Analytical Chemistry Degree, Summa Cum Laude, at University of Ferrara in 1997. National Prize for Young Researchers promoted by the Italian Chemistry Federation in 1998. Master in Science, Technology and Management from University of Ferrara, working at the same time at the "Natta Research Center" of Shell-Montell Polyolefins, in 1998. PhD in Science and Technology of Innovative Materials from University of Parma in 2005.
Food Safety & Authenticity Research Manager in Barilla Spa company since 2003, working in an international context with public and private research centres\organizations on research projects within the field of food chemistry, food safety-quality-authenticity, food contact materials, sensing and mass spectrometry applications for food products.
Adjunct Professor of AgriFood Authenticity at Catholic University Sacred Heart - Milan/Piacenza.
Chair of the Italian National Normative Organization (UNI) Food Authenticity Working Group, member of working groups for Biotoxins-Processing Contaminants-Food Authenticity in European Committee for Standardization (CEN), Vice-Chair of the ILSI Process Related Compounds & Natural Toxins Task Force; Coordinator of Quality-Food Safety Pillar - Italian Cluster Agrifood Scientific Board.
Google Scholar H-index 29 & i10-index 62, Scopus H-index 25, Research Gate index 38. Scientific production documented by 6 book chapters, 2 books edited, 162 contributions at national and international conferences and 115 papers in international ISI journals.

Christian W. Klampfl obtained his Ph.D. from University of Innsbruck/Austria in 1993. In 1992 he moved to Johannes-Kepler University Linz as an assistant professor with a research focus mainly set on separation science (chromatography, electrophoresis). In the late 90ies his research shifted more and more towards hyphenation of separation techniques (mainly capillary electrophoresis) and mass spectrometry. 1999-2000 he worked as a research associate at the University of Hobart/Tasmania in the group of Prof. Paul Haddad. In 2001 he was promoted to Associate Professor. Main research areas are:

• - hyphenation of separation techniques to MS
• - ambient MS techniques like DART, DESI or direct spray MS,

with the a quite wide focus of application areas comprising:

• - clinical analysis and metabolomics
• - analysis of technical products (polymers, synthetic oils, coating...)
• - environmental metabolomics

Prof. Klampfl has published more than 120 papers and several book chapters, and has an h-factor of 32 (Scopus). He is currently serving as editor of Electrophoresis (Wiley). Prof. Klampfl is currently head of the Institute of Analytical and General Chemistry at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, head of the Department of General Chemistry and vice-president of the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry (ASAC).

Rudolf Krska is full professor for (Bio-)Analytics and Organic Trace Analysis at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna# (BOKU). He is head of the Institute of Bioanalytics and Agro-Metabolomics the Department IFA-Tulln at BOKU. Prof. Rudolf Krska has received 11 scientific awards and is (co )author of more than 430 SCI publications (h-index: 66, Scopus) In 2018, he has become jointly appointed Professor within the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University, Belfast, UK. Since 2020 Prof. Rudolf Krska is President of the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry.

Prof. Ph. Schmitt-Kopplin's team performs tailored and comprehensive metabolomics in the food-health continuum. He has a strong profile in analytical chemistry with integrated approaches combining (ultra)high resolution mass spectrometry, (µ)separation sciences, NMR-spectroscopy with (bio)informatics for the description of complex organic systems on a molecular level. A focus in the last decades was to implement ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry into cross-Omics applications and for a rapid and robust tool for deep metabotyping and small molecules profiling. His focus is the chemical understanding of microbiomes in foods, health and environments and integrating these information with existing biological Omics data. His interdisciplinary studies are related to the interface of chemistry and biology. He is director of the research unit analytical BioGeoChemistry of the Helmholtz Munich and heads the Comprehensive Foodomics Platform at the Institute of analytical Food Chemistry of the Technische University Munich Germany.

Jens Sloth is professor and research group leader of the Analytical Food Chemistry group at the National Food Institute (DTU Food) of the Technical University of Denmark. He is a MSc graduate from the Technical University in Denmark (1995) and later finalized his phd studies at the University of Bergen in Norway (2005). He has extensive experience on research on trace elements in food and feed with emphasis on the development of methods for trace element speciation. He is a lecturer in analytical food chemistry at DTU and has been supervisor for 25+ thesis works at PhD, MSc and BSc level. He is an expert member of several CEN standardization committees for trace elements in food and feed and contributed to the development of new standards in the area. In 2018, he was appointed as director of the European Union reference laboratory for metals and nitrogenous compounds in feed and food (EURL-MN).

Dr. Hans Mol is senior scientist at Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR), part of Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. He has 25 years of experience in pesticides residue analysis in food, human, and environmental matrices in the frame of external and internal exposure assessment. He is heading the National Reference Laboratory for pesticides in food and feed in the Netherlands, and is member of the advisory board on the EU guidance document on quality control and method validation procedures for pesticide residue analysis in food and feed. He is involved in target and non-target analysis and QA/QC activities in the EU projects such as HBM4EU, SPRINT and PARC.

Jacob de Boer is Professor emeritus at the Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has a PhD in analytical chemistry. Prof. de Boer has worked for 47 years on environmental contaminans.
In 1998 he won the Excellent Scientist Award of the Wageningen University. He has (co)coordinated a number of European research projects and many research projects for other international organisations and industries. Currently, he is involved in the EU research projects CHLOFFIN and REVAMP, both with a relation to certified reference materials. He organised numerous international interlaboratory studies on contaminants. He is a regular reviewer of scientific projects and programmes in various countries.
He has published 250 peer reviewed articles among which one paper in Nature and one in Science, two books and 21 book chapters. He is editor-in-chief of Chemosphere (Impact factor 7.1) and member of the editorial board of the Handbook of Environmental Chemistry.

Prof.dr. Hans-Gerd Janssen obtained an MSc. (1987) and PhD degree (1991) in analytical chemistry from the Eindhoven University of Technology. He joined Unilever in 1999 as group-leader chromatography and mass spectrometry. He has been, or is, active as a board member in several national committees including the Section for Analytical Chemistry of the Royal Dutch Chemical Society. He also is active in several international scientific and organising committees for symposia and he is a member of the editorial board of several journals. In 2004 Hans-Gerd was appointed part-time professor Analytical Separations at the University of Amsterdam. In 2019 he moved to Wageningen University where he now holds a similar part-time position. His research focuses on the development of new chromatographic methods for the analysis of complex food-related samples. He has more than 200 publications in the area of chromatography, mass spectrometry and food analysis.

