METROFOOD-FED.BE is a 3 year BELSPO-funded project supplementing the implementation of METROFOOD-RI at a Belgian federal level. The project kick-off meeting was held in Sciensano site Tervuren on March 21, 2024 in the presence of BELSPO and METROFOOD-RI delegates from Belgium and Italy, respectively. Sciensano colleagues from the scientific directorate of Chemical and Physical Health Risks are involved in the project and they presented the foreseen activities of METROFOOD-FED.BE.

The core goal of the project is to develop, advance and implement Sciensano federal components (services) for the promotion of metrology in food and nutrition in the European and (inter)national research and innovation (R&I) landscape. Through the project’s lifetime, METROFOOD-FED.BE via its dedicated activities will ensure that Sciensano services are robust, well-developed, reinforced, optimally positioned and sufficiently innovative to cater to a broad set of target users seeking to improve practices and looking to apply state-of-the-art metrological solutions to challenges in food and nutrition. As part of the project, Sciensano select services will be robustly tested and prepared for optimized performance and provision at par with ESFRI standards for long-term inclusion in the ESFRI research infrastructure, METROFOOD-RI.

This will be achieved by means of open transnational calls for access to the federal components of Sciensano, where potential users of Sciensano services will have the opportunity to access two services free-of-charge for their metrological needs in food and nutrition. The first service is related to the physicochemical characterisation of nanoparticles in materials in contact with food and their potential migration. A second service will address the safe & sustainable development, risk assessment and compliance evaluation of materials in contact with food.