Delivering an Effective, Resilient and Sustainable EU-China Food Safety Partnership

Objective

EU-China-Safe will mobilise resources in Europe and China to develop a cohesive partnership that will deliver a shared vision for food safety and authenticity and work towards “mutual recognition”. Comprising 15 participants from the EU and 18 from China, EU-China-Safe contains key research organisations, Government and industry needed to develop and jointly implement major advances in improving food safety and combating food fraud in the two trading blocks.

EU-China-Safe will build the core components needed for a joint EU-China food safety control system comprising: control management, food legislation, food inspection, food control laboratories, and food safety and quality information, education and communication. The project will develop an EU-China Joint Laboratory Network that will achieve and demonstrate equivalency of results, and will develop a state of the art virtual laboratory, with interchangeable staff from two continents, that will be used as a “showcase” to communicate and demonstrate best practice. Innovative traceability tools will strengthen the most vulnerable supply chains. New or improved detection capabilities for chemical/microbiological hazards and food fraud will be implemented in a harmonised way across the EU-China network. Trade barriers caused by food safety and fraud issues will be analysed and recommendations of how to predict and prevent future events disseminated. The project will focus on the most commonly reported foods linked to chemical and microbiological contamination and fraud (infant formula, processed meat, fruits, vegetables, wine, honey, spices). Substantial knowledge transfer and training actions will build high-level and long-term collaboration, synergies and trust between a wide range of EU and China actors.

These advances, in addition to a wider range of confidence building measures towards food safety, authenticity and transparency, will address consumer expectations and facilitate an expansion of EU- China trade.

Field of science

/agricultural sciences/agriculture, forestry, and fisheries/agriculture/horticulture/fruit growing
/engineering and technology/other engineering and technologies/food and beverages/food safety
/engineering and technology/electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering/electronic engineering/automation and control systems
/agricultural sciences/agriculture, forestry, and fisheries/agriculture/horticulture/vegetable growing
/social sciences/economics and business/business and management/commerce

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

SFS-45-2016 - Increase overall transparency of processed agri-food products

Call for proposal

H2020-SFS-2016-2
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

RIA - Research and Innovation action

Coordinator

THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST

Address

University Road Lanyon Building
BT7 1NN Belfast
United Kingdom

Activity type

Higher or Secondary Education Establishments

EU contribution

€ 903 625