Currently, three working groups are active:
GTAAA (Food Additives and Flavorings)
Scope: Creation of a national system for monitoring the intake of food additives and flavorings, ensuring the collection and processing of presence and occurrence data in foods, in compliance with European regulations.
Objectives: Create a data-sharing network between the production sector, official entities, academia, and research. Gather available information on presence/absence and levels of use and/or analytical data on food additives and flavorings. Identify the need for generating new data on usage and laboratory analyses.
Participants: Food production and distribution sector (including sector associations), GPP, DGAV, ASAE, DGS, other food control entities, universities related to food composition and epidemiology, Autonomous Regions, Directorate-General for Education, Directorate-General for Consumer Affairs, and DECO.
Coordination: INSA, IP – Elsa Vasco
Status: Active
GTSCA (Soil and Food Composition)
Scope: Identification of priority areas in nutrition and food safety to be communicated to stakeholders in the food chain, including consumers, in order to enhance health protection, reduce risk, and improve quality of life. Assessment of communication methodologies and tools, and of the most suitable ways of making information available according to content type/consumers.
Objectives: Produce a database of food composition and contamination (primary production) that reflects the link between soil, food, and health. Define concepts and create a common transdisciplinary vocabulary (soil, soil health, nutritional density, agricultural practices, etc.). Identify entities and attributes of the database, controlled vocabulary catalogs, and an appropriate data model. Develop collaborative and interdisciplinary research with controlled experiments, reliable and reproducible methodologies and measurements. Translate results into relevant implications for human health and food safety. Promote literacy and scientific communication through content adapted to different audiences.
Participants: Experts in primary production, soil science, nutrition and health, food professionals, researchers, communicators, technological partners, and policymakers in food and soil management.
Coordination: INSA, IP – Luísa Oliveira and Roberto Brazão
Status: Active
GTTCA (Support for Updating the Food Composition Table)
Scope: Contribute to the updating of the Food Composition Table (TCA), in line with the priority areas in nutrition and the expected needs of stakeholders and consumers, with a view to achieving Public Health gains in the field of food.
Objectives: – Carry out the survey of food/nutritional information needs. Define priorities. Develop mechanisms/procedures for requesting/collecting laboratory results from stakeholders. Prepare reports on the WG’s activity and disseminate them, as well as all the WG’s work, at the PortFIR Annual Meetings. Reflect on how to present the data provided by data suppliers (recipes/raw foods). Identify foods that undergo changes in composition (in terms of fat, salt, etc.).
Participants: Considering the different agents involved in the various activities inherent to the food chain, as well as research and academia, and the different needs and expectations of consumers regarding the TCA, the GTTCA should include representatives from: production and processing, distribution/retail, research/study, regulation, catering, nutrition/dietetics, communication and consultancy.
Coordination: INSA, IP – Francisco Ravasco, Paulo Fernandes
Status: Active
The information generated by PortFIR will respond to the needs expressed by its users, relying on the collaboration of all producers, users, and disseminators of data in the food sector.