Ensuring Food Integrity by Metrology and FAIR Data Principles

Abstract

Food integrity is a general term for sound, nutritive, healthy, tasty, safe, authentic, traceable, as well as ethically, safely, environment-friendly, and sustainably produced foods. In order to verify these properties, analytical methods with a higher degree of accuracy, sensitivity, standardization and harmonization and a harmonized system for their application in analytical laboratories are required. In this view, metrology offers the opportunity to achieve these goals. In this perspective article the current global challenges in food analysis and the principles of metrology to fill these gaps are presented. Therefore, the pan-European project METROFOOD-RI within the framework of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) was developed to establish a strategy to allow reliable and comparable analytical measurements in foods along the whole process line starting from primary producers until consumers and to make all data findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable according to the FAIR data principles. The initiative currently consists of 48 partners from 18 European Countries and concluded its “Early Phase” as research infrastructure by organizing its future structure and presenting a proof of concept by preparing, distributing and comprehensively analyzing three candidate Reference Materials (rice grain, rice flour, and oyster tissue) and establishing a system how to compile, process, and store the generated data and how to exchange, compare them and make them accessible in data bases.

Alternariol as virulence and colonization factor of Alternaria alternata during plant infection

“…More than 300 Alternaria species have been described to cause diseases in more than 400 plant species (Meena et al , ; Pinto and Patriarca, ; Rychlik et al , ). A. alternata alone infects already more than 100 plant species, and therefore, is an economically important food and feed contaminating fungus (Lee et al , ).…”

Goals in Nutrition Science 2020-2025

“…The Novel Food Systems outlined above (e.g., Sustainable Food systems, Cellular Agriculture) open a perspective to the agri-food “community” to supply foods of high integrity, i.e., being sound, nutritious, healthy, tasty, safe, authentic, traceable, as well as ethically, safe, environment-friendly, and sustainably produced ( 281 ).…”

“…Nevertheless, food analysis of the future increasingly has to include chemometry and, for validation of the results, also metrology, i.e., “the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology” ( 284 ). With respect to metrology, METROFOOD-RI, the pan-European Research Infrastructure for promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition aims to promote scientific excellence in the field of food quality and safety ( 281 ). METROFOOD-RI recently has been approved by the ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) and started its preparatory phase to become operational soon.…”

Initiatives, Concepts, and Implementation Practices of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) Data Principles in Health Data Stewardship Practice: Protocol for a Scoping Review

“…It has also been suggested that FAIR data may be useful in addressing the need to generate and share high-quality data to facilitate the World Health Organization elimination goals for neglected tropical diseases [ 29 ]. Much work has been conducted to implement the FAIR principles in other domains, such as computational workflows [ 30 ], food and nutrition [ 31 ], materials science [ 32 ], and oceanography [ 33 ].…”