New platform improves European cooperation on food safety

Climate-neutral production, closing food cycles: the change to a circular economy requires new agreements, legislation and risk assessments to guarantee food safety. Sometimes the current European food safety system fails in this transition. Not enough communication between science, politics and society can lead to mistakes. Food safety is a top priority for the European Commission, but cooperation between the EU countries could be better and is a crucial aspect for the success of a new, safe food system. To prevent incidents and to ensure a safe transition to a more sustainable food system, a new European platform has been set up: FoodSafety4EU.

Wageningen University & Research will become part of the FoodSafety4EU platform funded by the European Union, together with 22 other research institutes and 44 stakeholders such as food and commodities authorities, consumer associations and research centres.

Quickly identify problems and start research smoothly

Researchers, policymakers, industry and consumers can find each other easily on the platform, in order to quickly identify problems with food safety and to start research quickly. "Inspection services can quickly be brought into contact with researchers all over Europe on the platform", says Niels van der Linden, one of the researchers involved from WUR. "And the researchers can exchange data with each other more quickly." With the help of new digital tools, data and scientific sources are easily accessible on the platform. 

Maximum European cooperation

The goals of FoodSafety4EU are safe products and food, synchronization of strategies on this and responding to signals from society faster and more transparently. FoodSafety4EU will be a network that focuses on maximum European cooperation with input from society. On which policy and decisions to finance projects will be based. The network is expected to grow into an operational and permanent forum within three years.

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