The food supply chain is highly vulnerable to both accidental contamination and deliberate threat attacks. Since most of these incidents have cross-border impacts, effective collaboration among a wide range of international stakeholders is essential.
The vision of the REACTION project is to increase Europe’s resilience against these chemical and biological food threats.
The food chain is a sector that is vulnerable particularly to being jeopardised both by accidental events of contamination and intentional threat attacks.
These attacks can be unleashed in different points of the chain, and can exploit different chemicals and biological vectors, making their identification expensive and time-demanding in some scenarios.
In addition, intentional attacks have cross-border impacts, requiring for an effective collaboration among a wide range of international stakeholders based on shared preparedness and response plans.While in the food safety and food security arena, a significant number of successful international projects and initiatives are already underway, we believe that the food defence sector urgently requires additional attention.
Intentional adulteration events (2009-2022)
Chemicals and
16 foods identified
(2009-2022)
deaths Related
(2009-2022)
Illnesses
(2009-2022)
Source: c. brevett, Intentional Adulteration of Foods with Chemicals: Snapshot for 2009–2022, 2024
The challenges that the REACTION project will face in the scope of food defence are multiple and require an analytical, technical, planning, and communication approach, in line with the expertise deployed by the project partners.
Challenge 2
Development of fast, versatile identification tools for the standardization of a cost-effective identification pipeline
Challenge 3
Development and implementation of shared preparedness and response plans for food defence
Challenge 4
Creation of an effective and propositive food defence networks
The REACTION project is defined by a series of practical objectives:
Development of a Data-driven monitoring tool.
Provide European ecosystem with real-time assessments of critical points within the food supply chain, enabling faster identification of vulnerabilities, more effective preventive measures.
Increasing accessibility to threat detection across the food chain with the long-term vision to establish this pipeline as a standard, cost-efficient detection method within EU food safety and food defence frameworks.
Development of AI-supported food defence management tool
Public authorities and private food sector entities will be provided with a modular and flexible decision-support system to develop actionable response plans tailored to diverse scenarios
Creation of a European-led International Food Defence Expert Forum
European food defense community will be provided with a secure platform for collaboration, information sharing, and coordination among stakeholders, promoting a united approach to food defence.
Design of an information campaign helping to raise awareness for CB threats
The expected impact is a heightened awareness and vigilance across the food chain, resulting in a more informed community prepared to prevent and respond to threats.
Work Packages (WPs) are the main building blocks into which the REACTION project’s work is organised. Each WP groups together a set of coherent tasks and activities that contribute to a specific part of the project’s objectives and challenges.
WP1
Project management
Leader: AIT
Scientific, operational and administrative management of the project
WP2
Development of chemical threats identification pipeline
Development and validation of analytical methods detecting chemical threats.
WP3
Development of biological threats identification pipeline
Leader: BH
Development and validation of analytical methods detecting biological threats.
WP4
Development of a Food Defence Expert Forum and monitoring tool
Leader: IRIS
Design, develop and deploy a secure online platform dedicated to the world’s first specialised Food Defence Expert community, promoting a coordinated European and international approach to enhancing food system resilience.
WP5
Development of preparedness and response plans
Leader: BH
Development and validation of analytical methods detecting biological threats.
WP6
Leader: Day One
The main objective is to ensure a swift market entry and broad market uptake of the developed solutions. This encompasses the definition of a clear business model, as well as a business plan to support the post-project development and go-to-market activities.
WP7
Leader: AIT
The objective is to ensure compliance with the ‘ethics requirements’ set out for the project
Fast and effective responses for a reliable food chain in Europe