Dr Stefan van Leeuwen is senior scientist at Wageningen Food Safety Research. He's an analytical chemist and has an interest in the development of chromatography-mass spectrometry based methods for trace analysis of (environmental) contaminants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), and related substances, and unraveling complex contaminants mixtures such as MOSH/MOAH and chlorinated paraffins (CPs). Moreover, he's involved in development of complementary analytical approaches for identification of unknown contaminants (e.g. novel PFAS). His current interest is in the analytical identification of emerging food safety issues rising from circular food production.

Dr. Carsten Fauhl-Hassek is a food chemist and works at the department for Safety in the Food Chain of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in Germany. Since 2021 he is temporally assigned as co-head of the department, in addition to heading the unit Product identity, Supply chains and Traceability. He has special expertise in authentication of food and feed, wine analysis and appreciation, method development and validation (ring trials). Dr. Fauhl-Hassek is also head of the Senior Expert Office for the Import Control of Wine and designated expert for the European Wine Databank for stable isotopes. Since almost 20 years he is national delegate and expert in the sub-commission of analysis of the International Organization of Wine and Vine (OIV). Dr. Fauhl-Hassek is involved in national as well as international research projects and leading expert in non-targeted analysis employing different analytical techniques such as NMR spectroscopy. In addition, in the past he was involved in the risk assessment of mycotoxins and responsible for the National Reference Laboratory for Mycotoxins in Feed and Food.

Frans Verstraete graduated in 1985 as agricultural engineer at the University of Ghent (Belgium). After his studies he held positions at the University of Ghent and thereafter at the Belgian Ministry of Agriculture and he was for a period technical adviser of the Belgian Minister of Agriculture. He is working for the European Commission since 1997. In the European Commission he is working at the Directorate General Health and Food Safety. He is responsible for the elaboration, development and management of the EU-legislation on contaminants in feed and food.

Chris is currently Professor of Food Safety and founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast. He has published more than 500 peer review articles, many of them relating to the detection and control of agriculture, food and environmental related contaminants. His main research interests are in the development of innovative techniques to provide early warning of toxin threats across complex food supply systems. Protecting the integrity of the food supply chain from fraud is also a key research topic and Chris led the independent review of Britain's food system following the 2013 horsemeat scandal.
Chris is a visiting Professor at the China Agriculture University in Beijing and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a recipient of a Winston Churchill Fellowship and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Royal Society of Biology. Chris was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Theophilus Redwood Prize and an OBE on 2017. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2020 and became Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in 2021. Recently Chris was awarded the Agilent Thought Leaders Award for his work on food authenticity.

Michael Rychlik develops new analysis methods for physiologically active foodstuff ingredients such as mycotoxins, vitamins and flavonoids. In order to assess their biological activity, these substances and their metabolic products are examined in human, animal and plant testing. This provides information on bioavailability (e.g. of vitamins belonging to the folate group), toxicity (e.g. consumer exposure to mycotoxins deoxynivalenol and tenuazonic acid) or the positive effects of hops flavonoids (e.g. 8-prenylnaringenin).
After studying food chemistry at TU Kaiserslautern, Prof. Rychlik completed his second state examination (Staatsexamen) in 1989. In 1996, he did his doctorate at TUM on the topic of odorants in toasted bread. After that, he worked as an assistant professor at TUM's Chair of Food Chemistry. He completed his lecturer qualification in 2003 on the topic of stable isotope dilution assays. He has declined offers from the Universities of Bonn and Giessen. Prof. Rychlik is Director of the Chair of Analytical Food Chemistry. Besides these he holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Queensland, has been a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore and still is also teaching at the University of Chemical Technology Prague.

Dr. Josep Rubert is an Assistant Professor in Gastrointestinal Health at Wageningen University. After studying food science and technology, he performed his doctoral thesis at the University of Valencia (Spain), honored with an Outstanding Doctoral research prize. During his postdoctoral stay at the University of Chemistry and Technology (UCT), Prague, his research mainly involved food metabolomics and lipidomics approaches, holding Assistant Professor's rank. Since 2016, Dr. Rubert has started to cross the boundaries between different disciplines. In this line, he has gained a holistic view of how diet and gut microbiota can prevent disease risks and how multi-omics data can decipher homeostasis and disease mechanisms. He established a new research line in investigating the role of gut microbial metabolites funded by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie project and Starting Grant funded by the University of Trento. Currently, he explores the role of gut microbial metabolites in preventing gastrointestinal diseases.

Dr. Ir. Vincent Baeten is Scientific Director at CRA-W (Walloon Agricultural Research Centre) and head of the Quality and Authentication of Products Unit (QAP Unit). This Unit is part of the Knowledge and Valorisation of Agricultural Products Department of CRA-W and has a 30-person staff of researchers and technicians. The QAP Unit is involved in the development and implementation of sustainable practices to reinforce and assess the quality and authentication of agricultural and food products. The QAP Unit hosts also the European Union Reference Laboratory for Animal Protein (EURL-AP), is part of the NRL-OGM (JRC-Ispra) and NRL-Additive (JRC-Geel). The Unit runs part of its activities under ISO 17025 and ISO 17043 schemes.
Dr. Ir. Vincent Baeten has about 25 years of experience in European projects dealing with the development of spectroscopic methods. He has participated or participates in several European projects dealing with quality, safety, traceability and authentication of food and feed products (STRATFEED, TYPIC, MEDEO, CO-EXTRA, TRACE, SAFEED-PAP, FEEDforHEALTH, CONFIDENCE, QSAFE, FOODINTEGRITY, AUTHENT-NET, SENSORFINT). Since 2013, he has also been an invited assistant professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium). Dr. Ir. Vincent Baeten was awarded the 2011-Q-Interline Sampling Award for the outstanding contribution in sampling applied to spectroscopy methods. In 2012, he was awarded by the Brazilian Program Ciencia sem fronteiras as Pezquisador visitante especial at University Federal of Para (UFPA, Belem, Brazil). In 2021, he was awarded of the Tomas Hirschfeld Award for his outstanding achievements in Near Infrared spectroscopy.

