On 21-22 September, a meeting of the European project was held at IFL Chill-on, which is a large integrated project that started this summer. The project is funded by the EU and the grant amounts to a total of 9.8 million Euros and its total scope is about 15.1 m. Euro or about 1.4 billion Icelandic kronas.
IFL manages one of the four main research pillars of the Chill-on project as well as being involved in other aspects of its work. The meeting at IFL was part of the research group led by IFL and discusses refrigeration technology and the transport of sensitive foods such as fresh fish and how to increase the safety and quality of products with new technology.
Á website of the project states that the European Union's market area is the second largest market in the world for fresh and frozen foods and that trade in chilled and frozen foods increases by more than 10% per year. It also states that fish is in third place among the most consumed foods in Europe and due to the fragility of fresh fish, it has been decided to investigate everything related to quality and traceability in the supply chain and transport with chilled and frozen fish in the project. .
IFL's research in the project is mostly about fish products and methods to increase their shelf life and safety, but collaborative projects of this size open up various new possibilities and knowledge flows to Iceland.
The Chill-on project will also work on the development of the same elements for chicken products and the supply routes of such products to Europe. In this connection, it may be mentioned that from Brazil, for example, about 250 thousand tons of chicken breasts are exported annually to European markets. The Chill-on project includes a total of 24 participants from Europe and distant countries, such as China, South America, but participants in the meeting in Reykjavík, in addition to IFL researchers, came from Israel, Turkey, Spain, and Germany.
The project manager in Chill-on on behalf of IFL is dr. Sigurður Bogason:
Information about the project can be obtained from Matís, matis@matis.is