Launched at the beginning of 2005, BIOCOP project is bringing together research expertise on new techniques to screen a variety of food products containing multiple toxic substances, including pesticides, heavy metals, toxins and drugs. This Integrated Project is funded by the European Commission with ten million euro under the “Food quality and safety” thematic area of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). This five year project, coordinated by Professor Chris Elliott from the Veterinary Sciences Division of Queens University, Belfast, involves 23 partners from universities, research centres, regulatory agencies and 10 SMEs, from 15 European countries, as well as Canada.
A recent EU funded study reflects this growing public concern over contaminants in food: out of the 23,000 people asked about their perception of food safety, more than 60 per cent claimed that they were “very concerned about the safety of food” with regard to chemical contaminants. This statement was seriously taken by the EU authorities, and the restoration of consumer confidence is now a key part in the 2000 White Paper on Food Safety.
Considering that there are more than 2 000 licensed therapeutic drugs available (and several hundred illegal preparations) to which we can add the thousands of chemicals with endocrine disrupting activity, many difficulties are facing chemical contaminant monitoring. Main objectives for BIOCOP are to:
o Strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) relating to substantial improvements in chemical contaminant monitoring in foods;
o Improve the ability to monitor for many classes of chemical contaminants present in cereals, meats, seafood and processed foods. These methods will meet European Maximum Residue Level (MRL) targets or international standards when no MRLs presently exists;
o Improve and validate physio-chemical detection methods in order to fulfil criteria that will be accepted for enforcement purposes;
o Demonstrate newly developed monitoring methods to the full array of potential end-users (industrial and governmental) to advance technology exploitation by industrial partners;
o Increase level of trust of the European consumer in the food supply chain.
The SME project’s cluster (from Sweden, Austria, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland and Holland) will ensure full industrial and commercial exploitation of all developed technologies. The cluster will be greatly assisted by a substantial phase of demonstrations and trainings during many congresses in Europe and North America till 2009. At least, important consumers and decision-makers (regulatory and industrial) will be informed about how the project is progressing and their contributions will be foreseen through feedback mechanisms.
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