I am Associate Professor of Food Chemistry at the Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma, where I graduate in Chemistry with a major in Analytical Chemistry, and I awarded my PhD in Food Science. My +20 years academic career has been always focused on food safety, with a special interest in natural compounds. In 2014 - 2020 I've served as experts for several EFSA working groups under the CONTAM Panel remit, and I've co-authored 8 scientific opinions on mycotoxins risk assessment. Currently, I serve as Coordinator of the PhD course in Food Science, University of Parma. My scientific activity is attested by +210 papers on International ISI peer-reviewed journals (Hindex 40 @Scopus, June 2022).
My primary field of research (>15 years) is related to natural bioactive compounds, toxins and process-related contaminants. My first and main research interest deals with the formation, stability, and biotransformation of mycotoxins, and with chemical mechanisms underlying their toxicological activity. My contribution to the field was mainly in the identification of masked/modified mycotoxins, and in the elucidation of their toxicological role. Later on, I've moved towards a HR-MS metabolomics/system biology approach, to better understand the biological phenomena occurring in plants and in mammals upon interaction with xenobiotics and bioactive compounds. Together with my team I'm currently enlarging our interest to plant alkaloids and marine toxins. At the same time, I've implemented the use of computational toxicology and alternative methods to the investigation of molecular mechanisms responsible for the biological activities of chemicals, also in mixture. In the last 5 years, I enlarged my scientific interest in the field of food fraud, through the application of advanced non-targeted methodologies (i.e. i.e. imaging-MS, ion mobility MS, ambient MS) to food fingerprinting and markers identification.

Christoph works at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Geel (Belgium). He studied chemistry and received his doctor degree in analytical chemistry from the Technical University Munich. Afterward he was in charge of a dioxin laboratory, accompanying a decontamination project of a contaminated industrial site. In 1997, he joined the JRC working on various topics of feed analysis such as the determination of meat and bone meal, dioxins, pesticides, feed additives and banned veterinary drugs. Since 2004, he is running the European Union Reference Laboratory for feed additives evaluating corresponding methods of analysis, thereby supporting the authorisation of these products at European level. Moreover, he has been actively involved in various European projects dealing with the development of analytical methods in the area of feed analysis. Participation in these projects also allowed him to draft specific validation concepts that have been subsequently implemented in European legislation. He is very much interested in statistical data treatment used within the frame of interlaboratory studies and chemometrics applied on data from vibrational and mass spectroscopy.

Dr. Katerina (Kate) Mastovska is a Chief Scientific Officer at Eurofins US Food Division. She is also the Technical & Industrial Director for Pesticides within the Operational Best Practices Programme at Eurofins Scientific, piloting a global team of experts from Eurofins pesticide testing laboratories. Dr. Mastovska is a Fellow of AOAC International and the recipient of the 2021 AOAC Harvey W. Wiley Award. She has been involved in chromatographic and mass spectrometric analysis of chemical residues, contaminants and adulterants for over 25 years and authored/co-authored more than 70 scientific publications in that area.

Jacob van Klaveren had his education in Human Nutrition at Wageningen University. Since 2010, he works as senior scientific advisor for the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). Jacob is coordinating the EFSA-RIVM partnership agreement on mixtures of pesticides. He is deputy work package leader and part of the (interim) management board of the EU funded Partnership for the Assessment of the Risk of Chemicals (PARC). He coordinated the European funded EuroMix project, aims at setting up a test strategies for mixtures from multiple sources. In February 2016, he was appointed as guest professor on risk - benefit assessment at the Danish Technical University (DTU). He coordinated the Research and Development Programme on food safety of Wageningen University and Research (2005-2009).

Dr Nicola Randall is Principal Lecturer in Agroecology and Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Agriculture at Harper Adams University. Her research focuses on enhancing sustainable agriculture and food production and crosses the interface between science and decision-making.
Nicola specialises in evidence synthesis including systematic reviews and systematic mapping. These methods collate and synthesise existing research evidence to inform agriculture/land management and food-related decisions. Her methodology paper on systematic mapping has been cited over 350 times, and is used across multiple disciplines. Nicola is on the editorial board for 'Environmental Evidence Journal', a specialist systematic review journal, and for 'CABI Agriculture and Bioscience'.
Nicola founded the Centre for Evidence-Based Agriculture in 2012. The Centre has carried out evidence synthesis, training to inform EU and global policy, research and practice on topics ranging from crop protection, and livestock welfare issues, to food waste management, and to risk assessments for antimicrobial resistance and for the use of novel food and feeds. The Centre also provides advice, consultation, methodology development and dissemination, and forms part of the UK Centre of the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence.

Professor Mills currently holds a joint appointment between the Universities of Manchester and Surrey. Her laboratory is based at present in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Manchester and is part of the Respiratory and Allergy Research team at the Wythenshawe Hospital and the Immunology Section at the University of Surrey. She led the EU integrated projects iFAAM and EuroPrevall, the European Food Safety Authority project ThrAll and currently leads the UK Food Standards Agency project PAFA. She is also a partner in a recently awarded project from EFSA led by EuroFIR on allergenicity prediction. Professor Mills is a member of the FSA Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes and was involved in the recent FAO-WHO Expert Consultation on Food Allergens. Her personal research interests are focused on structure-function relationships in food proteins particularly with regards what makes some proteins, and not others, become allergens, including the effects of the food matrix and processing on resistance of food proteins to digestion and the role this plays in determining the allergenicity of foods. This molecular level understanding of allergens in foods is underpinning the development of new profiling tools using mass spectrometry, which can also provide a complementary tool for the detection and quantitation of allergens in foods.

Safety profile and risk assessment of food supplements

Global sales of food supplements are growing steadily, sustained by consumers perceiving them as a safe and healthy option. Quality control of these products is a multifaceted process, whose complexity is often overlooked by the narrative surrounding them. Likely therefore, a variety of contamination and standardization concerns emerged during the last decade. Many supplements are in fact reportedly suffering from unreliable content of active principles, adulterations with foreign (and sometimes illicit or synthetic) substances, substitution with cheaper ingredients and pesticide or mycotoxin contamination. While these issues may emerge separately, they may also occur at the same time, altering trustworthiness of research data, safety of use and efficacy. Such scenario has prompted researchers to advocate for a closer attention to quality, for more widespread controls and for a stricter legal framework, to close the gap between reality and consumers perception in terms of quality and safety. Within this context, we will present two paradigmatic case-studies, regarding red yeast rice (RYR) and algae-based (i.e. spirulina, klamath, etc.) supplements. In both cases, a comprehensive analytical protocol based on LC-HRIMS was developed, to allow retrospective analysis and identification of unexpected contaminants. In the case of red yeast rice, the occurrence of mycotoxins at significant levels, mainly citrinin and ochratoxin A, was determined in a range of products from the market (1). A preliminary risk assessment was also performed under a Margin of Exposure approach, showing that exposure to citrinin from RYR supplements may pose a risk for the consumers. Regarding blue algae supplements, the presence of cyanotoxins was carefully monitored in samples from the e-commerce, confirming the results already pointed out by EFSA in 2016 (2). Taken altogether, our results point out that a more rigorous standardization and monitoring plan must be encouraged to extrapolate data for risk assessment with respect to the prevalence of natural toxins in food supplements.

