The European Metrology Network (EMN) for safe and sustainable food provides measurement science expertise to stakeholders involved in official food control and the food industry. Addressing priority metrology needs in close cooperation with stakeholders has led to significant progress towards comparability and traceability of food-related measurements in Europe and beyond.
The European Metrology Network called EMN Food (EMN Food) which includes 16 metrology institutes, regulatory bodies, European reference laboratories and the food industry has the objective of supporting metrology initiatives in the fields of food safety, quality and authenticity. This European network will serve to coordinate the work of harmonising the reference measurements and procedures used to verify that the food supplied is safe and compliant with the quality indices declared by the producers. The main objective of the network is to support the regulatory bodies and reference laboratories by developing measurement capacities and certified reference materials in the food sector. The European Food Safety Network will focus not only on food intended for human consumption, but also on feed, thus improving animal health and welfare.
The existing capacities of the individual Institutes are strengthened by the establishment of the EMN Food as it supports the coordination of the activities of metrology institutes with expertise in complementary and interdisciplinary analytical fields (physics, chemistry, biology and statistics). Through EMN Food, NMIs and DIs will speak with one voice in decision-making processes with key stakeholders in the field of food safety and sustainability.
The expected impacts are:
- Health impact: The globalisation of markets and the relative ease with which different products and goods are transported across countries and continents means that consumers are increasingly concerned about the safety of food products. Harmonisation of methods and developments in standards, which EMN helps to coordinate, aims to ensure that measurements across Europe are comparable and that each country is protected by the interoperability of its laboratories’ measurements.
- Social impact: EMN aims to help governments and other organisations ensure a coherent quality monitoring programme to generate significant benefits for local communities. Furthermore, EMN-Food aims to help producers develop quality schemes certified by authorised control bodies in order to control the quality (and therefore the value of the labelling) of the specified product, ensuring consistency of results between different countries.
INRiM has extensive experience in coordinating and participating in European and national projects in the food sector and is the coordinator of the regional metrological infrastructure for IMPreSA (metrological infrastructure for food safety) and is the coordinator of the European metrological infrastructure
The EMN Food network is active in developing reliable and long-term economic sustainability plans, through the implementation of two parallel approaches:
- Collaboration with other European partnerships and organisations related to food control for the preparation of joint calls
- Timely dissemination of the results of the network's activities to standardisation committees and foster collaboration with other key actors in the EMN's areas of interest.
In addition, EMN Food at global metrology level participates in the “Task Group on Food Measurement” and in the drafting of the document describing the BIPM-CCQM strategy and the work program 2021-2030 in the field of food safety and measurement, as well as activities in RMOs and in capacity building and knowledge transfer, which can be used as a publicly accessible reference to describe how the international metrology community intends to meet measurement needs related to food and food safety.