MobFood brings together partners at INL and UMinho to take innovation to the agrifood sector

INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory and the University of Minho, which are part of the MobFood initiative, welcomed in Braga the 43 partners of this Mobilizing Project for a meeting that anticipated the preliminary results related to the different themes addressed in this project, aiming to develop and implement concrete innovations in products, processes, and services in the Portuguese agri-food sector.

Fátima Carvalho, from Primor Industries and project coordinator, said that “the prototypes will be validated in consumer panels, and it is expected that they will soon be placed on the market”, adding that “the participants in MobFood, who are companies from various areas of this sector, as well as several entities from the national scientific system, are developing lines of research capable of adding value in terms of food security, nutrition, sustainability, new processes, and new technologies, among other areas of application”.

The scientific coordinator of MobFood and Professor at the University of Minho, José Teixeira, acknowledged that this is an ambitious project, “that follows the general guidelines of the challenges that the food sector faces, such as sustainability, security, availability, energy efficiency, process efficiency, new products and meeting the needs of new consumers”. And although this project intends to respond, in the first place, to the challenges that the agrifood sector faces at the national level, “it can also contribute to providing a global response to these challenges”. José Teixeira also added that just the fact that “all these partners were able to join a project with very well defined goals was already a success”.

Lorenzo Pastrana, Head of the Research Office at INL and host of the meeting, said he was “very pleased with the results of the meeting, as well as with the fact that INL is part of an initiative that will contribute to bringing innovation to the national and international agri-food sector. Nanotechnology is essential to achieve this goal in all the steps of the value chain, from production to consumption, so it is very gratifying to be able to fulfil, in this project, the mission of INL, which is to use nanotechnology for the benefit of society and address major global challenges, being food one of the biggest and most urgent”.