(1) López P, de Nijs M, Spanjer M, Pietri A, Bertuzzi T, Starski A, Postupolski J, Castellari M and Hortós M, 2017. Generation of occurrence data on citrinin in food. EFSA supporting publication 2017:EN-1177. 47 pp.
(2) Testai et al., 2016. Review and analysis of occurrence, exposure and toxicity of cyanobacteria toxins in food. EFSA supporting publication 2016:EN-998. 309 pp.

Analysis of PFAS in food items, food packaging materials, human milk and serum

At several places in the world the production of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) has led to high levels of these compounds in the neighbourhoods of PFAS producing plants. We analysed blood samples of inhabitants of Antwerp living close to a PFAS plant, as well as tap water, and fish, sediment, and surface water from the river Western Scheldt. Also, we determined PFAS in human milk from women living close to a Teflon manufacturing plant in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, and living close to a PFAS plant in Lyon.
Blood samples were taken from 45 persons that lived and/or worked within a few kilometers from the 3M site in Zwijndrecht. All persons completed a questioinnaire in which they answered a series of questions about their background, age, gender, die, etc. Flounder, marine vegetables, and surface water were sampled from the Western Scheldt at the Dutch/Belgian border and Antwerp harbour. Drinking (tap) water was sampled in Antwerp. Sets of 17-30 PFAS were determined by LC-MS/MS analysis on an LC-Sciex Exion LC AD coupled to a Sciex 6500+ triple-quad MS, using an Xbridge BEH C18 XP 150 x 2.1 mm, 2.5 µm column and electrospray ionisation.
The recent opinion on PFAS of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) gives a safe level of PFAS in human blood that is based on the sum of four PFAS congeners: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS and PFNA. This sum should not be higher than 6.9 mg/L. The maximum value in human blood from Antwerp was 1154 mg/L, which is 167-fold the norm. Most of the persons studied consumed vegetables or fruit from their own gardens and/or ate eggs from their own chickens. Based on these results a larger study on PFAS in human blood was initiated by the Flemish authorities in 800 persons living within a circle of 3 km around the 3M site. That study confirmed the here presented results. 93% of the PFAS concentrations found in the larger study exceeded the EFSA guidelines of 6.9 mg/L. Western Scheldt fish, sediment and water samples confirmed the PFOS pollution from Antwerp. The PFOS concentration in flounder was 24 mg/kg, lower than determined by Chu et al. [4] who found 322 mg/kg in 2006. The perfluoro-1-butane-sulfonamide (FBSA) detected by Chu et al. was also found by in our study. The results of this study urge much better inventories of environments around current PFAS production plants.
Within the European REVAMP project new native and labeled PFAS standards are being produced, which were also used in a study on PFAS compounds in food packaging materials.

Searching for the unknown - analytical approaches to uncover food adulterations

Official control laboratories have large product knowledge and a wide range of analyitcal methods available for food and feed authentication. However, the history of prominent food and feed adulteration incidences in global trade such as melamine, tells us that revealing unexpected additions (or contaminations) remains a major challenge in food control.
In the past, fraud has successfully been detected by whistle bowing, traceability approaches, audits or, then often "coincidentally", in the analytical laboratory. Once a "new" adulterant has been discovered, analytical methods are developed and established in control, which is often accompanied with the quick "disappearance" of the fraudulent practice.
Implementing non-targeted approaches has led to new perspectives in analytical food and feed authentication. Instead of measuring target analytes for specific adulterations, the product itself is comprehensively characterized by spectral "fingerprints", which is especially advantageous for the proactive detection of unknown and unforeseen adulterants.
The presentation will illustrate examples of food and feed adulteration incidents and their analytical detection. It will also focus on the scientific challenges of how non-targeted analysis can improve particular the detection of unexpected adulterations (e.g. appropriate statistical modelling, validation) and the associated difficulties of introducing these methods into routine analysis and surveillance.

Smart interpretation of results from food analysis: How to use all information available

When validating screening methods, typical performance characteristics addressed in the study are sensitivity, specificity, false positive and false negative rate. If the obtained performance characteristics meet the criteria, the method is considered fit for the intended purpose. However, under real world condition the use of such methods may lead to results that do not corresponds well to the outcome of the method validation study. For instance, a significant fraction of suspect positive samples may turn out to be negative after analysis with confirmatory methods. An elevated number of false negative results will then trigger a couple of questions, such as (1) whether something went wrong during the validation study, (2) the screening method is actually not fit for purpose or (3) what is the overall impact on the selected measurement strategy. Likewise, low values for the specificity obtained in the validation study of the screening method does not necessarily mean that the method is not suitable for a measurement exercise. The purpose of the presentation is to demonstrate that by taking into additional information during the validation exercise, a more comprehensive conclusion of the performance profile of the screening method can be reached. Such an evaluation will also solve the apparent contradiction of results obtained during the validation compared to the results obtained under real world conditions. This additional evaluation involves the application of Bayes' statistics, thus making use of the prior knowledge of the expected portion of non-compliant samples in all samples that are analysed within the screening exercise. This will also include the use of additional statistics calculated from parameters received in the validation exercise combined with the above-mentioned prior knowledge. The application is demonstrated on real world examples.

