veg-i-trade news feed

VTEC strains: EFSA looks at public health risks

2013-04-22T00:40:00.000-07:00

EFSA’s scientific experts say that it is currently not possible to identify which VTEC bacteria strains have the potential to cause human diseases. In order to help risk managers to identify human health risks, EFSA has proposed a scheme to categorise VTEC strains according to their potential to cause disease. This work has been carried out in response to a request of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health.

learn more!

5th Veg-i-Trade Consortium meeting at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in India

2013-04-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

In the week of March 18th 2013, Veg-i-Trade partners gathered at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) for the 5th Consortium meeting. Work packages were discussed, plans elaborated to make progress to final Deliverables but also opportunity was taken to visit and interact with stakeholders in fresh produce supply chain in Tamil Nadu region (e.g., organic grape & banana farm, ISHA Ruchi products, Banacombai tea plantation, India governmental agency APEDA, KRISHMAA mango export).

Download the report

Veg-i-Trade discusses on Microbial Hazards in Water and its impact of safety of fresh produce in at IAFP meetings in Europe & US

2013-04-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

Water is crucial in primary production, but also in processing and packing of fresh produce. Water has been established as an important source of contamination with microbial hazards. The sessions at IAFP Europe (Marseille, May 2013) and IAFP annual meeting at US (Charlotte, NC, July 2013), co-organized by EU FP7 Veg-i-Trade & ILSI Europe focus on an update of microbial issues in water i.e. protozoa, viruses and pathogenic bacteria. Based on actual data collection within Veg-i-Trade but also by reviewing literature of approaches in risk assessment information is provided on appropriate water sources, microbial guidelines on water quality or appropriate water treatment methods for waters to be used in agro-food production.

Learn more on the IAFP Europe meeting in Marseille, France

Learn ore info on the IAFP Annual meeting in North Carolina, US

Veg-i-Trade publishes its major outcomes in 2nd period report

2013-04-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Veg-i-Trade has recently submitted its 2nd periodic report (covering September 2011 to December 2012) to the European Commission DG Research. We invite you to read about major outcomes so far in our executive summary report. Learn about the global variability of food systems in place reflected in status of implementation of “best practices” and “management systems”. Refer to progress made in sampling plans, microbial analysis and observations on the field to identify risk factors for microbial contamination. Read what is going on with regard to pre- and post-harvest production practices and water treatment technologies and much more.

Download the summary booklet of the second periodic report

Safety and Quality of Leafy Greens discussed in two recently published Veg-i-Trade reviews

2013-04-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

Veg-i-Trade partners present the outcomes of their research work at various national and international conferences or in scientific publications. Two review papers deserve in particular to be highlighted. Cheng Liu from the Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University published a review on how climate change may enhance pathogen contamination risk on leafy green vegetables and provides a table of climate change impacts on microbial safety.Mabel Gil from CEBAS-CSIC in Murcia Spain published a review which discusses feasible harvest maturity indicators that ensure the high quality of the harvested product . One of the key issues for the success of the fresh-cut industry is the consistency of the raw material to assure the safety, quality and the shelf life of the fresh-cut product.

Read Cheng Liu's review

Read Mabel Gil's review

Veg-i-Trade presents at GFSI meeting in Barcelona, March 6-8th 2013

2013-03-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

The Global Food Safety Conference 2013, is a unique annual event that will bring together over 1000 leading food safety professionals from more than 60 countries around the world to advance food safety globally. Over the three days of plenary and breakout sessions are designed to inform about the latest developments in the industry and to challenge thinking around the Food Safety in a Global economy. Veg-i-Trade contributes with 2 presentations in the Session on Produce Safety. Veg-i-Trade presents i) its approach on dealing with safety of fresh produce after an increasing number of produce related food borne outbreaks and ii) discusses the need and its research work of water sanitation in fresh produce supply chain.

Learn more about this event

Download the presentation by Mieke Uyttendaele

Download the presentation by Mabel Gil

EFSA BIOHAZ panel published Opinion on the risk posed by pathogens in fresh produce

2013-03-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

In January 2013 a Scientific Opinion of the BIOHAZ Panel was published on the risk posed by pathogens in food of non-animal origin. The opinion is a first part describing outbreak data analysis and risk ranking of food/pathogen combinations. Also Veg-i-Trade experts took part as ad hoc members of this EFSA WG in preparing this opinion. Further follow-up EFSA BIOHAZ opinions focusing in more detail on the risk posed by some selected food pathogen combinations established in part 1 are expected to be published in the future.

