News on Food Trends from Belgium

In order to meet the global population’s growing demand for food, research by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicts that the worldwide food manufacturing and processing industries need to increase their total output by 70 per cent by 2050.

Improving safety practices and achieving a safer working environment is a priority for all the EU starch producers. Starch Europe announces today the winners of this year’s safety awards.

INTERPOM | PRIMEURS, the leading indoor trade fair for the potato, vegetable and fruit sector in Europe, shows strong growth in 2016, featuring 310 exhibitors and all stand space fully booked.

The global population has been expanding rapidly for many years, standing at around 7.3 billion in 2016. This brings with it a number of challenges around global sustainability, including the need for more food.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 600 million people – almost 10 per cent of the global population – fall ill after eating contaminated food.

Interpom | Primeurs 2016 promises to be the biggest edition of this potato event ever and the 2016 theme is: 'Growing through precision technology'.

The first common event of Freshfel Europe & Europatat took place this week: “Doing something good to yourself and to others will be the driver for the purchasing decision of fresh-produce customers”, concluded the associations.

Dutch Potato Processing Equipment manufacturer Kiremko installs an innovative production line in Belgium with a capacity of 16-20 ton/hr of French fries

Almost a third of all food produced worldwide is never eaten, leading to 1.3 billion tons of food waste each year. This includes around 45 per cent of all fruit and vegetables and 20 per cent of meat.

The remarkable growth of the Belgian potato-processing sector in the past few decades has continued in 2015.

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) met to agree to reduce per capita food waste by half by 2030. TOMRA Sorting Food explains how their activities impact food waste

The Europatat Congress 2016 will take place in Brussels (Belgium) on 1 & 2 June 2016, under the slogan “Not business as usual!”

In December Potato Processor Agristo completed a new phase in the construction of the new deepfreeze warehouse in Nazareth, the installation of the automated stacker cranes. Completion of the cold-store is planned for late March 2016

Continued advances in automation and robotics are making the global food manufacturing and processing industries safer, more efficient and able to deliver higher profits, according to TOMRA Sorting Food.

Celcaa, FoodDrinkEurope, SACAR and Copa and Cogeca held a high-level Seminar in Brussels today to
discuss the new EU promotion policy for agri-food products which is entering into force on 1 December

With a value chain wide approach, McCain, PepsiCo, SCA, Sodexo, Ardo, Unilever Food Solutions and WWF have joined forces to fight against food waste in the food services sector starting in Europe.

Starch Europe published today the summary report of an updated Life Cycle Assessment study of the European Starch industry

Researchers from Ghent University and the International Potato Center have discovered that sweet potatoes naturally contain genes from a bacterium. Because of the presence of this 'foreign' DNA, sweet potato can be seen as a 'natural gmo'.