Healthy and Safe Food Systems
Healthy and Safe Food Systems

Parallel sessions

 
In the afternoon we have parallel sessions to go more in depth in selected thematic areas. We will discuss the state of the art, the needs of the society and industries, future visions as well as open research questions. You will have the opportunity to think along with each other and give input for future research topics. We invite you to think about it in advance so that you can indicate during registration which you would like to contribute to. The tree thematic areas are:
 
 

Theme 1: Empowering health through nutrition, health and sustainability inspired nutrition  | Moderator: Jurriaan Mes

Healthy nutrition is an important aspect that affects people’s vitality. However, unhealthy diets are highly prevalent in Western industrialized countries and are a leading cause of overweight, obesity and related morbidity and eventually mortality. Recent research increasingly addresses the influence of food products and environment on an individual’s health. Therefore, applying the concept of empowerment to the field of healthy nutrition is promising and should also go hand in hand with environmental sustainability aspects. In this session, we will be focusing on topics such as inherently safe and healthy food products, better understanding of the health-nutrition link and empowered consumers who are committed to long-term positive change.

 

Theme 2: Food safety and traceability | Moderator: Peter Bonants

A sound transition towards a sustainable agri-food system is only possible based on scientific data, models and methods, which not only reveal the dominant weighing principle, but also weigh cost and benefits of the transition and monitor progress including risks in an objective way. Especially when considering the transitions that are relevant for the agri-food system like the design of full circular systems or the transition to a more plant-based diet, a crucial success factor is that there is no (re)circulation of antinutritional or toxic components or lead to the presence of new chemical or microbial contaminants or allergens that may impact the safety within the food system. Moreover it is increasingly important to make information available on compositional aspects, objective sustainability parameters as well as health impacts. During this session novel methodologies to ensure the safety of food products in food systems in transition, and to make sure the consumers are well informed to make choices in an easier way towards safe, healthy and sustainable food products are topics that will receive attention.

 

Theme 3: Prepared for emerging risks in food systems in transition  Moderator: Wim van der Poel
Global changes, including climate change, biodiversity loss and emerging diseases, affect crops and production animals, but also may be threatening to humans, ask for changes in food production systems, but also monitoring concepts that allow early warning of emerging hazards. Similar applies to circular production methods and new primary sources like in the case of use of more plant based proteins, which are more sustainable. We expect that also here new safety risks can emerge, which need to be considered that can impact global health (plans, animals, humans) and the new strategies, methodologies and tools to support the safe implementation will be essential. Let’s talk about better understanding of the sources of risks, hot spots and resilience factors in changing food systems and food systems in transition to develop strategies and methodologies for (onsite) analysis and elimination to safeguard implementation of solutions and improve preparedness.

By using these 3 thematic areas as starting points for developing overarching solutions, the intention is to impact the whole system in terms of increasing the safety and healthiness, while transforming food system to ensure that we remain within the planetary boundaries.