From December 2016, the Food Information Regulations (EU 1169/2011; FIR) require all businesses selling pre-packed foods to include nutritional information on their labelling. This will have a dramatic effect on SMEs that, for the first time, will need to declare nutritional composition data for their products. Nutritional values can be obtained in several ways including direct analysis of the product, calculation using known nutritional data for the ingredients used, or calculation from generally established and accepted data. The aim of this proposal is to develop and extend a nutritional labelling software and claims service and training offering to SMEs and industry (including retailers) based on a pilot offering being developed in the UK/IE. This is a direct exploitation of research activities and expertise of EuroFIR especially in terms of food composition data available via FoodEXplorer, algorithms and standardization of recipe calculation software and strong SME networks. The extended service will provide an accredited nutritional labelling service for food producers using an existing developed software platform that will go beyond the automated services that are currently available on the market. Therefore the project is also expected to have a societal benefit to SMEs, which have limited resource and technical knowhow, and for whom the demands of complying with the changing legislation could be a tipping point for the ongoing success of their business. Also consumers will benefit from the provision of accurate, high quality nutritional information to help them choose more healthy foods. The funding is required to support the Innovation Associate, who work with 3rd Parties in IE, UK and IT to develop the procedures for the accreditation of the software system, business planning and scoping of strategic EU MS partners and the plan for a harmonised European data approach, and language translation for selected MS.

Citizens’ decisions are central to living within the limits of our planet. Purchasing choices can drive change at retail and raw commodity levels but the complexity of fish and seafood food chains, health benefits and risks, and climate impacts need to be simplified and made more accessible and readily comparable. Currently, there are no standardised ways to inform citizens about the various health issues, nor are there guidelines or harmonised indicators for sustainable European fish and seafood products. VeriFish will offer a framework of verifiable sustainability indicators for communications about sustainability based on FAIR data from EU- and global aquafoods repositories, brought together through the extraordinary collaboration of European-wide actors like NOFIMA, EUROFIR and POSEIDON. Leveraging on this indicator, VeriFish will design, develop, and disseminate a number of media products to help citizens, seafood consumers and retailers, associations and policy makers make informed consumption choices. NOFIMA domain experts will work with renowned scientific communicators from EuroFISH and experienced community builder Trust-IT publish a good practice recommendation framework on neutral indicators to communicate sustainability along different consumer segments, aquafood retailers, seafood and aquaculture producers and associations, as well as guidelines for their use in retail and HoReCa (hotels, restaurants, catering). A prototype web application will digest indicators into an accessible (easy to use) comprehensive media product for user communities, including citizens, summarising nutrition, sustainability, and biodiversity aspects. The framework will be open access, and will be tested via a series of related end-user engagement campaigns targeting younger generations via flashcard games for kids, calendars and maps of seasonal fish for retailers and consumers, and sustainable food influencers & chefs on social media.

FLAVOURFERM aims to optimize, demonstrate, and deploy fermentation technologies to unlock the flavor potential of plant-based foods and respond to consumer demand for tasty, nutritious, and healthy plant-based products. Precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, and traditional fermentation techniques will be optimized to improve the sensory properties (flavor and texture) as well as the protein content and bioavailability in plant-based foods. Innovative fermented foods will be developed by incorporating ingredients from the optimized fermentation techniques into food products. The production will involve animal-free recombinant casein obtained by precision fermentation, as well as fungal mycelia obtained from legume fermentation, to produce an array of novel food products in three business cases: plant-based cheese, plant-based meat, and plant-based milk. All novel ingredients and final products will be scaled-up and produced at pilot and pre-commercial scale in collaboration with industrial partners, which include both innovative SMEs and established manufacturers from different EU regions.