Download the EFSA BIOHAZ Report

A web news story has also been published related to this opinion and is available online via the following link

Go to the story

Veg-i-Trade workshops in Western Cape and Pretoria region (South Africa), January 2013

2013-03-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

Multiple workshops were organised for fresh produce farmers and trading companies (i.e. pack houses, storage facilities) in two South African regions, Western Cape and the region around Pretoria in the last week of January 2013. The workshops were a collaboration of Pretoria University, Ghent University and Wageningen University. Objective of the workshops was to inform actors in the fresh produce supply chain in South Africa about the research being elaborated in Veg-i-Trade project and to apply the Horticultural Safety Management System diagnostic tools (‘HSMS-DI’) elaborated within Veg-i-Trade to identify weak and strong points in the current food safety management systems in place in South Africa.

Download the report

Various approaches to safety in fresh produce supply chain : Veg-i-Trade exchange forum in Ghent, 13-14 December 2012

2013-03-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

A noon to noon meeting was organized attended by ca. 25 researchers, company or industry or farmer representatives to exchange and discuss the various approaches, tools and experiences in assuring and controlling safety of fresh produce in different countries. The discussions related to topics of i) best practices in primary production, ii) sampling and testing, iii) water sanitation and iv) management systems in the fresh produce supply chains. The exchange forum looked for common grounds, agreements but also particularities on these topics depending upon the context: regional production practices, regulatory framework or culture.

Download the report

Information on (food) risk and crisis communication of WHO

2012-12-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

This report has been written after the experience of an internship on risk communication at the World Health Organization (WHO), in the Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses (FOS) in the headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland. The main goal of this document is to provide an overview of the amount of valuable and interesting information on (risk) communication with regard to safe food and outbreaks, which is freely accessible on the WHO website.

Download the report

Veg-i-Trade meeting report on results assessment on HSMS-DI and HAS

2012-12-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

The report of the Veg-i-Trade meeting on results assessment on Horticultural Safety Management System diagnostic instrument (HSMS-DI) and Horticultural Assessment Sampling scheme (HAS) is now available. You can download it directly by clicking on the button below

download the report

Veg-i-Trade launches survey on fresh produce food safety & quality standards in the context of food sovereignty.

2012-12-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

Food safety & quality standards and legislation play a key role for assuring food safety and quality in the global fresh produce supply chain. These food safety & quality standards and legislation have various implications on the functioning and organization of the fresh produce supply chain and their stakeholders, in particular for farmers.

One of the objectives of the EU FP7 project Veg-i-Trade, is to organize discussion forums on particular aspects of food sovereignty related to the global fresh produce supply chain. The outcome of the present survey will serve as one of the input elements for the round table discussions that will be organized in 2014.

If you have substantial knowledge of fresh produce food safety and quality standards and their impact and you also want to give your opinion, please click below to participate to the survey.

Go to the survey

Check out the Veg-i-Trade website as of April 2013 for feed-back on the results of the survey.

Enthusiastic primary school students visit UGent Department Food Safety and Quality

2012-11-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

In the frame of the UGent activities of the science week, 22 students from primary school Sint Paulus visited the Department food safety and quality at the bio-engineering faculty. The theme of the day “make the perfect fruit salad” linked closely to the research activities of the FP7 project Veg-i-Trade. The students discovered various techniques that allow to measure and optimize the microbiological and chemical quality of fruit salads. It was a nice day, both for the students and the UGent researchers.

Download the entire report with pictures

PRIMAFLOR talks on benefits of Veg-i-Trade research for fresh produce industry at GLOBALGAP SUMMIT, Madrid, 6-8 November 2012

2012-11-26T05:45:00.000-08:00

PRIMAFLOR located in Spain is an industrial partner within Veg-i-Trade with over 30 years history in growing, producing, marketing and distributing ready-to-eat horticultural products. Antonio Marhuenda from Primaflor presented his views on his engagement in Veg-i-Trade in close collaboration with research partner CSIC to increase safety and quality of fresh produce. He also discussed on his experience and perceived benefits for industrial partners such as PRIMAFLOR in implementing Veg-i-Trade tools on assessing food safety performance and sampling in the horticular sector.

