nir-vana innovation network

An Italian research institute, located in North West of Italy and active in three Italian regions Piemonte, Valle d'Aosta and Liguria, provides products and services to protect the health of citizens through the safety of food and the health of the food-producing animals.

The Institute's experience on food authenticity covers the seafood sector, meat and dairy products, honey, oil and wine. Standard methods developed by the Institute are currently applied in regional and national monitoring plans on food authenticity.

The Institute cooperates with regional and national authorities, i.e. Italian Ministry of Health, for monitoring plans on food and is engaged in EU research projects, i.e. currently partner of an H2020 project aiming to assure the authenticity of food products.

Food fraud, safety and authenticity are fundamental aspects of the Institute's activity.

Works on food authenticity are made by microscopy; NIR spectroscopy; chemiometrics; genomics; proteomics and metabolomics.

They currently collaborate with official controls for legal analysis and also with small, medium and large food companies for quality control analysis.

The research Institute, through a research cooperation agreement, is looking to join a consortium preparing a Horizon Europe Cluster 6 project proposal for the Horizon Europe call "Effective systems for authenticity and traceability in the food system - HORIZON-CL6-2022-FARM2FORK-01-11
Horizon Europe call under Cluster 6, Farm 2 Fork Area, single-stage call, opening date 28 October 2021, deadline 15 February 2022.

Advantages & innovations

Food fraud, safety and authenticity are fundamental aspects of the Institute activity. The Institute's experience on food authenticity covers the seafood sector, meat and dairy products, honey, oil and wine. Below is an insight into competence developed in the seafood sector: The Institute coordinated a project funded by the Italian Ministry of Health, in order to improve a task force of official laboratories and investigative authorities to fight food fraud, with a focus on fishery products. On fishery products, they developed standardized methods to differentiate fresh from frozen fish by microscopy; fresh from frozen cephalods by spectroscopy; farmed from caught fish by proteomics; species by DNA analysis ( a molecular biology technique for amplification and quantification) Laboratories are able to identify species both in simple food matrices by DNA Sanger sequencing and in complex matrices by Next Generation Sequencing and qPCR analysis (a molecular biology technique for amplification and quantification). The same methods are in force also to fight fraud on meat products The Institute is a public research organization that cooperates with regional and national authorities with competence on guidelines redaction, risk analysis, redaction of monitoring and surveillance planning for specific purposes.

Stage of development

Proposal under development

Partner sought

The research center is looking to join a consortium preparing a project proposal for Horizon Europe call "Effective systems for authenticity and traceability in the food system" - HORIZON-CL6-2022-FARM2FORK-01-11, single-stage call, opening 28 October 2021, deadline 15 February 2022. Type of partners sought: - R&D Institution - University - SMEs 51-250