H2020 AUTHENT-NET Project: AUTHENT-NET – Food Authenticity Research Network

Wait a minute, what exactly is in that sausage? This question is easier to answer thanks to the work of an EU-funded project to ensure that food product authentication methods are not implemented in isolation, but through collaboration and information sharing. The 2013 horsemeat scandal led to the launch of several major initiatives to combat food fraud and ensure the integrity of the food supply chain. The European Commission has established a Food Fraud Network, composed of competent authorities involved in identifying and reporting food fraud issues in EU countries. Industry and government are involved in various initiatives aimed at providing cost-effective procedures for ensuring the integrity of the food supply chain. However, for these systems to work, knowledge and expertise must be shared between agencies, across borders.

This is where the EU's AUTHENT-NET (Food Authenticity Research Network) project comes in. The AUTHENT-NET Collaborative and Supportive Concerted Action was devised following an initial dialogue with national funding bodies, through a survey and workshop, prior to the project's launch. From these results, it became clear that there would be immediate benefits simply by bringing funding bodies together to share experiences and network. “Very few of the workshop attendees knew each other, and the only collaborations were through existing EU activities such as SUSFOOD,” explains project coordinator Professor Paul Brereton, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Institute for Global Food Security in Belfast. They recognized that much could be gained simply by providing an inventory of current information on what has been done, where, and by whom, in terms of research and development in Member States. The project identified a set of urgent needs from a food authenticity control/detection perspective. These included: improved harmonization and pooling of research activity at EU level to support issues related to method standardization (i.e., 'fit-for-purpose methods'); improved access to reference standards, databases, and reference materials; and pooling of available screening tools.

As Professor Brereton explains, an EU network on food authenticity research was recognized as the best way forward. Concerted action is more effective than a piecemeal approach. The overall objective of AUTHENT-NET was to facilitate sustainable cooperation between national and international research funding bodies in the field of food authenticity, to improve the competitiveness of the food supply chain and consumer confidence in it, through better coordinated and cost-effective R&D. “We achieved this by ensuring that all mechanisms and tools were co-created with national funding bodies through a series of meetings and discussions to ensure their suitability. For example, templates for national data collection on research conducted in one Member State were co-designed, tested in one country (the UK), and then slightly revised before being used by 13 more (as of July 2018),” says Professor Brereton. Similarly, the central information repository, the Food Authenticity Research Network Hub (FARNHub), was co-designed with funding agencies to ensure it met their needs. Consolidated information for each EU country is now freely available and accessible through FARNHub.

Many actors lead to certain challenges. It wasn't always easy for AUTHENT-NET to establish precisely who was in charge of funding food authenticity work in each country. In most cases, food authenticity/anti-fraud was horizontally integrated across a range of research councils and government agencies without overall coordination. Therefore, it was necessary for the project to investigate the content and structures of various EU countries more intensively than originally planned. Professor Brereton feels that this aspect fed into the project's most significant outcome, "I think bringing people from different Member States together and getting them to think collaboratively was the biggest achievement. A close second would be the tools we've provided to do that and to share their information." Europe now benefits from a more efficient food authenticity and anti-fraud capacity. The sharing of information and knowledge between Member States, and the resulting increase in collaboration, is good news for EU citizens—both taxpayers and consumers. There will be less duplication in research, leading to savings and greater protection against food fraud. "Personally," says Professor Brereton, "as project coordinator, I am very proud of the consortium members. The commitment and ingenuity of the consortium members was superb and resulted in over-delivering in many areas.

FARNHub is a good example, where all the fruits of our labor have been consolidated into a single, open and accessible information hub, which will remain in place for at least three years after AUTHENT-NET ends."