Food Screening EMR is an Interreg V Euregio Meuse-Rhine aimed at supporting regional agrifood SMEs in their transition to a more sustainable, future-proof business model. The project will focus on three distinct areas: the integration of sensor technology in the agricultural value chains, building food and health claims to improve product placement, and exploring new cultivation techniques that yield healthier food crops.
The Food Screening EMR project is financed with € 953,040.03 by the European Regional Development Fund of the EU via Interreg Euregio Meuse-Rhine. Additionally, € 377,000.00 through co-financing from the province of Limburg (Netherlands), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (Netherlands), Walloon Region (Belgium), and the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).
Project website ‘INTERREG Food Screening EMR’
Objective
In this project, Yookr will collaborate with 4 universities (Maastricht University (the main partner of the project), UHasselt, RWTH Aachen, and the University of Liège) and with IMEC vzw and other regional SMEs such as ZUMOlab GmbH to develop a handheld platform for on-site nutrient detection. This will provide end-users with valuable insights into how this sensor technology can be implemented in the agricultural value chain, among other areas. The Food Claims Centre Venlo and the Plant Envirogenetics group of UM will collaborate with BASF Vegetable Seeds and Brightlands Campus Greenport to assist SMEs by teaching them how to integrate new cultivation methods to create healthier food crops and make food and health claims on these products to enhance their market placement. To ensure that all activities in the project are relevant to the euregional agrifood industry, the consortium includes strategic partners from the field such as Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo and BASF Vegetable Seeds. Additionally, local SMEs and larger enterprises seeking support in one of the three domains covered by the consortium can join the user group and help steer the activities in the various work packages. The project “Food Screening EMR – New Tools for Sustainably Producing Healthy Food Crops” is an international and multidisciplinary collaboration with nine project partners from the Euregio. The leading partner is Maastricht University. Other partners are RWTH Aachen University, Hasselt University, Liège Université, Yookr B.V., Nunhems Netherlands BV, Imec, Zumo Lab and Brightlands.
