The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) published the 2011 European Union summary report on trends and sources of zoonoses and foodborne outbreaks. A positive outcome is that the numbers of human cases caused by Salmonella are continuing to decrease. Unfortunately, the numbers of human cases caused by other bacteria, such as Campylobacter and pathogenic Escherichia coli are increasing. These three groups of bacteria were amongst those implicated in food-borne disease outbreaks in the EU in 2011.

A few days after the initial announcement by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) on the 15th January that horse and pig DNA were found in beef burgers, researchers did an online study and found that consumers were mainly concerned that the claims on labels did not match the contents of the products.

On 8 and 9 November, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, hosted the international event "Communicating Food for Health Benefits" as part of the European research project FoodRisC.

"The use of social media in food risk and benefit communication" paper written by researchers from Ghent University and University College Dublin, and a communications company in the UK has been published in the leading international journal Trends in Food Science and Technology. It is part of the FoodRisC (Food Risk Communication – perceptions and communication of food risk/benefits across Europe) project, which is funded under the FP7 of the European Commission.

FoodRisC researchers will be presenting the latest from the project at the Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting in San Francisco on 9-12 December 2012

FoodRisC researchers presented at the Global Food Safety Conference 2012 yesterday in Dublin.

Adrian Moss, Managing Director, Focus Business Communications discusses FoodRisC research dealing with the role of social media during a food crisis.

An update on FoodRisC activities over the first 18 months of the project.

Dr Wim Verbeke, Professor of Agro-Food Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at Ghent University, discusses FoodRisC research dealing with the conceptualisation of food risks, benefits and crises.