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FDNC Newsletter: Issue 6 - Winter 2015
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Welcome to the Food Databanks National Capability (FDNC) Newsletter, keeping you up-to-date with news from our group based at the Institute of Food Research, Norwich, UK.
 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends, colleagues and partners!
Highlights
Nutritional Information Solutions

  

‘Legally compliant nutrition labels at affordable cost’
http://www.nutritionalinformation.solutions

Christmas has heralded the launch of this new business to support 30,000 processed food producers in the UK, to comply with new food nutrition label requirements. The simple to use service is one fifth of the cost (from £25 per product) of traditional laboratory compositional analysis of ingredients and is a big hit with businesses looking for legally compliant labels with affordable cost.

The initial launch commenced with the web site initiated service and will be followed by a direct marketing campaign starting in East Anglia, then extending across the UK. It will include seminars to support SMEs in understanding the legal and consumer trends driving a commitment to better labelling with transparent healthier eating choices.

Businesses must comply with the new legislation by December 2016. But, commitment to comply is also being heavily driven by retailers; well aware of increasing consumer expectation for nutrition information to be supplied on food products, with research indicating 59% of consumers now regularly check food labels.  

The business links synergistically with FDNC, as it uses the established FDNC datasets as the source of nutritional ingredient information. Most importantly we offer businesses the reassurance of an independently certified nutrition label, via a friendly supportive service from our scientists and nutritionists.

Mike Peters has joined us to help grow this new business and possible future related products and services; email Mike for more information mike.peters@ifr.ac.uk or nis@ifr.ac.uk
 
Paul Finglas: Member of new Scientific Working Group
Paul, head of FDNC has been selected as a member of the new Scientific Working Group on Nutrition and Health of the European Technology Platform “Food for Life”.

ETP - European Technology Platform - Food for Life
 
The European Technology Platform “Food for Life”  wants to step change the innovation power and impact of the European food industry, to the benefit of a sustainable society. To that purpose, applications to create new Scientific Working Groups to develop a new strategic action and implementation plan were sought.
 
Over 100 truly outstanding applications were received for members in these new Scientific Working Groups, and Paul was selected  by the Leadership Team of the European Technology Platform “Food for Life” for the Scientific Working Groups taking experience, expertise area and geographical spread into account.  The aim is that the excellence and proven track record of the members will allow ETP to develop a compelling new strategic research and innovation agenda.
 
Outreach, meetings and events

Food Matters Live, November 2015
ExCel, London
FDNC along with other members of IFR were at Food Matters Live highlighting our work on the composition
of foods and our nutrition information (labelling) service


 
11th International Food Data Conference
National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad India, November 2015
Paul Finglas attended the 11th International Food Data Conference, National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad India, November 2015, and gave a presentation “QuaLiFY: using scientifically credible data to underpin connected Health”. Paul then led a Post 11th IFDC workshop at the conference on “EuroFIR – Food Data and Tools: their application in Food and Nutrition Research”


 

12th European Nutrition Conference, FENS 2015 (20th-23rd October)
Berlin hosted this year’s Federation of European Nutrition Societies’ (FENS) European Nutrition Conference bringing together researchers, the food industry and students from all over the world. The theme of the conference was “Nutrition and health throughout life-cycle – Science for the European consumer”. FENS logoOne of the “Nutrition, public health, chronic diseases” sessions was dedicated to QuaLiFY, which was chaired by Paul Finglas who also gave a presentation on harmonised data and knowledge rules to deliver personalised nutrition services.. A first peek at RICHFIELDS (commenced 1st October 2015) was shown during a “Food quality, food safety, sustainability, consumer, behaviour and policy” session, also chaired by Paul Finglas. More information on these two sessions can be found on pages 57 and 78, respectively, in the FENS Book of Abstracts http://bit.ly/1QME5qR 
News on FDNC projects
FDNC staff participate in a number of national and European projects. Our most recent project is RICHFIELDS:



RICHFIELDS (Research Infrastructure on Consumer Health and Food Intake using E-science with Linked Data Sharing) is a new 3 year project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme that will design a world-class infrastructure for innovative research on healthy food choice, preparation and consumption of EU citizens, closely linked to their consumer behaviour and lifestyle. This unique research infrastructure will link the agri-food and nutrition-health domains and account for the regional, social and economic diversity of the EU to produce a scientifically, technically and legally robust evidence base that will enable scientists to efficiently collect, connect and share research data.

