The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have invested £1.6m into a new Food Safety Network, hosted by the Quadram Institute. The Network will serve as an innovation hub to coordinate and fund cross-sectoral research and training activities that address current and emerging challenges.

Foodborne disease is a major cause of illness in the UK which imposes a significant burden on both infected individuals and the economy. It’s estimated that there are around 2.4 million cases of foodborne illness a year, costing around £9 billion (with £6 billion from unknown causes). The microbes which cause the greatest economic impact are Campylobacter and Salmonella with Pseudomonas accounting for 25% of food spoilage.

The network will ensure that the FSA is well-placed to tackle the challenges of foodborne illnesses by bringing together experts from government, industry and academia to address current and emerging issues of food safety in the UK. It also directly aligns with the core objectives of the FSA Strategy 2022-2027 to ensure food is safe and food is what it says it is.

The Network’s objectives are to:

• assemble a community of UK food producers, food policy makers and scientific researchers who collectively can take robust actions toward improving food safety
• identify areas of research need and opportunity that, in the view of food stakeholders and network members, will have meaningful impacts on UK food safety
• coordinate new collaborative research activities that will promote the application of science towards the food safety challenges identified by our food system community
• host training promoting skills development, interoperability and relationship-building between our food system community
• translate the knowledge generated within the Network to food safety stakeholders, and to upcycle existing information and technologies relevant to food safety that have not yet been applied more broadly

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