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.


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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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.