Results - Objective 5

Objective 5: To ensure adequate Technology Transfer to the EU National Reference Laboratory system and the European Consumer.
Dissemination of project findings to relevant stakeholders was a major element of FoodBRAND. Various strategies were employed to this end:
  1. A Project Web site was established to act as an interface between the consortium and the public. The site acted as a major source of information and an access point to facilitate direct contact with the project team. Through the site, contacts were established with individual consumers, national authorities, analytical laboratories and food producers across the globe. Such direct access was invaluable as a source of information, advice and analytical methodology for all parties.

  2. A Consumer Awareness Forum held in Brussels on 26-27th September 2001 was attended by 35 delegates, 20 being representatives of European consumer organisations. There was also good attendance from non-EU countries. The importance of food testing by consumer groups was explained, as were proposals for using FoodBRAND deliverables to carry out testing throughout Europe. Wider issues of food surveillance, control and enforcement were discussed and the overall picture was completed by including discussion of the application of this work as related to consumer concerns, policy and strategy.

  3. Results of the FoodBRAND retail pork survey were published widely in the scientific literature and in Consumers Magazines in 12 European countries and in Hong Kong. This maximised publicity for the work of the consortium with consumers.

  4. As result of FoodBRAND, the consortium became involved in the organisation of an analytical Training Workshop for third countries (non-EU) in November 2002, has received visitors from many countries for training and advice and has sent staff to several countries to provide Technology Transfer and advice.

  5. Further dissemination to the wider world took place in 2003, with the launch of two Test Kits for the immunological detection of AOZ and AMOZ.  These kits are in use globally to facilitate the screening of these compounds. All the reagents contained in the kits, and the extraction procedures used therein, were developed by FoodBRAND.

  6. The rapidly developing chain of events, which precipitated the “nitrofurans crisis”, beginning in early 2002, forced a re-evaluation of the means of FoodBRAND dissemination to the EU laboratory network. When reports of nitrofuran metabolite residues, initially in aquaculture products and subsequently in chicken, became known, the consortium addressed an emergency meeting of NRLs in Brussels (11th April 2002). They presented background information, the state-of-the-art concerning nitrofuran detection, and showed that the prevalence of nitrofuran abuse in certain food-producing systems was high. The FoodBRAND consortium released Standard Operating Procedures and analytical standards to the CRL-NRL network in May 2002 to facilitate harmonising control of these compounds. One consortium laboratory then organised a training workshop for EU NRLs, in collaboration with AFSSA, Fougeres, the responsible CRL, in July 2002. Another consortium member organised a Ring Test for EU NRLs for nitrofurans in shrimp. As events progressed, the FoodBRAND analytical methods were gradually released to laboratories and governments world-wide in an attempt to control and eliminate the misuse of these compounds. Following the organisation of numerous Proficiency Tests for the nitrofurans by the CRL, FAPAS, etc, unfolding events had resulted in far more thorough dissemination of the work of FoodBRAND to the EU CRL-NRL network than could have been accomplished by the consortium alone.