ABOUT US

Best4food is a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to food research and innovation actions. It aims to identify the most suitable strategy to develop sustainable food systems able to support our future and the one of the next generations. It should be considered that the food choices that we make everyday, the decision to eat a certain food rather than another, have profound consequences on our health and well-being and also on that of the environment where we live. Therefore, food and nutrition strategies and policy have an impact on the promotion and enhancement of biodiversity and environmental resources.

The access to high quality food, the correct food consumption, sustainable choices and the bioeconomy strategy for food production represent Best4Food pilasters to support the modern, evolved and resilient societies. Importantly, non equal distribution of food resources produce profound inequalities, with all their consequences on world stability.
Food is also one of the main human motivator, and its hedonic quality has the power to drive many of our everyday activities. Therefore the center is also dedicated to understand all the aspects related to those processes that leads to our decision to consume certain nutrients and not others, and/or to establish a healthy and sustainable food lifestyle.
The revolution generated by novel Information and communication technologies (from drones to big data) have a great impact in whole food value chain and in the center researchers develop and use the state of the art ICT platforms and solutions to support sustainable food sytems in a multidisciplinary way.

Currently, in most countries the food quality and safety are protected by governance and law systems that are aligned with the market requirements. However, in some cases the social, cultural, environmental and economical sustainability elements are not completely considered and fulfilled. Therefore, in Best4food more the 100 scientists and researches works together to improve the food chain, especially the process of food transformation, distribution, consumption and labeling of foodstuffs to enhance food sustainability and nutritional quality and to prevent human disease and environmental erosion.

The goal: Best4food represents a scientific and technological center where research institutions and companies collaborate to realize research and innovation in food transformation, distribution and consumption in order to improve environmental sustainability and human life quality. In the center, food and nutritional aspects are tackled through different scientific profiles (social, anthropological psychological/neuroscientific, legal, economical, pedagogical, ICT-based, biotechnological and environmental level) to identify the most suitable strategy to impact on research, and innovation. The adoption of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach during project planning, results analysis and output valorisation allow to fill the gap between research and the market.

Why?

• To enhance the knowledge in food and health sectors
• To develop integrative platforms for technology transfer and services
• To have an impact on food policy and law
• To support social innovation and global citizen education
• To prevent human diseases and promote life quality
• To promote healthier food choices and habits
• To develop future food