MoniQA at the European Food Science Day

The European Food Science Day was held in Brussels on November 18, 2009 and brought together over 100 participants from a variety of stakeholders. Its aim was to widely disseminate the results of EU funded projects in the field of food and nutrition science. Speakers included high level representatives from the Commission and the European Parliament as well as from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries (CIAA) and the European Consumers’ Organisation. The projects presented their results in three breakout sessions on “Safer Food”, “Improving Health” and “Reducing Risks”.

MoniQA Involvement
Together with CASCADE, Daniel Spichtinger (RTD Services, a MoniQA partner) was part of the core organizing team for this event. Roland Poms (ICC General Secretary and Coordinator of MoniQA) presented an overview of the key issues in food research as well as outlining the MoniQA activities in the area of food safety hazards (Emerging Issues Working Group). Additionally, Sian Astley (IFR) chaired one of the three breakout sessions.

Summary: Food Safety Hazards - What is next (Roland Poms, MoniQA)

The EU has become the largest exporter and importer of food worldwide. As a global network of food safety experts MoniQA is able to react in a fast and comprehensive way to emerging food safety issues. The MoniQA emerging issues working group has successfully dealt with issues such as melamine, dioxin in Irish pork, or Clenbuterol. Another very timely issue is nanotechnology in food and the safety issues connected with it (e.g. EFSA 2009 scientific opinion). Recent issues like the swine flue required clarifying the risks of transmission via food consumption, where the facts are sometimes falsely insinuated even by the public media. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion on how to communicate food safety risks to the public and how to deal with educating the consumer about food safety.

More information about emerging food safety issues: http://www.moniqa.org/emerging

More information about the European Food Science Day:
http://www.commnet.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53
MoniQA presentations are attached below

Attachment	Size
EFSD-intro-RPv5.pdf	217.31 KB
EFSD-MoniQA-4.pdf	230.22 KB