Food-Net / food-MAC network

The food-MAC Project is a Thematic Network.

It started officially on the 1st of April 2001 supported by the Leonardo da Vinci II European Programme.

 Key Roles have been identified and distributed to partners:
3 Committees have been set up:
- Management (for administrative and strategic matters)
- Technical (for technology support and implementation of tools for the partnership and the network)
- Content Committee (for methodology, datagathering, data analysis, synthesis and dissemination activities).

Several tools have been implemented for the whole partnership:

SMEs and Food Safety in Europe
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent an important proportion of food companies and are responsible for a relevant share of food consumed in Europe and in the rest of the world. Food safety is fundamental to the very survival of any food company, whether it is at the production, processing or retailing end of the business. Every operator in the food chain (food industry workers, supervisors and management) has a legal and moral responsibility to produce safe food. Several studies point out that many of the small food businesses still lack adequate food safety management programmes and do not meet the National or European Union requirements.

A successful lever to this still traditional sector!
Ready for the global market?

- The main barriers remain with the security/confidentiality of the systems for which both the consumer and the industrialist have to be convinced and provided a safer protection.
- Basic access to Information Technology is no longer a barrier in all European countries
- ICT is not only software and hardware but also all the services around.
- ICT is more and more embedded: we also have now "specific food ICT" with nano-sensors included in food or in cloth wear.
- ICT is developing rapidly and jumping steps: indication of EAN coding system used, waiting for more dynamic, interactive and global/integrated intelligent labelling allowing full traceability of products and user-friendly to answer consumers' needs.

Manufacturers and Producers in the European food sector need to innovate in order to survive in today’s competitive European food market.

Critical success factors:
Innovation needs a combination of ingredients most SMEs of the food sector have to find outside at transnational, national and/or regional levels:

Toward a European Consumer Environment
The consumer issues are adequately structured in each country and well supported by both governmental and private organizations and programmes. Some countries have a long tradition on consumer rights and structures and very well established institutions, with Finland, France, Germany and Sweden showing a leading role. Some other countries, especially those who have recently joined the EU, are in the period of reorganization of their authorities and structures. The same applies for the actors involved in the consumer protection issues.

The European food industry is operating in a challenging operating environment in which companies must be able to analyse and identify their own competitive edges in a more efficient way. Foresight provides enterprises with a useful tool to analyse the future of their socio-economic environment. Foresight can be used for wide variety of purposes, as it can support strategic decision-making on the national, regional, industry or company level.