Online Workshop
Date: 31st May 2023 | Time: 9.00 to 15.00
For more information, please contact: Ana Fernandes: anafernandes@spi.pt
EAAP 2022 – Porto, Portugal
The 73rd EAAP annual meeting was organized by the Portuguese Association of Animal Science (APEZ) under the patronage of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries of Portugal. The event took place between 4-9 September 2022 in Porto, Portugal. The SUSINCHAIN partners attended this relevant event and presented the projects results and achievements in different sessions.
Webinar: Safety & Regulatory of Novel Protein Sources
While facing climate change and natural resource scarcity, ensuring sufficient, nutritious, safe and affordable food to a fast growing world population with changing dietary habits becomes increasingly challenging. The protein supply is in this respect most critical. Integration of a variety of new or alternative protein sources from both terrestrial and aquatic origin into new and/or existing processes or products needs to be explored, in order to develop and ensure more sustainable, resilient supply chains, featuring high consumer acceptability by a clean labelling approach and attractive market opportunities.
Sharing this goal, the EU H2020 funded projects NextGenProteins, ProFuture, smart protein and SUSINCHAIN launch Horizon4Proteins, a Webinar series – starting on 13th December 2021 — to work together in key aspects such as: Consumer acceptance of alternative proteins, Safety and Regulatory challenges, Food applications, and Sustainability. Horizon4Proteins invites researchers, farmers, producers and policymakers to join the conversation and contribute to the present and future of the sector.
Get involved in the Horizon4Proteins!
Participation is free of charge. Registration is required prior to the event.
Register here: https://bit.ly/3lAay9G
Agenda:
10:00 – 10:10 | Introduction – Birgir Örn Smárason (NextGenProteins)
10:10 – 10:30 | Regulatory challenges of alternative proteins – Prof. Sveinn Agnarsson (NextGenProteins)
10:30 – 10:50 | Chemical safety of insects – Prof. Ine van der Fels-Klerx (SUSINCHAIN)
10:50 – 11:00 | Q&A – Discussion around prioritised questions posed by the audience
Speakers:
Prof. Ine van der Fels-Klerx
Expertise group leader Agrochains, Special professor Food Safety Economics, Department of Business Economics, Wageningen University
Prof. Sveinn Agnarsson
Professor of economics at the Faculty of Business Administration, University of Iceland. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Gothenburg and a BA in history from the University of Iceland. His research deals primarily with fisheries and resource utilisation and he has taken part in several international projects in that area.
EAAP 2021 – Davos, Switzerland
The 72nd EAAP meeting was held in Davos (Switzerland) from August 30th until September 3rd 2021. This conference is very important for animal scientists, who can present their latest results and hear about the research led in their area of expertise. 82 different sessions took place during the conference week. Current results of the SUSINCHAIN project were presented during this conference.
SUSINCHAIN Workshop on Setting Quality Criteria for Insect-Based Food Products held in DTU Skylab Copenhagen
A SUSINCHAIN workshop with the focus on setting quality criteria for insect-based food products (under Work Package 5 (WP5) – Insects as Food) was held in DTU Skylab, Copenhagen on the 22 – 24 January 2020.
The key outcome of the workshop will be a set of specifications defining quality criteria for taste, texture, appearance, packaging, labeling, nutritional properties and food safety.
Additional aims were to share information and inspiration for the development of the best possible insect-based food products for the menu to be tested in consumer studies in Denmark and Portugal and to establish mutual understanding of the criteria for the successful implementation of WP5 and the responsibilities for reaching the goals.
The workshop was led by Associate Professor Nanna Roos from the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen and co-organised by Roberto Flore, Manager DTU Skylab Foodlab.
The workshop was attended by SUSINCHAIN partners working on the six different insect-based food products. The workshop was held successfully and the aims of the workshop were achieved and will be used as the basis for the next main activities on the WP5.
