Enterprise Ireland and University College Dublin have launched SAFE, a three-year Innovation Partnership programme to develop a new predictive software toolbox to enhance food safety and quality approaches.
SAFE, which stands for Sequencing Alliance for Food Environments, represents an investment of €1.7 million, and aims to use environmental intelligence data to significantly improve food safety approaches on both a national and global scale.
The SAFE partnership also brings together six leading food and nutrition companies, Dairygold, Dawn Farm Foods, Glanbia, Kerry, Mead Johnson Nutrition, and Nutrition Supplies with UCD, as well as Creme Global – experts in predictive intake modelling software
The ultimate aim is to use two year’s worth of data to create a new state-of-the-art food safety and quality decision making software toolbox to mitigate against the risk of bacterial contamination in the food supply chain in a smarter, faster way.
Professor Séamus Fanning, UCD Professor of Food Safety commented, "This programme positions UCD researchers and our Irish food industry and software research collaborators at the forefront of surveillance with the potential to use this data to control their production environments and protect their consumers.
"It is a proactive move, rather than a reactive one and our collaborators and Enterprise Ireland are to be acknowledged for taking this step."
Director of Research and Innovation at Enterprise Ireland, Gearóid Mooney, added, "By developing a state-of-the-art safety and quality decision making toolset to mitigate the risk of contamination in the food supply chain, this project demonstrates a new level of partnership, collaboration and joined up thinking between our client companies and our research institutes."
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan.