Edible oil quality: Rapid assessment of processing contaminants and other quality indicators using chromatography and mass spectrometry

Edible oils and fats are key ingredients of the human diet. They are not only important for the nutritional value of foods, but also for the flavour, taste and mouthfeel. Edible oil quality and safety are primarily determined by the nature/origin of the oil, as well as by the processing applied. Numerous chemical compounds from a large number of chemical classes are relevant. These include waxes and alkanes, MOSH/MOAH contaminants, PAHs, pesticides, dialkylketones, tocopherols, glycidylesters, 3-MCPD esters, oxidized lipids, residual solvents and other volatiles, cyanogenic glycosides, polyphenols, etc. Some of these species are naturally present in the oils, others are formed during processing of the oil or during storage of a finished food product. Some compounds are typical "baddies" that should not be there, like PAHs and pesticides or the naturally occurring cyanogenic glycosides, others are "goodies", like tocopherols and polyphenols. Processing can change the levels of both the goodies and the baddies, where the ideal processing would remove the baddies that are present with neither generating new baddies nor affecting the levels of the goodies. Driven by the desire of the consumers for more natural, less processed foods, food industry is looking into new methods for food preparation. The question how this affects the levels of goodies and baddies is essential. Advanced analytical methods are needed to support this research.
In the presentation new, broad-scope chromatography-MS methods will be discussed that allow rapid monitoring of the levels of multiple classes of edible oil and fat ingredients in one run. Given the large variety of compounds groups that are relevant, no single chromatographic system will be able to cover the huge variety of species ranging from non-polar alkanes to highly polar oxidized lipids, or from the smallest residual solvents to the very large polymerised lipids. Comprehensive LC✕LC will be used for a broad coverage of oxidized compounds, multi-compound LC-MS/MS is shown to be able to detect numerous compounds if levels are not too low, and fast GC-MS will be employed for studying volatiles in fresh and aging foods. GC✕GC finally is employed to identify the cause of off-flavour development in plant-based foods over time.

Climate Change and Agriculture: How Plants Cope with Reclaimed Waters for Irrigation

Water policy is a big topic worldwide and of course also within the European Union (EU), and several directives (e.g. 2008/105/EC, 2013/39/EU) focusing on the aim of ensuring a good water quality exist. Furthermore, the EU campaign "Water is too precious to waste", points out the increasing problem of water shortages and droughts across the EU in the recent years. Water scarcity already affects more than 11 % of the population in Europe and 17 % of the EU territory respectively. Consequently, by the year 2030, 50% of Europe's river basins might be affected by this issue [1,2]. In this regard, a promising approach for fighting water scarcity is to re-use treated wastewater (TWW) wherever possible. One field of application of TWWs is agriculture, as the extent of cultivable surface where irrigation is indispensable for successful farming is continuously growing. Countries like Malta and Cyprus where 90 % and 60 % respectively of the TWW is re-employed are in the forefront of water re-use. Other countries of the European south, recycle between 5 and 12 % of their TWW only, leaving a huge potential for improvement [2]. Despite the fact that more and more pollutants may be removed from waste water by a continuous improvement of treatment plants and the processes employed therein, TWW still may contain a variety of micropullutants including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). When such TTWs are employed for irrigation in agriculture, these substances may be taken up by the roots, translocated to various plant parts (including those consumed by humans and animals) and eventually metabolized within the plant [3]. In our recent research projects we investigated these factors on the example of a range of plants used for the production of food and feed (e.g. lettuce, tomato, maize, pea, amaranth, rice). Thereby we focused on a range of contaminants spanning from typical personal care products (such as sunscreens) to widely prescribed pharmaceuticals such as non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs, b-blockers, anti depressants and statins - nowadays almost ubiquitous in the aquatic environment. Besides studies on the uptake of these compounds by plants, cooperation partners from Brno also investigated the influence on plant growth. In our "in-lab" growing experiments actual TTWs from local treatment plants were applied as well as in-lab mixed artifial waste water samples for studying particularly the biotransfromation of these substances by a range of plants, showing that in many cases the presence of metabolites predominates and the parent drug is only found in lesser concentrations.

References:
[1] European Commission, Water - reuse. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/reuse.htm.
[2] European Commission, Water - reuse factsheet. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/pdf/water_reuse_factsheet_en.pdf
[3] Klampfl CW (2019) Metabolization of pharmaceuticals by plants after uptake from water and soil: A review. Trends Anal. Chem. 111:13-26.

Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) project real-life mixtures

The European Commission and the 27 Member States are funding the Partnership for the Assessment of the Risk from Chemicals (PARC) to address future regulatory needs as described in the European Commission's Chemical Strategy for Sustainability. With over 200 partners from all over Europe and a total budget of €400 million, PARC is one of the largest projects of its kind in the world and is thought to be capable to address innovation in regulatory risk assessment. It has a duration of 7 years and is coordinated by the French agency for food, environmental and occupational health and safety (ANSES). PARC will collect new human biomonitoring data, will improve hazard data collection of untested chemicals and will deliver new methods for regulatory risk assessment.
There is growing societal concern about combined exposure to multiple chemicals e.g. mixtures of PFAS, mycotoxins, heavy metals or pesticides. Exposure might occur via several exposure routes e.g. oral, inhalation or dermal contact. National institutes responsible for risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemical are frequently asked to respond to societal concerns and consequently scientific methods needs to be developed and harmonised throughout Europe. The PARC project real-life mixture will study the exposure to mixtures on the basis of human biomonitoring (HBM) data. The HBM4EU project, which data collection will be continued in PARC, collected HBM data all over Europe. This HBM data will be studied for mixture patterns in several countries. The combined effect of the chemicals to which an individual is exposed, needs to be summed according to scientific criteria set by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Furthermore, the kinetic conversion of chemicals within the human body needs to be understood. Chemicals might be metabolised before reaching a targeted organ, some chemicals will be excreted within hours while other persistent chemicals such as PFAS might remain for longer years in the human body. Mixtures of chemicals to which individual are most frequently exposed will be further tested to understand the real-life mixture effect.
PARC will also provide innovative methods and capacities to monitor chemicals in appropriate human. Analytical developments will also be performed to identify non-targeted and suspect screening methods to detect emerging contaminants and support the monitoring of real-world mixtures. However, data from such methods might not be accepted for the purpose of regulatory risk assessment. The observation from these analytical techniques might set priorities for developing biomarkers of exposures.

