Project description

In Europe, foodborne hazards such as bacteria, parasites, bacterial toxins and allergens cause illness and death every year. Chemical risks in food, which are often associated with the occurrence of toxins, are a growing cause for concern. Established European food safety management systems need to be constantly adapted and expanded to cope with new challenges such as climate change, new diseases and natural toxins in food.

This Horizon Europe project is developing the prerequisites for an innovative, proactive and holistic food safety alert and management system. FoodSafeR embodies integrated approaches to hazard characterisation and risk management in forward-looking case studies, tools, methods, strategies, models, guidelines and training materials. An accessible digital centre will be established as a "one-stop-shop" for risk assessment, food safety authorities and relevant actors and stakeholders in the European food system. To achieve this goal, a consortium of 18 organisations from 14 European countries is working together in the project.

This project is looking for innovative solutions to further improve the safety of food systems, which have come under considerable pressure from a number of factors. There is also a need for improved collaboration across the food sector and internationally, as well as the introduction of novel techniques, including big data and digital technologies.

Interim results

Initially, all those involved were comprehensively informed about the importance, functionality and possible applications of the digital hub to be developed as part of the kick-off event and several online meetings. As part of a "living lab" in Dublin, the structure, benefits and details of the FoodSafeR tool that was subsequently developed were worked out, and the digital hub is now in full operation.(FoodSafer).

While our main focus was on testing and co-designing the Digital Hub, we now regularly use it in a similar way to LinkedIn or other social media channels to recognise which topics are being increasingly addressed and worked on by the community. This makes it easier to process and prioritise topics. We were also able to emphasise the importance of the digital hub to the international project partners in other projects. This also led to FoodSafeR and the Digital Hub becoming known and usable. The Digital Hub now functions as a specialised information platform in the food sector, whether for the exchange of current situation reports and alerts or for the provision of literature and training materials. In the final remaining period of the project, we will provide One Health content and updates on the platform and share them with the FoodSafeR community.

Benefits of the project

The FoodSafeR project helps to prevent food safety incidents caused by biological and chemical hazards in the European food system and the associated socio-economic impacts.

FoodSafeR thus promotes sustainable, healthy and inclusive food systems. These offer benefits in terms of climate protection, sustainability, healthy nutrition, safe food consumption, community empowerment and thriving food businesses.