SUSINCHAIN presented at the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF) workshop in Brussels, Belgium
SUSINCHAIN was presented at the IPIFF International Workshop on the 3rd of December 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. IPIFF organised the workshop entitled ‘Unleashing the Circularity Potential of the European Insect Sector through Research and Innovation’ to emphasize on the vitality of having synergy in research initiatives and meeting the market demands in the insect production value chains on behalf of the active stakeholders in collaboration with Hermetia from Germany, Inagro from Belgium and Ynsect from France.
At this event, SUSINCHAIN exemplified with the involvement of 18 prominent end users from multiple European countries. Dr. Teun Veldkamp, on behalf of the academic and non-academic stakeholders, represented SUSINCHAIN as the project coordinator. Through the presentation on the outline of the SUSINCHAIN project: ´A Key Milestone Towards the Scaling up of the European Insect Production Sector’, he stressed that accelerating economic viability of the insect value chain and involving pivotal stakeholders to enforce the opening of new markets was of utmost importance.
SUSINCHAIN´s role in the progress of insect value chain research and implementation was shown by the number of multiple tasks planned, executed and evaluated in order to contribute to the production and successful commercialization of novel protein supply for feed and food in Europe. Using applicable technologies for bulk production and transportation for insect originated food and animal feed as well the integration of insect products in daily consumption are some essential aspects of the overall objectives of the project.
The following activities of SUSINCHAIN project were elaborated upon at the event:
- Analysis of business models and business operators’ experiences and market opportunities and interest of food chain actors in insect proteins;
- Best practices and policy recommendations for successful commercialisation of high-quality insect protein;
- Validation of nutritional needs and preferred physical properties of feed substrates;
- Developing a standard protocol for performing insect feeding trials;
- Actions to minimise effects of main pests and diseases in insect rearing systems;
- Actualise transportation of tests between partners;
- Development of guidelines and organisation of courses focused on needs of insect rearing companies;
- Analysis of digestibility of (protein) insect meals and product (meat, eggs) quality;
- Consumer testing of insect products in menus of regular diets and inclusion of insect-based products in regular diets;
- Setting up the multi-stakeholder platform (consumers, farmers, representatives from industry, academia and civil society organizations);
- Development of dissemination materials and activities, plus organisation of workshops and course.
As a true representation of collaborative and collective effort to support the growing global population and introduce sustainable technologies to reduce diminishing natural resources, SUSINCHAIN represents the complete value chain of actors supported by 17 academic and applied research groups from several institutes including universities, research organisations and consultation companies in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom.
About SUSINCHAIN:
SUSINCHAIN is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under the Grant Agreement nº 861976. SUSINCHAIN aims to contribute to novel protein provision for feed and food in Europe. SUSINCHAIN wants to overcome the barriers for increasing the economic viability of the insect value chain and opening markets by combining forces in a comprehensive multi-actor consortium.
This project began on October 2019 and the duration of the project will be 48 months. The project will be conducted in collaboration with 18 industrially and 17 academic partners with a total budget of over 8.6 million euro. Dr. Teun Veldkamp as coordinator and Prof. Ine van der Fels-Klerx as deputy coordinator, both of Wageningen University & Research (WUR), will take on the management of the project.
The partnership of SUSINCHAIN involves the following partners from different European countries: Wageningen Research (WR), INAGRO, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUR), Universita Degli Studi Di Torino (UNITO), Kobenhavns Universitet, Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik (DIL), Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI), Civic Consulting, AgriProtein Holdings, Bioflytech (BFT), Universidade Catolica Portuguesa (UCP), DSM Nutritional Products, Dymotec, ForFarmers Corporate Services, Hermetia Baruth, HiProMine (HIP),Havforskningsinstituttet (IMR), Acondicionamiento Tarrasense Associacion (LEITAT), Sociedade de Estudos de Analise Sensorial a Produtos Alimentares (Sense Test), Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), Medizinische Universitat Wien (MUW), Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM), Wageningen University (WU), Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zuerich (ETHZ), Microwave Energy Applications Management (MEAM), Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Institut National De La Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU), EWOS Innovation, Nutrition Sciences NV, New Generation Nutrition (NGN), Bühler Insect Technology Solutions (BITS), Bestico, Bugging Denmark and Protifarm.
For more information, visit https://susinchain.eu/