SPICED Symposium Berlin
The international symposium took place on 1 – 2 June 2016 in Berlin (Germany)
The international symposium took place on 1 – 2 June 2016 at the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in Berlin (Germany) and provided state-of-the-art data on food safety in the spice and herb chains.
Around 130 stakeholders from industry, government, and academia participated in the SPICED Symposium. Talks were given by external experts and by members of the SPICED consortium. Further results were presented during poster sessions. To support young scientist with excellent and innovative research topics related to the SPICED project objectives in presenting their work by posters, six PhD students received the SPICED student travel award.
The unique 2-day symposium has spotlighted the minor food ingredients spices and culinary herbs in the view of food safety. The European Union (EU) market is one of the largest markets for spices and culinary herbs in the world. Mostly, these commodities are imported as dried raw materials from producing regions outside of the EU. Contaminations with microbiological and chemical agents can take place at numerous vulnerable points within production and supply chains and can pose a serious risk for farmers, processors, and consumers.
The identification of contaminated spices and herbs as a cause of a food-borne infection or intoxication would be difficult, because consumers and experts often focus on major food ingredients. Moreover, many detection methods are less suitable for the heterogeneous herb/spice matrices. Therefore, the symposium has set a special focus on the challenges in establishing and maintaining food safety in the spice and herb chains.
Further information on the SPICED Symposium and the abstracts are available here:
