Iceland is a member of the European Network of Excellence on the chemical content of food and means of disseminating information through databases and the Internet. The project is called EuroFIR and is part of the EU's 6th Framework Program. Matís manages the Icelandic part of the project and now there is a two-day meeting in the project, which is held at Matís' premises on Skúlagata 4. The meeting discusses bioactive substances in food, but work is being done on a special European database on these substances.
Hannes Hafsteinsson, project manager at Matís, will take care of this part of the project and chair the meeting.
The project EuroFIR (European Food Information Resource Network) started in 2005 and ends in 2009 and the participants are 40 institutions from 21 European countries, but the project is supervised by the Institute of Food Research in Norwich in the UK. The aim of the project is to build a comprehensive and accessible database on the ingredients of European foods, in terms of their nutritional value and recent bioactive substances that may have health-promoting effects.
Matvælarannsóknir Keldnaholt (Matra) was originally the Icelandic participant and Matís has now taken on this role. A co-operation network was established in Iceland for the project with the participation of IFL (now Matís), the Laboratory of Nutrition at the University of Iceland, the Public Health Institute, the Environment Agency and Hugsjár ehf. Ólafur Reykdal, Matís, is the project manager of the Icelandic section.
Some of the objectives of the EuroFIR project are:
Harmonization of European databases on the chemical content of foods.
Data globalization.
Increased data quality and Europe will be a world leader in this field.
The importance of the project for Icelanders lies in the following factors:
The project strengthens Icelanders professionally by direct comparison with what is done abroad.
Increased demands will be made on data on the chemical content of food and this will benefit users (consumers, industries, researchers, schools, etc.). Working with food traditions and bioactive substances can shed light on the uniqueness of Icelandic food. Relations with foreign researchers and institutions are important.
The project is a good example of the need for domestic parties to join forces to participate in large foreign projects.
Iceland participates in work on six sub-projects of the EuroFIR project:
1. Development, coordination and networking of databases on the chemical content of foods.
Methods for evaluating the composition of processed foods.
3. Composition and production of traditional foods
4. Evaluation of bioactive material data.
The Icelandic database on the chemical content of food (ÍSGEM) was a key factor when working on getting into the project. The development of the database began at the Agricultural Research Institute in 1987, but is now stored at Matís.
Further information on the EuroFIR project can be obtained from Ólafur Reykdal and Hannes Hafsteinsson.EuroFIR website