Increased food safety through knowledge network

Increased food safety through knowledge network

“FOODSEG”, the European network project, aims to prevent the occurrence of BSE, salmonella, listeria, etc. in the future, by ensuring a more efficient transfer of knowledge between experts throughout the food chain. In July 2011, EU project coordinator and food technologist Andreas Moser put together a consortium of 35 international partners, in order to exchange expert knowledge in the areas of animal health, animal feed safety, food safety and commerce/industry, and to define new research tasks.

Salmonella, listeria, BSE, E. Coli and foot‐and‐mouth disease received considerable public interest in the mid‐90’s, and continue to do so to date. The result has been increased user awareness. To ensure increased safety for consumers, FOODSEG arranges the transfer of knowledge across the entire food chain and coordinates upcoming research in the field of food safety. The aim is to significantly improve quality as well as the utilisation of existing research findings over the entire chain, from the feedstock and animal feed, to the healthy animal, and all the way to the food product, through a professionally designed network.

Packaging and spreading knowledge

The FOODSEG network comprises existing EU and international consortia from all of the EU countries, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Serbia, Egypt and Vietnam. International research and development institutions (R&D), universities, small and medium‐sized enterprises (SME’s) and the industry have been carrying out research for decades in various areas of the food chain: Food quality and safety, veterinary medicine, animal health, food supplements, quality assurance and management, efficient utilisation in plant research and breeding, pesticides, allergies and contamination due to pathogenic germs.

“In order to ensure the best possible transfer of knowledge in this open consortium, research findings from existing EU‐supported research projects are being presented in three symposia. Eleven working groups will be defining future research tasks in various workshops and refining the recommendations of the most important research topics of the future. These will then be promoted to national and European decision‐making bodies. A social network will support communication between experts throughout the food chain. Based on a “scientific review” on the current level of knowledge in the field of food safety, young researchers will communicate between partners to define the essential topics and projects of the future”, according to Andreas Moser, who expects additional research findings from the structures of this network.

Come and visit us at our 3rd FOODSEG Symposium in Novi Sad, Serbia, from 24th to 25th of April 2014.