Emerging chemical contaminants in food and the importance of validated LC-MS-based methods

Weaknesses of our food safety systems triggered by isolated events such as a zoonotic agent or a carcinogenic mycotoxin will be heavily compounded in the years to come by climate change, a shift in our food system towards a more plant-based diet and the need for a recircular economy. These developments will also impact on the occurrence of and exposure to chemical contaminants in food which continue to be an important food-borne public health concern in Europe [1]. Particularly, unintentionally present chemical contaminants in food, such as environmental and food process contaminants and natural toxins (esp. mycotoxins and plant toxins), can pose public health concerns if their concentrations are not kept at appropriately low levels as dictated by legislation.
Monitoring of food contaminants and residues has undergone a significant improvement in recent years and is now performed in an intensive manner [2]. Achievements in the area of chromatography-mass spectrometry coupling techniques enabled the development of quantitative multi-target approaches covering several hundred analytes. This paper provides an overview of relevant multi-class concepts based on LC-MS/MS instruments. Merits and shortcomings will be critically discussed based on current performance characteristics of the EU legislation system. In addition, a recently developed approach covering >1.000 agrochemicals including relevant biotoxins and other secondary microbial metabolites will be discussed as a case study to illustrate the current developments in food analysis and the importance of fully validated multi-class methods. The applicability and practicability of current guidelines for multi-analyte method validation will also be critically assessed. A major conclusion of our studies is clearly that more emphasis should be put on the investigation of relative matrix effects in the validation procedure.

References:
[1] Eskola M., Elliott C., Hajslova, J., Steiner D. & Krska R. (2020) Towards a dietary-exposome assessment of chemicals in food: An update on the chronic health risks for the European consumer, Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 60:11, 1890-1911.
[2] Steiner, D; Malachova, A; Sulyok, M; Krska, R. Challenges and future directions in LC-MS-based multiclass method development for the quantification of food contaminants. ANAL BIOANAL CHEM. 2021; 413(1): 25- 34.

The role of food allergen analysis in protecting allergic consumers

Mandatory food allergen labelling is helping help food-allergic consumers practice food avoidance but the presence of unintended food allergens and the precautionary allergen labels (PAL) used to warn consumers of such allergens, is problematic. Surveys of foods with and without PAL indicate confusion and a lack of a coherent approach, with some foods having been found to contain significant levels of allergens and yet not carrying a PAL. The use of risk-based approaches to managing allergens in foods is addressing this confusion but requires access to good quality data from clinical studies to allow. The FAO-WHO Expert consultation on food allergens is providing recommendations regarding global priority allergenic foods, and identified health based guidance values that allow identification of action levels for allergens in foods that are considered generally safe for most food-allergic consumers. The repertoire of allergen detection methods and their capacity to provide the required specificity and sensitivity for allergen analysis will allow many food allergens to be determined effectively in important food categories, although for some this remains a challenge. The importance of allergen reference materials in allowing harmonisation of test method reporting units and test method comparison will be highlighted. Finally, how new allergenic foods may emerge in future, especially in the context of the transformation of the food system towards plant-based diets and the role analysis will play in helping to identify manage emerging food allergens and novel foods will be discussed.

Foodomics & the holometabolome: high resolution tailored metabolomics in the food-nutrition-health chemical continuum

Metabolomics, as the comprehensive study of metabolic reactions in complex dynamic living systems and thus in holobionts is growing very rapidly, and integrates analytical approaches (LC-MS, NMR and ICR-FT/MS) covering the possible description of only 10% of the experimental signals in databases. Important approaches thus are related to the description of the dark metabolome with adapted strategies. Especially direct injection FTICR/MS enables a long term high throughput description of highly complex mixtures and holometabolomes at the level of the elementary composition space. Foods are complex chemical mixtures/systems themself composed of original plant/animal metabolites and or transformed metabolites i.e. from fermentation (acidic, alcoholic) or thermal processes (Maillardtype). FTICR/MS will be presented is a strong tool to describe the known/unknown chemistry and chemical diversity in various study fields of food chemistry, microbiomes towards the discovery of new bioactives.

Durum Wheat Origin by means of Combined Not Conventional Isotopes and Multi-Elemental Analysis

Geographical origin of durum wheat is an important and emerging challenge, due to the added value, perceived by the consumers to the final products (e.g. pasta). It is also an emerging requirement needed to comply with specific national legislations. The values of the 87Sr/86Sr were successfully exploited in the first step of a tiered approach; adding then a second step by a Support Vector Machine Classification modelling SVMC based on Al, Mn, Mo, P, S, Ti, Y and Zn percentage in each sample. This study attests therefore the potentialities and successful validation of an innovative approach for the geographic discrimination of durum wheat on a global scale. It relies on combined information from multi-elemental analyses & stable isotope ratio values collected in authentic samples from different Italian, European and non-European regions during different harvest years. The correspondently developed predictive model is already routinely employed for the control of industrial lots.

Advances in the analysis of trace elements in food - recent developments from research - reference laboratory - and standardization activities

Confidence in the quality and safety of food is a high priority worldwide. The presence of undesired chemicals as well as the lack of essential chemical substances to fulfill the dietary requirement can potentially lead to serious consequences for human health. The trace elements have their own place in this context and comprise both essential and toxic elements. When assessing the quality and/or safety of foods there is a demand for reliable experimental information, which in turn is based on the availability of fit-for-purpose analytical methodologies.
Trace element speciation analysis has been among the most important research topics within the field of trace element analysis over the last decades. Food samples are comprised of high variety of chemical compounds from which many can interact with metals and metalloids forming complex elemental species with various influence on the human body. In order to achieve the full picture it is important not only to determine the total amount of a certain trace element present in the food sample but also to identify the chemical form in which given element occurs in given sample (i.e. its speciation). Selected examples on trace element speciation will be presented.
The increasing World population has lead to an increased demand for food and research initiatives in exploitation of novel food ressources. In the western part of the world several projects have been initiated on exploration of increased use of e.g. insects and seaweed as ingredients in food production. The use of novel bioressources demands that these matrices are characterised for the their content of essential and harmful chemicals, incl trace elements. Examples from the determination of trace elements in seaweed and how data is used to evaluate food safety will be provided.
Recently, DTU FOOD were appointed as hosts of the European Reference Laboratory for metals and nitrogenous compounds in feed and food (EURL-MN). The EURL-MN collaborates closely with the network of NRLs (National Reference Laboratories) in the EU members states and organises proficiency tests, workshops and training for the NRL with the aim of harmonising and increasing the analytical competences of the laboratories involved in official food control of trace elements. An important player here is also the European Standardisation Committee (CEN) and the Working group 10 on Elements and their chemical species in Food, which develops standardised methods and procedures for analysis of trace elements in food. Recent activities and future plans within the EURL-MN and CEN standardisation work will be adressed.

