Description:
RASFF alerts show that monitoring of chemical contaminants in food and feed is very relevant in European food safety. Also consumers placed chemical contaminants on top of the worry-scale of food-related risks. According to the General Food Law, food and feed industries are responsible for the safety of their products. Often expensive instrumental single-analyte methods are being applied by regulatory and industrial laboratories. There is an urgent need for replacement by validated screening tools which are simple, inexpensive and rapid, but also show multiplex capability by detecting as many contaminants in parallel as possible.
Research objectives:
CONffIDENCE is a large-scale research project supported by the European Communities in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The project will provide long-term solutions to the monitoring of persistent organic pollutants, perfluorinated compounds, pesticides, veterinary pharmaceuticals (coccidiostats, antibiotics), heavy metals and biotoxins (alkaloids, marine toxins, mycotoxins) in high-risk products such as fish and fish feed, cereal-based food/feed and vegetables. A balanced mix of novel multiplex technologies will be utilized, including dipsticks, flow cytometry with functionalised beads, optical and electrochemical biosensors, cytosensors and metabolomics-like comprehensive profiling. After validation, the simplified methods will be applied in impact demonstrators that contribute to exposure assessment and validation of hazard models. Moreover, hazards of emerging contaminants will be assessed through toxicological testing. RIKILT Institute of Food Safety, part of Wageningen UR, coordinates the project and performs a substantial part of the research activities. The project has a duration of 4 years and has started in May 2008.
Results and products:
Validated screening tools for the abovementioned chemical contaminants in food and feed which are simple, inexpensive and rapid. International surveys that will give an insight in the exposure of consumers to chemical contaminants. Data on the transfer of toxic contaminants from feed to eggs and meat |
