba (Spain)

Objective:

Climate change, emerging diseases and genetic erosion threaten olive production worldwide. While olive germplasm banks offer a possible solution, they remain unexploited due to limited development of pre-breeding activities and lack of collaboration and interaction between the germplasm banks and farmers/breeders. The EU-funded GEN4OLIVE project will increase the mobilisation of olive genetic resources and encourage pre-breeding activities by characterising more than 500 varieties and 1 000 wild and ancient genotypes around the topics of climate change, pest and diseases, production and quality and modern planting systems issues. The project will also develop smart ICT tools to make olive genetic resources more accessible to end-users, and enhance breeders’ and growers’ participation through two open calls for supporting pre-breeding activities.

Integrated Approaches Ensuring the Integrity of the European food chains

Project ID: 613688
Funded under: FP7-KBBE
From 2014-01-01 to 2018-12-31
Total cost: EUR 11 910 109,08
EU contribution: EUR 8 998 997
Coordinated in: United Kingdom

Objective:

Food Integrity “the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished or in perfect condition”.

Providing assurance to consumers and other stakeholders about the safety, authenticity and quality of European food (integrity) is of prime importance in adding value to the European Agri-food economy. The integrity of European foods is under constant threat from fraudulently labelled imitations that try to exploit that added value. The FOODINTEGRITY project will directly address this issue and will be an international focal point for harmonisation and exploitation of research and technology for insuring the integrity of European food. Comprising an inner core of project participants from industry, academia, research institutes, technology providers and a global network of stakeholders, FOODINTEGRITY will rationalise and harmonise capability to provide a coherent structure and process for assuring the food supply.

FOODINTEGRITY will: facilitate the sharing of information between stakeholder groups regarding European food integrity; establish processes for harmonising & exploiting existing databases; establish fit for purpose methodology to address stakeholder needs; identify and address research gaps by procuring and delivering €3M of commissioned projects; establish a self-sustaining Food-fraud early warning system for identifying emerging fraud risks; establish a self-sustaining worldwide network of stakeholders to ensure maximum uptake of the project legacy.

Improved verification procedures will be developed for food control and industry stakeholders using 3 key commodities as exemplars: olive oil, spirit drinks & seafood. In addition a consumer study in China will assess their consumer attitudes in the face of substantial counterfeiting of European food. Finally it will establish expert food authenticity platforms that will supply independent expert opinion on food authenticity/food fraud to the European Commission, Codex and other national/international bodies

Integrated Approaches to Food Allergen and Allergy Risk Management

Project ID: 312147
Funded under: FP7-KBBE
From 2013-03-01 to 2017-02-28
Total cost: EUR 12 473 566,05
EU contribution: EUR 8 999 969
Coordinated in: United Kingdom

Objective:

Up to 20 million European citizens suffer from food allergy. However management of both food allergy (by patients and health practitioners) and allergens (by industry) is thwarted by lack of evidence to either prevent food allergy developing or protect adequately those who are already allergic. iFAAM will develop evidence-based approaches and tools for MANAGEMENT of ALLERGENS in FOOD and integrate knowledge derived from their application and new knowledge from intervention studies into FOOD ALLERGY MANAGEMENT plans and dietary advice. The resulting holistic strategies will reduce the burden of food allergies in Europe and beyond, whilst enabling the European food industry to compete in the global market place.

Our approach will build on e-Health concepts to allow full exploitation of complex data obtained from the work in this proposal and previous and ongoing studies, maximising sharing and linkage of data, by developing an informatics platform “Allerg-e-lab”. This will enable us to

1. Extend and integrate existing cohorts from observation and intervention studies to provide evidence as to how maternal diet and infant feeding practices (including weaning) modulate the patterns and prevalence of allergies across Europe.
2. Establish risk factors for the development of severe reactions to food and identify associated biomarkers.
3. Develop a clinically-validated tiered risk assessment and evidence-based risk management approach for food allergens for allergens in the food chain.
4. Develop clinically-relevant multi-analyte methods of analysis suited to allergen management across the food chain.

Stakeholders will be integrated into iFAAM to deliver harmonised integrated approaches, including RISK ASSESSORS AND MANAGERS managing population risk, the FOOD INDUSTRY who manage allergens to ensure consumer safety, HEALTH CARE PRACTITIONERS to provide food allergy management plans and dietary advice and ALLERGIC CONSUMERS to manage individual risk.

Safe Food for Europe – Coordination of research activities and Dissemination of research results of EC funded research on food safety

Project ID: 266061
Funded under: FP7-KBBE
From 2011-05-01 to 2014-04-30
Total cost: EUR 1 166 818,50
EU contribution: EUR 999 915
Coordinated in: Austria

Objective

The proposed Coordination and support actions (Coordinating, CSA) has the overall objective to disseminate state-of-the-art research results in food safety and quality topics through a series of symposia, expert working group meetings, an online platform with best practise examples and coordination of cooperation and a plan for the preparation of future activities. In addition to the aim of disseminating research results of finalised and current EC funded projects from FP6 and FP7 and other projects focusing on food safety, the consortium will develop strategies and recommendations for European policies (e.g.: food, consumers, research, health, agriculture). The secure handling of food has main impact onto the safety of food products and the European consumers. Furthermore, detailed plans and actions to foster food safety research in Europe are part of the workplan and objectives. The CSA action will pave the way for highly innovative research projects in the field of food safety. FOODSEG will connect research and policy actors in the enlarged European Union and the Candidate countries, in order to fill transitional gaps and achieve a broader network and deeper collaboration between them. The following map gives an overview of the FOODSEG consortium and the very broad network which covers nearly all regions of the enlarged European Union, Candidate countries and also third countries.