Human biomonitoring as tool for exposure assessment to pesticide mixtures

Exposure- and risk-assessment of pesticides is typically based on residue data from food monitoring and food consumption data. The enormous variety in diets and residues therein make it challenging to estimate to what (mixtures of) pesticides the (individual) consumer is exposed. Another point is that in most cases residue data are only available for the raw agricultural commodities, and effects of processing (industrial or home-cooking) are difficult to address due to availability and reliability issues with processing factors. Finally, besides dietary intake there might be other routes of exposure which are not covered when restricting exposure assessment to food monitoring only.
In food safety matters human biomonitoring (HBM) is an alternative option for exposure assessment and can bring added value for chemical risk assessment because it can reduce the assumptions needed regarding consumption rates, residue occurrence and processing effects, and it integrates exposures from the diet and potential additional sources (house-hold use, environmental). In HBM, biomarkers of exposure (parent pesticides or their metabolites) are measured in human matrices such as urine (most commonly used), blood, feces and hair. There is an increasing interest in the use of HBM over past 10 years from both academia and stakeholders (including EFSA, EEA) and significant improvements in analytical methods, applications and interpretations have been made. In this presentation an overview is given of the current status of HBM as exposure assessment strategy for pesticides. Emphasis will be on the analytical approaches for determination of pesticides/metabolites in urine, blood, feces and hair. Findings from recent studies (national and in the frame of EU projects https://www.hbm4eu.eu/ and https://sprint-h2020.eu/) will be presented. Besides pesticides/metabolites that were expected from dietary intake, also pesticides no longer approved for crop protection but still used as biocide or for treatment of farm and companion animals (e.g. certain pyrethroids, fipronil) were found. The results show that HBM provides insight in aggregate exposure and exposure to mixtures, both at individual and at population level. HBM is developing into a useful tool to complement existing procedures for pesticide risk assessment.

Persistent and mobile industrial pollutants in a circular food chain: an overlooked problem?

Within Europe, we are aiming for a more sustainable food system. One aspect of sustainability is to move towards a circular food system, according to the ambitions in Europe's Green Deal. However, it should be taken into account that food safety hazards may accumulate in circular food systems. The fate of chemical hazards in circular food systems is largely unknown. It is expected that persistent chemicals remain in the system, and to circulate in food production. Particularly in food production involving the use of water (e.g. for irrigation), Persistent and Mobile Organic Compounds (PMOCs) will stay, and over time increase. PMOCs (also referred to as PM substances) are man-made organic chemicals. They are highly polar, degrade very slowly (if at all) in the environment and show a low tendency to sorb to surfaces or to organic matter in soil and sediments (Reemtsma et al., 2016). In other words, they are very water-soluble, which give them mobile characteristics, leading to transport in surface water and groundwater.
PMOCs get into surface water through e.g. effluent from waste water treatment plants (WWTP). Re-used water (reclaimed water) may also contain PMOCs, even after purification, current water cleaning technologies are not capable of efficient removal of these chemicals. As a result, contaminated water for irrigation leads to uptake in plants, which may in turn lead to compromised food safety. Little is known about the actual risk of PMOCs in food production systems, and therefore the question is raised if we are overlooking a potential problem.
In this contribution, examples of hazards will be given, and potential risks will be addressed, as well as the regulatory aspects of water quality in relation to the agricultural production. Moreover, examples will be provided on the fate of these chemicals and the contribution of analytical chemistry to progress this field is highlighted.

Reference:
T. Reemtsma, U. Berger, H.P.H. Arp, H. Gallard, T.P. Knepper, M. Neumann, J.B. Quintana, P. de Voogt, Mind the gap: persistent and mobile organic compounds - water contaminants that slip through. Environ. Sci. Technol., 50 (19) (2016), pp. 10308-10315

Gut Microbial Metabolites: The combination of LC-(HR)MS techniques to elucidate the breakdown of apple (poly)phenols

Gut microbiota comprises all microorganisms found in the gastrointestinal tract, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi, with a fundamental role in many host processes. The gut microbiome exhibits plasticity and can readily adjust to various environmental and host-derived stimuli. These microorganisms digest certain foods and produce bioactive metabolites. Indeed, diet is crucial in determining gut bacterial assembly and has a significant role in shaping the human microbiota composition and function. A diet rich in phytochemicals and fiber could provide the gut microbiota with the substrate needed to produce gut microbial metabolites that may potentially promote gut health.
During my presentation, I'll pay particular attention to flavan-3-ols, the most consumed flavonoids in the Western dietary pattern. By combining static and dynamic in vitro models (SHIME) inoculated with human feces, we confirmed and extended the knowledge of in vitro degradation of these phytochemicals. The fate of these Flavan-3-ols was investigated in-depth using 48h fecal batch fermentations and long-term exposure (SHIME) of epicatechin, proanthocyanidin C1, and an apple (Renetta Canada). After optimizing the sample preparation, the degradation of these compounds was monitored by combining LC-QTOF and LC-QqQ. Pure compounds used, epicatechin and proanthocyanidin C1, were extensively biotransformed within 8h. In contrast, the apple polyphenol breakdown was slowed down in the food model. We also noticed interindividual differences in forming these (poly)phenol catabolites. The donors showed differences in the ability to produce specific intermediates and metabolites, such as proanthocyanidin B2, dihydroxyphenyl-?-valerolactone, and hydroxyphenyl-valeric acids. In conclusion, the Flavan-3-ol structure and the food matrix affect the biotransformation of native compounds into gut microbial metabolites, conditioning the reaction rates and the metabolites released, which are also modulated by interindividual differences.

EU Policy on contaminants in food: outlook and analytical challenges

The EU legislation on contaminants Council Regulation (EEC) No 315/93 of 8 February 1993 provides that food containing a contaminant in an amount which is unacceptable from the public health viewpoint shall not be placed on the market (food can only be placed on the market when it is safe). Furthermore, it is foreseen that contaminant levels shall be kept as low as can reasonably be achieved by following good practices at all stages of the production chain and in order to protect public health, maximum levels for specific contaminants shall be established where necessary.
The Regulation (EU) 2017/625 (the new "Official Control Regulation") contains provisions on procedures to be applied for official control, including on methods of analysis to be used. Following requests of the European Commission, the Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has completed in recent years several scientific opinions on contaminants in feed and food, reviewing the possible risks for animal and human health due to the presence of these substances in feed and food.
In the presentation, recent and future developments on EU legislation on contaminants in food shall be presented. Climate change, changes in dietary patterns, novel/new foods, Green deal policies entail new challenges for the safety of the food chain. In addition, in order to ensure a high level of food safety it is necessary not to address single contaminants individually but also address more attention to the combined exposure to multiple contaminants. In the presentation, particular attention shall be paid to the analytical requirements and analytical challenges that this entails for an effective EU policy on contaminants in food. Indeed, for an effective risk management and enforcement, it is not only sufficient that a method of analysis is available, the method of analysis must be reliable, sensitive, quick and preferably cheap.

