EU research head calls for more food R&D

The €61.6m devoted to the projects are part of a plan by the European Commission to beef up investment in food research and development in the bloc. The effort is part of a plan to get governments and the food industry to put more into R&D to help keep them competitive. Only about one per cent of the food industry's turnover is put intoR&D compared to between three to five per cent in other industries. Christian Patermann, the European Commission director general for research, told FoodProductionDaily.com that more money was needed for food R&D research if the EU's processors hoped to remaincompetitive. Patermann is also the Commission's director for biotechnology, agricultural and food. He cited increasing competition from the US, China and India as an incentive for more development of products to meet consumers needs. "The industry has to innovate if it is to remain cutting edge," he said. "We want to wake industry up. Who would have thought a few years ago that the French wine industrywould be suffering from foreign competition. Now we not only have frozen lamb from New Zealand entering the EU, but also chilled lamb." The need new life science technology and especially biotechnology is a means of meeting consumer demands for healthier foods, he said. Patermann hopes the figure would be doubled over the next few years during the next round of funding under a EU programme for food research. "If we don't wake up our food industry could lose its competitive edge," he said by telephone from London, where the projects were announced. The €61.6m invested in the five projects aim to tackle some of the food quality and safety issues of concern to consumers. Providing more public information on food origin, contaminants,ingredients and allergies would also put food processors in the hot seat if there are any issues surrounding the quality or safety of their products. A survey by Globescan last year of France, the UK, Germany and Italy found that 36 per cent of consumers believed food safety is worse today than 20 years ago, and another 22 per cent believed itno better. BSE and a consecutive string of other food safety scares have led to a fall in consumer confidence. The five projects aim to develop a means of recycling food waste, establish techniques tracing the geographical origin of foods, find methods to monitor food contaminants, create a singleauthoritative source of food composition data within the bloc and provide more scientific detail on allergens. About €18.9 million will be invested in the Trace project, which will develop analytical methods for tracing and verifying the origin of foods. Scientists at Trace will also assess Europeanconsumer perceptions, attitudes and expectations regarding food production systems and their ability to trace food products. The project will also track consumer attitudes to designated origin products, food authenticity and food fraud. Food companies will be involved in a programme of demonstrations to evaluate currenttraceability systems to ensure they work and are cost effective. Part of the programme will be aimed at training industry workers, regulatory bodies and analysts in the new systems and methods. The project involves research institutes, universities and private companies in 12 EU member states along with three associated countries plus China. "The applicability of the project to the consumer and industry will be assured through the combination of an independent advisory board and observers," a press release stated. Another €12 million will be spent on establishing EuroFIR, the European Food Information Resource Network. This is a five-year project to build and disseminate a comprehensive databank onnutrients and newly emerging bioactive compounds that claim to have health benefits. The data will be used by food manufacturers and producers to calculate nutrient values to help them label their products correctly. Another project costing £6.7 million will screen a variety of foodstuffs for multiple chemical contaminants, including pesticides, toxins and drugs. The project's research team aim to develop new technologies to detect any of the hidden dangers in many foods before being consumed by the public, a press release stated. The project will study novel techniques aimed at 'finger printing' foodstuffs to discover if they contain any chemical contaminants. The project will be led by a team from Northern Ireland who willlink up with 32 other partners from 15 European countries and Canada. About €5 million has been set aside to study how to recycle waste from the brewing and vegetable processing sectors of the food industry. Under the EU's food waste laws, processors are under increasing pressure to reduce their disposal of surplus products. Such residues are biologically complex. As waste they can be sources ofmicrobiological contamination and damage the environment. The EU's brewing sector produces about 3.4 million tonnes of grain waste, while vegetable processors output about one million tonnes of vegetable trimmings annually according to Eurostat. The project aims to reduce the environmental impact of food waste by using such waste products as natural ingredients for the food and feed sectors. A total of €19 million will be spent on EuroPrevall, a project to study the patterns and prevalence of food allergies across Europe. The project will use samples and information from surveys toidentify risk factors for food allergies. "For the first time, we will tease out the role of diet, environment and infections in the development of food allergy and whether early signs of predisposition to allergy can be found in ourgenes," said Clare Mills, EuroPrevall's coordinator from the UK's Institute of Food Research. "Scientific teams will work on new methods to improve clinical diagnosis of food allergy andprevent allergens reaching the food chain." Earlier this year the European Commisson released €658 million for health and food research, touching genomics, biotechnology, and food safety. External links to companies or organisations mentioned in this story: Food origin and authenticity Food composition data BioCop (food contaminants) Food waste Food allergy