Background
Consumer trends in food consumption are rapidly changing in Western and Asian markets. Increasing emphasis is being placed on food safety, health and nutritional properties of foods, and sustainable and 'clean green' food production. These choices contribute to consumer well-being and encourage best practice and the uptake of technical innovation in food production.
New Zealand (NZ) has an export-dominated food industry, particularly in dairy, meat, wine, fruit, vegetable and seafood. It has well co-ordinated production systems, an active research base that is respected internationally and strong Government support since food products constitute the majority of exports. It thus offers a valuable source of expertise, complementary to that within the EU, which can contribute to EU aspirations in the food industry. EU-NZ research linkages are important due to increasing needs of food industry globalisation.
Collaborations between EU and NZ will be developed by:
- Building relationships between consumers, industry and knowledge providers in EU and NZ; and
- Developing best practice for delivery of sustainable, safe, quality food in the EU and NZ, based on shared experiences.
These objectives are to be achieved through:
- Two joint EU-NZ workshops aimed at identifying best practice for achieving effective cross-sectoral collaborations between industry, universities and research institutions and involving foresight in consumer needs to direct food research;
- Twenty fellowships awarded to EU researchers involved in industry or research-based organisations, to undertake study visits to NZ; and
- A joint EU-NZ conference to disseminate outcomes from the workshops and study visits.
Through FOOD-FRENZ we can jointly stimulate focused collaboration between the EU and NZ food researchers as a means of achieving complementary consumer driven and industry goals and more effectively address some increasingly global issues such as safety, traceability, animal husbandry and sustainability.
FOOD-FRENZ Objectives
