The Risk Assessment Unit of Finnish Food Authority is interested in joining as partner to proposals that focus on Topic 2: New foods –Fostering innovations in food design, processing and supply via demand and supply reorientation

Our unit has long experience in assessing microbiological and chemical food safety risks. We could offer, for example, the following:
• Assessing risk to consumers through consumption of new foods or alternative proteins.
• Assessing change of risk (chemical, microbiological and nutritional) if animal-based foods are replaced in the diet by alternative proteins.
• Exposure assessment of dietary components.
• Identifying risks in farm-to-fork chain.
• Development of risk assessment models.
• Assessing the effects of scenarios on the risk under investigation.
Impact: Knowledge for informed decision making in legislation and risk management in food chain as well as consumers’ own decisions

Ruokavirasto, the Finnish Food Authority (FFA), is a national authority guiding the official controls, monitoring, and researching the food and feed chain, infectious animal diseases and plant health, as well as operating as the EU’s paying agency. The Risk Assessment Unit (RA unit) at Finnish Food Authority conducts scientific risk assessments on food safety, infectious animal diseases and plant health independently from the decision making, and the finished risk assessments are publicly available to provide researched information for the decision makers, stakeholders and consumers. The RA Unit has high expertise in exposure assessment and scientific risk assessment related to food safety. The researchers have long experience in the area of risk assessment, and they have developed several mathematical models especially for exposure assessment. The RA Unit gives also training courses and workshops, its researchers have also studied risk communication between risk assessors and risk managers. The researchers are experts in biological and chemical food safety, plant pest risk assessment and risk assessment of infectious animal diseases as well as in mathematical modeling and risk ranking. Tools for risk managers and stakeholders have been developed, as well. After decades of networking with the national authorities and stakeholders they have high understanding of risk management in the food chain and its challenges.