Food Pro·tec·ts officially launched
New INTERREG project aims to make our food safer
The kick-off meeting on 21 February marked the start of the project "Food production technologies for trans-boundary systems". 18 project partners are going to collaborate across borders in order to increase the quality and sustainability of the regional food production. This includes expanding consumer protection policies, reducing water and food waste during production, improving animal welfare and health as well as new ways of transforming biomass into valuable products. An overall budget of almost EUR 10 million has been made available to the project partners.
For our faculty, Neil Shirtcliffe and Alexander Struck will examine how spectroscopy can be used in slaughterhouses to determine individual best before dates for meat products. Ideally, the same methods could also be used in the supermarket to monitor the quality of the meat along its way to the consumer. The aim is to reduce the food waste caused by inaccurate expiration dates without compromising on the quality standard of the product.
The Food Pro·tec·ts project is part of the INTERREG programme Germany-The Netherlands.