Increasing consumer and market confidence in olive oil quality is one of the desired impacts of a European Commission funding opportunity to the tune of about €500,000 ($669,000).
According to the call for proposals, others are making olive oil more competitive and helping improve not just the detection but also the anticipation and prevention of fraud.
The call comes under the “Authentication of food products” topic in the sustainable food security category of the Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. It wants proposals that aim to facilitate “cooperation between European research funding bodies in the area of authentication of food products,” and “provide the basis for an exchange of information and future collaboration,” including to ensure “integrity and traceability along the food chain and across European countries.”
The Commission said it considers a contribution from the EU in the range of €500,000 would “allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately,” but that doesn’t preclude the submission and selection of proposals for other amounts.
The deadline for proposals for grant SFS-14b-2015 is next June 11. A spokesman said it is separate from, and in addition to, the now closed funding call SFS-14a-2014 on the topic of olive oil authentication.
The latter call, for which €5 million has been budgeted, attracted 31 proposals, 7 of which passed all the thresholds and have passed to a second stage of evaluation with a grant agreement expected to be signed before mid-November.
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