Project Updates | December 2023

Project updates covering July to December 2023:

EUOpenFood (EFSA FCDB)

Partners have been busy finalising D1.1 “Search protocol, execution, organisation of the results, and future use” and D1.2 2 “Methodology for the evaluation of data from national FCDBs including quality criteria, minimum requirements, and summary indicators”. EuroFIR and CAPNUTRA have extracted data from Mintel GNPD and converted these to a format compatible with FoodEXplorer as well as partly matching fields (automatically and manually) with the EuroFIR component thesauri, with the EFSA SSD2 Chemical Parameter Catalogue, and FoodEX2. Results were discussed with EFSA in September, and the next official meeting will be in December to discuss D1.3-1.5. These deliverables consider the quality of values and the 16 EU FCDBs in the project, mapping of EFSA SSD2 Chemical Parameter Catalogue to EuroFIR component thesauri and FoodEX2, and yield factors quality criteria, respectively.

 

EFSA ALLERGENS

In the meantime, our partner – University of Surrey (UK) has been examining in silico tools and in vitro and/or in vivo methods for assessing allergenicity of food proteins. Any shortcomings and capacity to accurately distinguish between known allergens and known non-allergenic proteins are being documented and assessment criteria being developed, building on quality criteria that have been published previously.

 

ALLIANCE

Siân Astley and Christina-Ariadni Valagkouti attended consortium meeting (Bologna, IT – 5-6 September 2023) and presented Task 4.1 – Uses case scenarios, planning and preparation (D4.1 due M18, May 2024). The presentation summarised work on the detailed plan for use cases scenarios, including analysing results from the WP2 Delphi questionnaires and insights collected in D2.1 – Food Fraud landscape, strategic gap analysis, user needs & requirements. We are gathering details of the use cases to identify needs and requirements, exploring each supply chain and associated risks of potential fraud, comparing current and envisioned workflows, and starting to map requirements (e.g., technical, legal, and practical) to achieve envisioned workflow for PDO/PGI Extra Virgin Olive Oil (IT), PDO Feta Cheese (GR), Organic Honey (FR), PGI Austrian Fava beans (ES), PGI Lika potatoes (HR), Organic pasta (IT), and PDO Arilje raspberries (SR). At the end of November, Task 5.3 – Innovation Management, Market Analysis and Commercial Roadmap had its first meeting to discuss activities that will start in M15, January 2024.

ALLIANCE website

FishEUTrust

FishEUTrust was present at the stand at Aquaculture Europe Conference (18-21 September 2023, Vienna – AT) with three other EU-funded projects on aquaculture (SAFE, EUMOFA, Sea2See, FishEUTrust), and had joint oral presentation with Sea2See. Hana Mušinović attended the consortium meeting (Florence, IT – 9-10 October 2023), including a workshop related to co-creation living labs (CLLs); Siân Astley also presented progress on gender action and monitoring. Beneficiaries presented work performed over the recent months including developing the preliminary business process and digital method models, state-of-the-art and literature on seafood chain models and process engineering, and input process steps and parameters critical to complete detailed and working executable model to integrate envisioned innovative digital service use cases. Action plans for M18-M24 mean WP6 and WP7 start their activities with EuroFIR providing information on fish and seafood data availability and possible digitalisation of the SEAFOOD^TOMORROW Benchmark Tool. EuroFIR has also reviewed D10.2 – OEI related to Ethics requirements and, in December, attended the IPR & Exploitation webinar, part of the Task 3.3 Exploitation strategy development and Task 3.4 Cross-sector Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management strategy.

FishEUTrust website 

SWEET

Environmental life cycle assessment of drink and yoghurt products using non-nutritive sweeteners and sweetness enhancers in place of added sugar (James Suckling; Stephen Morse; Richard Murphy; Monique Raats; Sian Astley; Ascension Ciruelos; Abel Crespo; Jason Halford; Jo Harrold; Alain Le-Bail; Elena Koukouna; Hana Musinovic; Anne Raben; Mark Roe; Jasper Scholten; Corey Scott; Charlotte Westbroek) has been submitted to The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment for consideration. This manuscript describes an environmental study of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers in context of drink and yoghurt, the first of its kind. Also, Blonk (NL) has now published datasets describing the environmental impacts results of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers per kg end-product, as calculated by SWEET – for more information CLICK HERE.

SWEET website 

WATSON

Hana Mušinović and Christina-Ariadni Valagkouti attended Consortium meeting in Athens (19-20 September 2023). Beneficiaries presented work done since the kick-off meeting including development of the WATSON methodological framework to detect and prevent fraudulent activities in wine (PT), PGI honey (ES), extra virgin olive 0il (IT), meat (DE), dairy (FI) and white fish (NO) food chains. In addition, two deliverables were published, namely D1.1 Watson Project Management Handbook, and D1.2 “Data Management Plan, Ethics, Fundamental Rights, Data and Privacy Issues (Interim Report)” including data management plan.

WATSON website

Data4Food2030

The second project newsletter presented work done for:

• Stakeholder dialogue: What are the perceptions and experiences of food system participants of the data economy?
• Defining the data economy for food systems definition
• Expanding the project’s network during Synergy Days Conference

Read more HERE.

The project has also released its first video, introducing Data4Food2030 – watch it HERE.

A new report “Food 2030 Research and Innovation – Pathways for action 2.0” from European Commission’s (DG RTD) has been published, which provides an update on the European Commission’s Food 2030 initiative and aims to guide future research and innovation policy reflections related to Horizon Europe, the farm-to-fork strategy, the European Green Deal and beyond. George Beers (WUR, coordinator) and Grigoris Chatzikostas (FSH) also contributed to the drafting of Pathway 10: Data & Digital Transformation.

WASTELESS

EuroFIR is actively involved in dissemination activities, and we’d like to encourage you to follow the project updates on social media platforms!

WASTELESS LinkedIN    WASTELESS X (previously Twitter)  – you can also sign up to the project newsletter on the website.

Also, recently, WASTELESS launched their Sustainable Food System Innovation Platform, an online environment for those interested in sustainable food who want to stay up-to-date. Individual users can browse SFS databases such as Case Studies, Initiatives, Innovations, Practice Abstracts, publications, and weblinks, and registered users upload their work and comment on others. The platform also offers links to free online courses on topics geared towards small and mid-sized food professionals (e.g., best practices in short food supply chain innovations).

Are you an expert in food loss and waste measurement & monitoring framework?

WASTELESS needs your input!

Join the online survey to contribute to the development of an effective food loss and waste measurement & monitoring framework.

🎯 Anyone who works in relation to food loss and waste measurement

💬 Survey in English

🕞 15 minutes to complete

FNS-Cloud

FNS-Cloud finished on 30th September following a successful final event, hosted by EuroFIR in Brussels (BE, 12-13th September 2023). For more information, access to the FNSCloud catalogues, the community of practice with many helpful tips and support for users, and videos from events, visit the project website HERE.