Download the presentation

More information on Global Gap Summit 2012

Veg-i-Trade meets South-African tomato farmers, wholesalers, retailers and street vendors

2012-11-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

During the summer of 2012, Chirag Swami, an Indian Master student of IUP Food Technology at UGent made a trip to South Africa to study the importance of food safety and quality standards in the tomatoes trade. This Master thesis was set up as a collaboration between Ghent University and the University of Pretoria team, both partners of Veg-i-Trade. Read more on Chirag’s activities in South Africa, interviewing tomato farmers, wholesalers, retailers and street vendors in report here (+ link).

Veg-i-Trade presents its work in Seoul, Korea at the Annual Symposium of the Korean Society of Food Hygiene and Safety. October 26th 2012

2012-10-31T06:37:00.001-07:00

As a twinning with the Korean FDA sponsored Climate-food.net project, Veg-i-Trade also presented its approach on addressing food safety control against climate change in Seoul, Korea. Ca. 200 persons, senior microbiologists and young Ph.D students from various research institutes and universities as well as persons from the Ministry of Agriculture, KFDA, and the Consumer protection agency of Korea etc. participated to this Annual Symposium of the Korean Society of Food Hygiene and Safety. Many Korean and international speakers from US, Australia, Japan, Thailand presented at this one day conference with topics related to Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring, Nanotechnology for Rapid Detection of Pathogens, Pathogen Tracking Networks and Management of Foodborne Pathogens. Although various parts of the world were represented, and both presentations in Korean and English were given, it was clear that the food borne pathogens and associated problems of food borne illness by pathogenic E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter etc. are common to all of us around the world. International collaboration and exchange of research results to tackle these pathogens on an events such as this is very welcome.

Further information here

Download the presentation

Veg-i-Trade shares its insights on Water treatment & Sanitation with FreshFel Ad Hoc Working Group on Chemical Contaminants, October 2nd 2012

2012-10-31T05:57:00.000-07:00

Following the recent incident involving the finding of Quaternary Ammonium Compound residues on fresh produce, studies were undertaken to find out the potential sources of (cross-) contamination with this chemical. As this also triggered more questions and uncertainties in regulatory issues of other less known categories of chemical contaminants e.g. biostimulants, sanitizers, biocides, plant protection products, the Freshfel secretariat decided to call a dedicated meeting to exchange some information between its members and a European Commission delegate. Veg-i-Trade, WP5, was invited to share its research results on water disinfection and give an introduction of the potential and limitations on the use of sanitizers for water treatment. The meeting contributed to clarification on these issues of technical processing aids. Overall lessons were drawn, also related to crisis management and this will help to prevent similar incidents with chemical contaminants in fresh produce in the future.

Download the presentation

Veg-i-Trade enrolls activities in the East African Community

2012-10-31T05:55:00.000-07:00

Since April to August, 2012, Jessica Nanyunja (Ph.D studnent at Veg-i-Trade partner UGent) has been in Uganda and Kenya conducting field surveys with the HSMS diagnostic instrument developed within WP 2 of Veg-i-Trade. In total, 60 farms were selected for participation in the food safety management system assessment: 30 farms in Kenya producing french green beans and 30 farms in Uganda involved in production of hot red peppers (each time 15 small scale and 15 big farms).

Veg-i-Trade in the news

2012-10-12T02:55:00.000-07:00

Veg-i-Trade sent out a press release on the waste of fruits and vegetable in Europe on the 3rd of October (Click here to see the press release). The press release has been broadly picked up by the media. In Belgium prof. Peter Ragaert and prof. Mieke Uyttendaele gave a lot of interviews on the radio, to newspapers, magazines and on the television news,… Some examples can be found below.

Veg-i-Trade stuurde op 3 oktober een persbericht de wereld in, over de verspilling van groenten en fruit in Europa (Klik hier om het persbericht te lezen). Het bericht werd door verschillende media opgepikt. In België gaven prof. Peter Ragaert en prof. Mieke Uyttendaele vele interviews op de radio, voor kranten, magazines en voor het nieuws op televisie. Enkele voorbeelden vindt u hieronder.