Towards the harmonisation of analytical methods for monitoring quality and safety in the food chain

Project ID: 36337
Funded under: FP6-FOOD
From 2007-02-01 to 2012-01-31
Total cost: EUR 12 400 000
EU contribution: EUR 12 300 000
Coordinated in: Austria

Objective

The MONIQA (Towards harmonisation regarding monitoring the hazards in the food supply chain?) NoE seeks to establish durable integration of leading research institutions, industrial partners and SMES working in complementary fields of detections and methods for food quality and safety. MONIQA aims at overcoming European and worldwide fragmentation in food quality and safety (Q and S) research by integrating key organisations in a core consortium. Benefits through dissemination and joint research will also be available to associated partners (=associates). The core consortium (=partners / members) seek to establish mechanisms for coordinating and finally merging research activities, personnel and infrastructure. The industry and SME sector will benefit through application of the harmonised detection method and technologies, as will the consumers of high quality and safe food. The core consortium comprises a network of 30 members. The geographic diversity covers 11 EU member states (19 partners), 2 Associated Candidate Countries (3 partners), 2 Associated countries (2 partners), 1 MPC country (1 partner) and 4 Asian/Oceanic countries (5 partners). From the 30 members, 12 are research institutions, 11 are centres of higher education (HE), 2 are industry partners and 5 are other organisations (NGO, small companies). Seven SMES are full partners in the consortium. Ten of the partners have a female leader (about 30%). A total of 174 researchers and doctoral students are planned for integration into the network with more than 40% of female researchers and more than 55% of female PhD students. Using the calculation provided in the Guideline, this results in a calculated Grant for Integration of 2,840,000 per year or 14,200,000 for a duration of 5 years.

Tracing Food Commodities in Europe

Project ID: 6942
Funded under: FP6-FOOD
From 2005-01-01 to 2009-12-31
Total cost: EUR 18 971 749
EU contribution: EUR 12 217 399
Coordinated in: United Kingdom

Objective

TRACE will develop generic and commodity specific traceability systems that will enable the objective verification of the origin of food and animal feed. Natural tracers such as trace elements, ratios of heavy (geo) and light (bio) isotopes and genetic markers will be measured to determine geographical, species and production origin. Geo and bioclimatic mapping will be undertaken to extrapolate geographical origin and reduce the need for commodity specific data bases. Post genomic technology will create rapid and sensitive methods for species identification. Profiling methods will be used to identify markers, to characterise food products and facilitate cost effective screening methods.The project will focus on meat, cereals, honey, olive oil and mineral water. Particular attention will be paid to commodities labelled as “Designated Origin” and “Organic”. The European Virtual Institute for Chemometrics will develop novel specifications obtained from analytical data which will characterise these foods.

TRACE will develop and draft standardised XML ‘request-response’ schemes for coding and electronic information exchange and establish “Good Traceability Practice”. An electronic information platform incorporating verifiable specifications and thresholds will be developed. This will permit objective verification of origin and enable rapid and cost effective product withdrawal. The new systems will be demonstrated and benchmarked in the 5 chosen chains,and the cost/benefit determined. Consumer scientists will investigate perceptions and attitudes to towards the “ability-to-trace food” through a pan European consumer study. A multi-tiered interactive information system will be developed for communication both within the project and for external use by industry, consumers and regulatory bodies. Research workers, control agencies and industry will be educated in the new methods, procedures and systems via short term secondments, workshops…

Development of quantitative and qualitative molecular biological methods to identify plant and animal species in foods

Project ID: QLK1-CT-2001-02373
Funded under: FP5-LIFE QUALITY
Total cost: EUR 2 469 153
EU contribution: EUR 1 395 014

Objective

Recent investigations demonstrated that fraudulent replacement of food components as well as adverse reaction to unexpected food ingredients is quite common problems. Up to now official methods for the detection of plant and animal species in foods are exclusively based on protein analysis. The project aims to develop DNA-analytical methods for qualitative and quantitative identification of plant and animal species in foods to monitor product safety and tractability. The project includes the comparison of nucleic acid-based methods with protein-based ones. A research aspect will be enhancing throughput by introducing multiplex-PCR, PCR-ELISA and chip technology. Four methods for several species will be validated in interlaboratory studies. Furthermore a public database will be established containing information about methods to identify plant and animal species in foods.

Development of molecular genetic methods for the identification and quantification of fish and seafood

Project ID: QLK1-CT-2000-30476
Funded under: FP5-LIFE QUALITY
From 2001-01-01 to 2003-12-31
Total cost: EUR 2 321 556
EU contribution: EUR 1 443 735
Coordinated in: Germany

Objective

So far it is not possible to quantify reliably the constituents of fish or other seafood products. The methods used today rely on the quantification of substances highly susceptible to processing conditions. Due to its stability the quantification of DNA is a very promising attempt to overcome this problem. Practicable, fast and easy to use methods for quantification are in the interest of consumers and industry to prevent fraud and mislabelling. The technical progress in DNA-quantification offers the opportunity to develop methods applicable in routine analysis. The excellent access to the European market, to fisheries along with long experience in DNA analytic and state of theatre equipment will provide the fundament to achieve protocols and procedures for high throughput identification of fish and seafood and a sensitive , reliable technique to quantify species in fish and seafood products.