Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Foresight study on the role of the future industrial food products by ...
A guideline of actual risks and benefits for the food chain will be realised to promote an independent point of view. Safety of bacteria derived from genome editing (GE) by using intragenesis and synthetic biology will be assessed using model organisms. The RA will be conducted considering deliberate release for food production or for fermentations in confined environments. WGS approaches for RA of GE-strains will be applied. Lab-scale models to study the fate of GE- bacteria and their DNA will be developed following recent EFSA indications.
Models for assessing the fate of GE bacteria in food (M36)
Up to date, a number of foresight studies on future nutrition and agriculture has been produced globally. However, a foresight study on the features of the future industrial food products for the next 20-30 years taking into account changing scenarios, emerging risks and growing instabilities is still not available. Tecnoalimenti in 2020 has started elaborating its own study and we believe that Onfoods is the right opportunity to extend and structure this activity into a wider framework.
Starting from the recent Foresight by 2050 issued by TCA and from the discussion launched within the industry, this activity will investigate the possible impact on the role and characteristics of the future industrial food products for the consumer/citizen (needs, requirements, convenience, use cases, packaging, nutrition, prevention, etc) of emerging risks and opportunities caused by expected externalities, such as climate change, war instability, financial crises, migrations, terrorism, technology changes, etc.
During the project, will be evaluated the possibility to set up a standing committee that periodically discusses, elaborates and issues a report/update about the role of the industrial food product on the basis of the evolving scenarios of society, economy and environment.
The result will be a foresight report on the characteristics of the future industrial food product (by year 2050). It will be an acquisition of knowledge in order to draw possible food industrial scenarios and extract strategies for the food industry innovation and for the whole food chain to prepare for emerging risks and positive and negative future impacts within a wider food security concept.