Consumers are central to the design of the project because they can provide crucial information, as they increasingly adopt mobile apps and technology and obtain access to e-business data and even medical information. Collectively, such real-time data creates new opportunities for research that monitors behaviour related to food purchase, preparation and consumption. Making “the healthy choice the easy choice” requires knowledge on the context of personal lifestyle choices and this project will enable new opportunities for research in the field of personalized nutrition.

IFR leads a work package within the project that will explore the potential for delivering data and content on food composition and food attributes, food intake data from population based surveys, data from clinical intervention trials and data from mobile applications that collect personalized information on food intake and lifestyle. For more information see http://www.richfields.eu/

Quantify Life – Feed Yourself (QuaLiFY):
Quisper, a revolutionary digital health platform has been launched. Quisper is a digital information platform providing scientifically validated nutrition and health data and knowledge that enriches creation of Qualifymarketable personalised nutrition and lifestyle advice services. The purpose is to ensure the best use of our current understanding of food, genes, and physical traits to design healthier diets tailored for individuals.
 
This revolutionary digital health platform was launched on Tuesday 8th December 2015 in Leuven (BE) at the QuaLiFY final meeting.
Watch the video here http://bit.ly/1k2HzbC  and visit Quisper at http://quisper.eu/
Publications
Here are some recent publications that FDNC staff have contributed to in the past few months:
Mirjana Gurinović, Jelena Milešević, Agnes Kadvan, Marija Djekić-Ivanković, Jasmina Debeljak-Martačić, Marija Takić, Marina Nikolić, Slavica Ranković, Paul Finglas, Maria Glibetić
"Establishment and advances in the online Serbian food and recipe data base harmonized with EuroFIRâ„¢ standards" [Food Chemistry Volume 193, 15 February 2016, Pages 30–38] 
doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2015.01.107

Susanne Westenbrink, Mark Roe, Marine Oseredczuk, Isabel Castanheira, Paul Finglas
"EuroFIR quality approach for managing food composition data; where are we in 2014?" [Food Chemistry Volume 193, 15 February 2016, Pages 69–74]
doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2015.02.110

Ian Unwin, Martine Jansen-van der Vliet, Susanne Westenbrink, Karl Presser, Esther Infanger, Janka Porubska, Mark Roe, Paul Finglas
"Implementing the EuroFIR Document and Data Repositories as accessible resources of food composition information" [Food Chemistry Volume 193, 15 February 2016, Pages 90–96]
doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2014.10.038
 
Future Meetings and Events
FDNC staff are already preparing for events in 2016, here are some highlights:

EuroFIR Food Forum 2016
FDNC group members will be attending the EuroFIR Food Forum 2016 in Brussels from Monday 4th April to Friday 8th April 2016, the event will focus on health claims and food labelling laws in the European Union

EuroFIR Food Forum 2016

The EuroFIR Food Symposium: Wednesday 6th April 2016
Focussing on the latest European regulatory actions on food safety and labelling, delegates will have the opportunity to learn more about EU laws on food labelling and their impact on consumers and the food industry. More information is available at the EuroFIR Food Forum website: http://www.eurofir.org/foodforum2016/eurofir-food-symposium-2016/

BACCHUS Health Claims Workshop: Monday 4th-Tuesday 5th April 2016
A two-day training that will help participants to better understand the EFSA claim applications and decision-making processes.

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends, colleagues and partners!


 
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