In February 2024, we embarked on a transformative journey to revolutionize the European Union’s food supply chains through innovation, sustainability, and consumer trust. Our initiative began with three flagship projects—THEROS, ALLIANCE, and WATSON—each designed to tackle critical challenges in food safety, traceability, and combating fraud.

As the initiative gained momentum, the cluster expanded to include five additional cutting-edge projects—FishEUtrust, SEA2SEE, CUES, TEALHELIX, and TITAN. Together, this collaborative ecosystem of projects leverages advanced technology, multidisciplinary expertise, and policy-driven strategies to ensure the EU’s food supply chains are not only secure but also resilient, transparent, and sustainable.

A paradigm shift in the management of quality labelled food supply chains Against Food Fraud

ALLIANCE aims to provide a holistic framework that safeguards data integrity and veracity, enhances traceability and transparency and reinforces interoperability in the quality labelled food supply chain through innovative technology solutions and validated approaches that fosters evidence-based decision making. The project leverages the power of emergent technologies to ensure capillar data collection, data veracity and integrity, and proactive risk management. ALLIANCE strengthens the geographical indication and organic food quality labels by ensuring the integrity and authenticity of these labels and by improving the traceability of the environmental impact and the sustainability of these products. Finally, it will equip food actors, farmers, public authorities, and policy makers with meaningful insights through 7 diverse use cases.

For more visit: https://alliance-heu-project.eu/

Consumers’ understanding of eating sustainably

CUES addresses the urgent need for a more sustainable food system that benefits the environment, society, and the economy. The project aims to foster a Triple Change in the food system concerning culture, food value chain, and policy. To this end, CUES will pilot nine food system interventions and policy dialogues, actively involving consumers, food value chain actors and policymakers. A learning community and toolkits for behavioural change and communication will be developed to motivate 3 million consumers to make sustainable food choices.

For more visit: https://cuesproject.eu/

Increasing consumer trust and engagement in seafood products

FishEUTrust will establish five Co-creation Living Labs in the Mediterranean Basin, the North Sea and the Atlantic Sea. These will enable innovation and process validation and demonstrate the project’s supply chain solutions. Examples of supply-chain innovation include creating sustainable business models, protecting cultural and culinary heritage, short food supply chains, exploiting underused fish species, and innovative engagement activities to stimulate positive consumer behaviour. The project will also develop tools to maximize trust by guaranteeing the quality, safety, and traceability of seafood products based on smart control systems (sensors), metagenomics, genetic biomarkers, isotopic techniques, and labelling/product passport/blockchain). These tools will be integrated into a single digital FishEUTrust data platform.

For more visit: https://fisheutrust.org/

Innovative blockchain traceability technology and stakeholders’ engagement strategy for boosting sustainable seafood visibility, social acceptance and consumption in Europe

SEA2SEE is an innovative European project which main goal is to make actors with sustainable seafood practices more visible to consumers thus giving them a competitive advantage. SEA2SEE project comes to fill in existing seafood traceability gaps through the development of an innovative end-to-end blockchain-based platform, along with professional and consumer applications to increase trust and social acceptance of sustainably fished and farmed seafood. The main objective of SEA2SEE is to significantly increase consumer trust and acceptance of sustainably fished or farmed seafood in Europe through the development and demonstration of an innovative end-to-end blockchain traceability model throughout the seafood value chain and the implementation of societal and sectoral strategies for co-creation, communication and awareness raising about the benefits of sustainably fished or farmed nutritious seafood. SEA2SEE holds significant potential to increase the consumption of sustainably fished or farmed seafood among European consumers by engaging them in providing trustworthy traceability information through participatory demonstrations of the use of web-based and digital tools.

