Food safety research contest

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is joining up with the Technology Strategy Board to co-fund innovative research on food safety.

The organisation is to help investigate the presence or levels of pathogens, contaminants or allergens in foods, as well as quality assurance throughout the food chain, the tracking and monitoring of food and the enabling of quick and reliable determination of products or ingredients, country of origin and the method of production.

Projects will be chosen through a competition process called Nutrition for Life – Providing Safe and Healthy Food, and granted financial aid from a £500,000 fund.

The research comes in the wake of the recent horsemeat scandal, which found a number of products sold in supermarkets pertaining to be made from beef actually contained horsemeat.