EU Science: Global Challenges Global Collaboration Conference

By the year 2050, the world will need 70% more food than it produces today to feed a global population of over 9 billion people. Maintaining the security of the food supply from contamination from both intentional and natural sources is a challenging problem. As the world’s demand for food continues to rise, this only increases the need for new solutions to maintain the quality of the food as well as its security from farm to fork.  This session will focus on the two key areas in food security: rapid detection of chemicals or pathogens in food and optimization of the supply chain. The first area is critical to identifying threats as quickly as possible. Because our food supply can be produced one day and consumed the next day, traditional 24 hour sampling techniques are not sufficient to meet the needs of the modern food system. However, the technology to perform the pre-concentration and sampling of the
high volume product streams as well as detect a single pathogen or extremely low chemical concentrations within 10 minutes does not yet exist. The supply chain itself is a source of a great deal of food waste - up to 30% of all fresh produce is lost in the supply chain in the US. How do we move away from first in, first out logistic systems and to least shelf life, first out system? To accomplish this, technology for measuring, estimating and tracking shelf life will need to be developed. In addition, the supply chain must continue to play a role in the security of the food it transports.