For more visit: https://sea2see.eu/

Building Resilience Through Inclusive and Personalized Food Labeling

The TealHelix project aims to improve how consumers make decisions about sustainable food by creating more personalised and inclusive labelling approaches. Using a method called motivational matching, we will develop new types of labels and digital tools to help people understand and choose more sustainable options. This personalised approach will also help overcome resistance to sustainability and meet the different needs of vulnerable consumers. We will combine knowledge from life cycle analysis, social and economic environments, and consumer behaviour to create a new way of aligning individual preferences with sustainability goals. Different types of labels, such as traditional, digital, and smart labels, will be tested in stores and online. To ensure lasting impact, we will also create industry standards for transparency and information on sustainability. The project will use advanced research methods, such as machine learning, surveys, and experiments, to study labelling approaches and gather evidence. In the end, these insights will be integrated into digital tools powered by AI to support better labelling solutions, helping consumers adopt sustainable practices while including those most in need.

For more visit: https://www.tealhelix.eu/

An integrated toolbox for improved verification and prevention of adulterations and non-compliances in organic and geographical indications food supply chain

THEROS is a Horizon Europe project that brings together a complementary consortium of 17 partners within 6 EU Member States, with the view to  implement an integrated toolbox being capable to modernise the process of verifying organic and geographical indications food products and preventing adulterations and non-compliances, through the use of various technological innovations and data sources, while demonstrating enhanced security, transparency and interoperability in the quality labelled food supply chain. THEROS toolbox components will be extensively evaluated in real life settings through four pilot demonstrations in four different countries (Serbia, Greece, Spain and Czech Republic), while covering diverse requirements, involvement of all relevant actors and different organic/geographical indication food products and fraud/adulteration cases.

For more visit: https://theros-project.eu/

A holistic frameWork with Anticounterfeit and inTelligence-based technologieS that will assist food chain stakehOlders in rapidly identifying and preventing the spread of fraudulent practices

WATSON is developing a set of tools and systems that can detect and prevent fraudulent practices across the entire food supply chain. It will increase transparency through improved track-and-trace mechanisms containing accurate, time-relevant and untampered information on the food product throughout its whole journey. The project will also raise consumer awareness about food safety and value, leading to the adoption of healthier lifestyles and the development of sustainable food ecosystems. Moreover, it will demonstrate the solutions in six different use cases across a number of key food supply chains, covering important commodity groups in the European food system (e.g. wine, olive oil, honey, meat, fish, cereal and dairy).

For more visit: https://watsonproject.eu/

Enabling transparency in food supply chains by implementing innovative solutions to boost health, sustainability, and food safety

TITAN is a 4-year project that will provide an extensive platform for the development of a wide range of innovations that aid transparency and address societal and planetary health to make the food system fair, healthy, and  environmentally friendly. The innovations will be supported by cross cutting Work Packages dedicated to stakeholder interests, implementation of digital technologies, policy recommendations, business support, management and communication and dissemination. TITAN will develop 15 innovative solutions including DNA-based detection methods, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance transparency in agri-food businesses with a focus on SMEs, improve food choices by providing more transparent information to the consumer, enhance food safety and authenticity of products and provide improved information on the health and sustainability of food products.

For more visit: https://titanproject.eu/

Our Get to know each other Event

In a significant milestone for the cluster, our first webinar—titled “Securing Our Food Supply Chains: EU’s Innovative Initiatives to Combat Food Fraud, Improve Food Traceability and Sustainability, & Increase Consumer Trust“—was conducted successfully on 11th and 13th of September 2024. This event showcased the collective vision and collaborative efforts of all projects.

Driving Impact Across Europe and Beyond

The synergy among these eight projects fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration and accelerates the adoption of groundbreaking solutions. By addressing the multifaceted challenges facing modern food supply chains, this cluster is shaping a future where safety, sustainability, and trust go hand in hand.

Join us as we continue to lead the way in securing the food systems of tomorrow. Explore more about each project, their objectives, and how they contribute to the overarching mission of ensuring a safe, sustainable, and transparent food supply for all.

Stay tuned for more!