Headline in the news of National Belgian Television RTBF (French)

Topic in the news of VTM (Flemish broadcasting company) (Dutch)

Article on Forbes

Article on Science daily

Article on Food Products design

Article (in dutch) on De Morgen

Article (in dutch) on De Standaard

Article (in dutch) on Het Laatste Nieuws

Article (in dutch) on Het Nieuwsblad

Article (in dutch) on EOS

Article (in dutch) on Knack

Almost 50% of fruits and vegetables is not consumed in the EU

2012-10-05T02:05:00.001-07:00

"Almost 50% of fruits and vegetables being produced in Europe are wasted throughout the entire food chain". This is the alarming statement of the latest press release issued by the Veg-i-Trade Consortium on 3 Oct 2012.

The press release has been widely picked up by Belgian newspapers and some television stations. You can download the text by clicking on the link below.

Download the press release

Veg-i-Trades shares research output at Food Micro 2012 in Istanbul

2012-09-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

Some of the young scientists engaged in the Veg-i-Trade research have presented oral or poster presentations at Food Micro 2012. Topics dealt with i) sampling to gain insight into the microbial contamination with pathogens during primary production of lettuce; ii) potential cross-contamination of E. coli between lettuce and wash water simulating an industrial fresh-cut lettuce wash process; iii) chlorine as lettuce wash water disinfectant with respect to the physicochemical quality and the chemical safety; iv) the use of biopolymers and rapid sand filtration as physicochemical reconditioning technique for vegetable washing processes; and v) the survival of norovirus, murine norovirus 1, MS2 phage and E. coli in various types of water used for irrigation of fresh produce. These and many other posters by young Veg-i-Trade researchers at various conferences can be downloaded here

Visit the Veg-i-Trade Visibility Section

ILSI Europe Seminar on Assessing Safety of Water Used in the Production of Fresh Produce Stockholm

2012-08-30T02:46:00.000-07:00

An international group of experts, including 3 Veg-i-Trade participants, identified the microbial food safety concerns of significance to fresh produce in different regions of the world, with particular focus on pathogens derived from contaminated production and processing waters. A session was organized by ILSI ‘s Working group on Water and Sanitation At the “World water week”, 26-30th August in Stockholm, Sweden. The work of the ILSI group was also presented at Food Micro 2012 in Istanbul by Veg-i-Trade coordinator Mieke Uyttendaele.

Download the program and presentations schedule

Download the presentation by Mieke Uyttendaele

Veg-i-Trade takes part in the Danish Symposium on “Global Safety of Fresh produce”

2012-08-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

An International Symposium on Global Safety of Fresh Produce was held on 16 August 2012 at Axelborg, Copenhagen, Denmark.Around 70 people participated in the symposium and it was a great success. Speakers from US, Brazil, China, Denmark and Veg-i-Trade presented and the session motivated international networking concerning innovative solutions to global safety of fresh produce.

More information about the session

Veg-i-Trade discusses on Food Safety and International Trade at IAFP Annual meeting in Rhode Island, US

2012-07-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

Increased international food trade has led to new food safety challenges which have impacted movement of food products between countries. Availability of a variety of foods throughout the year and at lower prices has greatly benefited consumers worldwide. The goal in this mini-symposium at IAFP Annual meeting in Rhode Island is to discuss food safety challenges and opportunities in relation to potential international trade barriers of food products. Mieke Uyttendaele contributed with experience built throughout the past 2 years of running the Veg-i-Trade project with many EU and non EU partners worldwide on “Compliance to Food Safety Standards in the Fresh Produce Chain – Bottlenecks and Opportunities to Access the EU Market”

More information available here

Download the Veg-i-Trade contribution

Veg-i-Trade provides it views on Water sources and quality in the fresh produce supply chain at GlobalGap, Köln

2012-07-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

Veg-i-Trade has presented the concept and research work in progress at Global Gap TC Crops in Köln June 19th. In particular some research output was shared on water as a resource, biological hazards, microbial guidelines, water treatment, risk-based decision making on the sources and quality of water to be used in fresh produce supply chain

Download the Veg-i-Trade contribution (1 of 2)

Download the Veg-i-Trade contribution (2 of 2)