At the kick-off meeting held on March 8th and 9th in Tulln representatives from the European Commission, FAO, EFSA and food and feed industry groups were present as advisors, indicating the importance attached to the success of MyToolBox.
"MyToolBox is a leading scientific endeavor linking European experts with their Chinese counterparts and reaching out to the rest of the World" commented Prof. Samuel Godefroy from University Laval, Québec, Canada, one of the members of the international expert advisory board of the project, former Vice Chair of the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission and current senior food regulatory advisor to China's National Centre of Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA). He added: "The applied nature of the project and its outreach will no doubt lead to not only enhancing food safety and consumer protection in the EU and in China, but will also foster trade of safe food and agrifood commodities worldwide".
The co-ordinator of the project, Professor Rudolf Krska from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, who launched the project on March 8, 2016 said "This exciting MyToolBox Project has the potential to save tens of millions of Euros per annum in reduced crop losses, as well as achieve reductions in dietary exposure to mycotoxins, which is immeasurable in terms of benefits to human health".
Of the 23 partners from 11 countries including China, there is a strong industry presence reflecting the practical significance of this project. Dr. Michele Suman from Barilla, a world leading manufacturer of pasta in Parma (Italy) and a member of the MyToolBox team said "This project could make a real difference to the cereal processing industry with the potential to reduce losses of wheat and maize during milling and produced safer products with lower levels of mycotoxins reducing human exposure".
Further information:
Prof. Rudolf Krska
rudolf.krska [at] boku.ac.at
Phone: +43 676 83280402