RDI, research infrastructure and piloting – Promoting innovation and research infrastructure

FOODNUTRI is a non-roadmap RI significantly contributing to addressing the critical challenges for both the planet and human health: 1) food security and safety, 2) resource efficiency, including a high amount of food waste, 3) biodiversity loss and environmental pollution, which reduces our capacity to produce food, 4) access to sufficient amount of nutritious food for all to secure health, and 5) consumer behavior on adapting transition towards “climate smart diet”, which is seen as a fundamental approach to solve all of the above mentioned challenges.

These aims are also included in EUs FOOD 2030 policy and reflected in the Finnish government’s vision: “In 2030, Finnish consumers eat tasty, healthy and safe Finnish food that has been produced sustainably and ethically. The consumers have the ability and the possibility to make conscious choices.”

As the food industry is a significant employer in Finland,  it is of utmost significance  to the self-sufficiency of the entire Finnish society to ensure the availability of domestic raw materials of high quality and with competitive monetary value.

Green technologies such as biotechnological food production have been identified as one of the opportunities in the Food Research and Innovation Strategy for Finland 2021-2035.

FOODNUTRI is constructed upon seven knowledge-based platforms aiming to maintain Finnish food availability and security in the changing climate, reducing the overall environmental burden of the food system and making the consumer acceptance of the healthy diet easier.

Food safety will be improved and adoption of new green business models promoted and practices of the circular bio-based economy facilitated.

FOODNUTRI will upgrade domestic raw materials and explore agricultural and other side-streams for production of foods and food ingredients by exploiting sustainable food processing technologies.

FOODNUTRI provides know-how including tools and methods to define food characteristics, physiological responses to food, consumer acceptance, food consumption and nutrient intake of populations as well as on environmental and health impacts.

FOODNUTRI will also strive to expand and develop tools and databases for high quality services for maintaining the dietary research infrastructure, assessing environmental burden of our diets, and developing modelling tools and services for dietary risk assessment and monitoring based on versatile channels of food information.