Which technique to assess the presence and absence in feed of authorised and non-unauthorised insect species?

Since the emergence of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in 2001, the European Commission takes a series of measures in order to protect the consumer. With the intention to keep control over the presence of unauthorised processed animal proteins in feed, two methods have been developed and validated at European level and were included in the Commission Regulation (EC) No 152/2009. These official methods are light microscopy (LM) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). These methods are applied according a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) established by the European Reference Laboratory for Animal Proteins (EURL-AP) to assure a harmonised implementation across the different European national laboratories.
Based on EFSA's recommendation, the European authorities agreed to introduce the use of insects for feeding aquaculture animals (farmed fish) as of July 2017. A closed list of seven insect species was firstly authorized to be reared and used in aquaculture was established. More recently, in August 2021, the European Commission has decided to revise the feed ban by authorising the use of processed animal proteins derived from farmed insects to be used in pig and poultry in feeds. This introduction raises questions about the methods to be used for quality control as well as contamination and fraud detection. The purpose of this presentation will be to give an overview of official/existing methods, the limitations and the need of developments of new analytical methods and strategies.

Pandemic Impacts on Food Analysts - and vice versa?

The presentation will outline some effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on researchers working in the field on food analysis. However, food analysts also contributed to perspectives how food and food components can help to strengthen immunity and alleviate a severe symptomatology of the infection. A particular focus of the talk will be laid on certain types of phenolic food components.

Safety and authenticity of dietary supplements: Analytical challenges and strategies

Dietary supplements are intended to correct or maintain adequate intake of certain nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids or fiber, or to support specific physiological functions. They have become very popular among people who want to improve their health, especially those who are seeking natural alternatives to pharmaceutical products. Unfortunately, dietary supplements can be subject to adulteration and also contamination. Intentional adulteration of dietary supplements is economically driven and may lead to safety concerns in certain cases, such as adulteration with active pharmaceutical ingredients, which is a dangerous practice affecting especially sexual enhancement, weight loss and sports supplement categories. Contamination can occur at various stages of the manufacturing process, with the ingredients typically being the most important sources of potential chemical residues or contaminants, including mainly pesticide residues, heavy metals, mycotoxins or pyrrolizidine alkaloids and other plant toxins. The analysis of chemical residues, contaminants and adulterants in dietary supplements is difficult and requires fit-for-purpose analytical methods and strategies to adequately address challenges stemming from the nature of the analyzed compounds and also from the complexity, diversity and variability of dietary supplement product and ingredient matrices. For instance, authenticity testing of botanical ingredients often employs orthogonal analysis approaches to verify their identity. Potential adulteration with active pharmaceuticals can be assessed using methods targeting well-known suspects or by non-targeted analysis that can detect and identify unexpected drugs or their analogs. And analysis of various chemical residues and contaminants typically requires increased selectivity and/or sensitivity do deal with the myriad of matrix-related challenges and effects that are far more complex when compared to the analysis of conventional foods.

When more is more in pesticide residue analysis

A common paradox in many technical and scientific areas is that of "Less is more" referring to the idea that a smaller quantity might be of higher quality. However, considering the need to increase the scope for both the residues and commodities that are necessary in food control nowadays, this paradox cannot be considered relevant, the challenge being to look for "more is more". Accordingly, a clear target for most laboratories are scopes of more than 500 compounds, and dozens of commodities, in a single, fast multiresidue method, with the lowest LOQs down to 5 ppb - all complying with adequate quality control under internally accepted accreditation guidelines.
Covering these issues is a real challenge for routine laboratories. Nevertheless, they can be achieved when taking into account the rapid evolution of the high-end mass spectrometers coupled to chromatography as well as the help provided by automation and analytical workflow digitalization. These challenges are widely promoted by the EURLs through the support and training they give to the EU official laboratories. It is important to note that it is not only necessary to have effective instrumentation and analytical tools to carry out these objectives, but also the expert skills of the laboratory analysts - this latter focus forms the main effort of the EURLs in their work with the OFLs network. Various examples of these achievements, such as e-learning training activities and the latest proposed and optimized analytical methods, are presented in this talk.

Informing EFSA on circular economy food and feed practices. What is the evidence for emerging risks?

Circular economy (CE) is an approach that decouples economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, designs out waste, and instead promotes an economic model based on sharing, leasing, reuse, repair, refurbishment and recycling, in an (almost) closed loop. In the framework of enabling regulatory and policy drivers (e.g. Circular Economy Action Plan, Integrated Nutrient Management Plan, Farm to Fork strategy, new Water Reuse Regulation, the European Bioeconomy Strategy, Single Use Plastics Directive etc), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been undertaking a 2-year investigation into "Food and feed safety vulnerabilities in circular economy" (2021-2022). As part of this we carried out an extensive literature review to gather and evaluate the evidence for vulnerabilities in the CE approach for food and feed safety, plant, animal and human health and the environment. As a new driver, implementation of CE approaches might bring about a set of emerging risks.
This review identified and categorised CE practices within all stages of the food and feed production chain in Europe. Four broad macro areas were identified within which CE practices are envisaged or currently used in Europe: primary production of food and feed; reducing industrial/manufacturing/processing waste; reducing food and feed waste in wholesale, food retail, catering and households; and reducing food and feed packaging waste. In each macro area, there were a variety of practices of interest regarding emerging risk to plant, animal, human health and the environment. A focus on evidence relating to emerging risks to plant, animal, human health and the environment from 'novel foods and feeds within the framework of CE' found a bias towards research investigating the suitability of novel feeds in terms of animal productivity parameters rather than on emerging risks of novel food/feed for animal, human, plant health and the environment. Those studies that investigated risk were almost entirely focused on the biological and chemical hazards, risks to health, and environmental impacts of insects as food or feed and the substrates that they are reared on. Emerging risks are characterised and recommendations made for future research. We recommend that future primary research in novel food and feed in the CE focuses on areas other than insect farming, and that there are further investigations into the potential risks associated with importation into the EU of livestock/goods that may have been subject to different restrictions/legislation.