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Disrupting the food safety chain. The decontamination unit that removes more than 99% of pathogenic bacteria during poultry meat slaughtering and processing

Project description

For safe chicken dinners

Consumption of undercooked poultry can cause diarrhoea and lead to severe health complications. The main perpetrators are the Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria. Preventing such infections poses a priority in Europe. Unfortunately, present methods are limited to standard prevention and hygiene controls. The EU-funded DECONIZER project aims to change this by delivering to the market a groundbreaking technology solution based on hydrothermal bacteriolysis that combines superheated steam with a large electromagnetic field. DECONIZER will replace preventive decontaminating methods, such as freezing or using hot water, to offer 99 % decontamination effectiveness in reducing carcass cross-contamination.

Objective

Hygiene procedures to avoid the growth of spoilage and pathogenic bacteria within the food supply chain are only preventive since no better available decontamination methods exist, and their inefficiency is reflected by the high prevalence of foodborne outbreaks reported. In 2016, 356,6124 human cases of zoonoses were reported in the EU, with Salmonella and Campylobacter jejuni being responsible for most of them.
DECON SFS is a Norwegian company led by Vidar Julien (communications and crisis management director at Nutreco NV for 10 years), created to develop and commercialize food decontamination technologies eliminating bacteria from poultry meat. The result of 8 years and € 4.5M is Deconizer (TRL6-7), a decontamination unit based on hydro thermal bacteriolysis (HTB) technology, which uses superheated steam in combination with a large electromagnetic field which charges the steam particles directing them towards the meat surface eliminating 99% of bacteria. Deconizer has been tested and validated in laboratory (at the Norwegian Food Research Institute, Nofima) and real operation conditions in the Spanish companies SADA and PUJANTE, confirming decontamination rates over 99%. Deconizer´s uniqueness relies in the reduction of carcasses cross-contamination, while having no impact on visual appearance, taste, smell or colour and extending products’ shelf life. Meat is still fresh, opposed to some preventive decontaminating methods relying on freezing and hot water.
Given there are not big competitors on the market, we expect to sell at least 56 Deconizer units across slaughterhouse poultry processing plants in the first 3 years of commercialization to reach € 16.1 M of revenues (ROI of 4.2) while creating 10 direct new jobs. The IP generated, will also allow DECON SFS to expand the application portfolio, since HTB can be applied to other types of highly consumed meat (e.g. pork, beef and sheep).

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Topic(s)

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SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

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Coordinator

DECON SFS AS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
MARKENSVEGEN 1B
2212 KONGSVINGER
Norway

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Norge Innlandet Innlandet
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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