Food Safety
Overview
The mission of the Food Safety Department is to conduct research that will provide the scientific basis for food safety assurance by the Irish Food Industry. The focus of the programme is on microbial and chemical contaminants in the food supply. The research programme addresses contaminants along the total “farm to fork” chain. In the microbiology area this includes basic research to give a better fundamental understanding of how food poisoning bacteria are transmitted through the food chain and how they survive and adapt to the stresses encountered during food production, processing and distribution. This basic research is linked with applied research on the development of control measures and management systems based on the principles of quantitative risk assessment, which can be employed by the food industry to improve the microbiological safety of food produced in Ireland. Research on chemical contaminants in foods is based on the development and application of methods and tools to detect chemical residues in food. These tools are applied to research on the occurrence of chemical contaminants in foods, to identifying problems with particular chemical residues/foods, and to investigating the causes, and prevention strategies, for chemical residues in foods. Data on chemical residues in foods, both from Teagasc research and from other agencies, are incorporated into the National Food Residue Database (http://nfrd.teagasc.ie).
At the moment the Food Safety Department (Head: Geraldine Duffy) has ~ 40 staff (including post-graduate students) and has many ongoing projects (see more.).
