MoniQA Association (www.moniqa.org) is organizing a two-day-symposium on Food Fraud Prevention and Effective Food Allergen Management targeted toward the food industry/food manufacturers, food production auditors and representatives from the regulatory environment. This workshop will be especially suitable for SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and fulfilling CPD (Continuous Professional Development) requirements. The workshop will give practical, scientific and legal background information, insight in innovative approaches, newly developed tools and recently introduced analytical methods to combat food fraud and improve food allergen management. These new developments will be linked to real case studies and learnings from recent incidents. Learnings from stakeholder viewpoints, such as food manufacturers, food laboratories, food analytical methods providers, auditors, risk assessors, lawyers, trainers/teachers, media and communicators, regulatory bodies and policy makers shall complement the scientific programme and stimulate open discussion.

The symposium will be co-organised with CNR-ISPA (a MoniQA Founder Member, since 2007) in Bari, Italy, http://www.ispacnr.it/en/bari-territorial-unit/ Renown speakers and representatives from various stakeholder groups will share their experiences with meeting new challenges.
The symposium will tackle various burning questions such as:

Food Authenticity and Fraud Prevention:

• What are the analytical possibilities to authenticate organic foods?
• Labelling: “regional”, “genuine”, “healthy”, “free-from” and other claims: What is permissible and how are these claims (analytically) substantiated.
• Crises such as melamine in dairy products, horse meat in beef, wood chips in cheese – what is next? What are the learnings to prevent the next crisis?
• Untargeted methods of analysis seem to be the first choice for quality and safety assessment of agricultural products and foods in the future – how far are we?
• Looking for the unknown. How can new reference materials and comprehensive food databases support a better food integrity and food safety management?

Food Allergens and Effective Management Tools:

• How can we produce safe foods for everyone? How can the European Research Area deliver better food safety and risk based food allergen management tools?
• When do I need to label an ingredient? Under which circumstances do I use pre-cautionary labelling such as “may contain”.
• Implications of pre-cautionary labelling for the consumer
• Food allergen management and analysis in the absence of threshold doses – an industry perspective and legal implications
• New reference materials, innovative routine methods and candidate reference methods – new developments and future perspectives

We warmly invite you to attend this meeting, which brings together international experts in the fields of food authenticity and food allergens, as well as various food industries, SMEs, research institutions, associations and regulatory bodies, all having a different stake in food safety. This special mix of scientific and practical input to the symposium will be a valuable opportunity to grow your knowledge base, learn from practical experiences, and exchange ideas with peers.

Escape from the cold Northern winter and join us in Bari in Southern Italy. We hope to see you there!

Dr. Roland Poms
MoniQA, Austria - Secretary General

Dr. Richard Cantrill
AOCS, USA – MoniQA President

Dr. Antonio Logrieco
ISPA-CNR, Italy – Director

Dr. Linda Monaci
ISPA-CNR, Italy – Senior Researcher and Conference Host

Conference Secretariat:

Mrs. Marion Forgash
MoniQA Association
Werner-von-Siemens-Strasse 1
A-7343 Neutal
Austria

W: http://www.moniqa.org/
E: bari@moniqa.org
T: +43 5 9010 26990
F: +43 5 9010 11 26990