Concern for our food is growing in Europe. Nowadays it is more and more difficult for consumers to be sure that the food they are buying is healthy and lacks any kind of contamination. Food we eat every day can contain toxins, bacteria, parasitic pathogens and other contaminants. The negative effect these may have on our health is beyond question. Luckily technology nowadays is advancing rapidly and new systems can be developed that track food contamination.
We present you below four research projects that received financial support via the Seventh Framework Programme in order to develop smart food devices that will check the level of contamination in different food items.
FOODSNIFFER will develop smart food sensors that will help food safety experts trace the source of contamination in case of disease outbreaks and allow farmers to check the level of pesticides on their crop before harvesting. In the past, farmers and food processors have sent samples for analysis. However, the sensor developed by FOODSNIFFER can pick out contaminants such as mycotoxins, pesticides and allergens. The project has made a scaled-down version of a laboratory test which measures the binding of these contaminants to targets within the sensor.
Milk and dairy products can be contaminated by several contaminants, including aflatoxin M1, a potent carcinogen. The aflatoxin contamination represents a hazard for human health and an economic loss for the dairy industry. The solutions developed by the project aim to overcome the limitations of the available technology for aflatoxin detection, which fails to provide timely identification of the carcinogen and cost-effective management of contaminated milk.
LOVE-FOOD is developing a diagnostic tool for bacteria detection in food samples. It will detect pathogens in food, specifically applied to dairy products.Thanks to a detection scheme based on acoustics rather than optics, it will allow to test a larger number of biomarkers at a lower cost. The device will have the ability to address simultaneously bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens, and target different types of food samples.
BIOFOS is good news as far as food quality control on milk, olive oil and nuts is concerned. The aim of BIOFOS is to develop a simple, fast, low-cost, sensitive, portable and reliable, screening tool for detection of food contaminations. The reusable biosensing system will be based on optical interference and lab-on-a-chip (LoC) technology. By combining the most promising concepts from the photonic, biological, nanochemical and fluidic parts of LoC systems, the BIOFOS system is targeting the detection of antibiotics, mycotoxins, insecticides and heavy metals in milk, olive oil and nuts.
Bon appetit!