Red TecnomiFood

Network of omics technologies applied to innovation and industrial development of nutraceutical and functional foods.

The Red TecnomiFood project, coordinated by Eurecat, aims to integrate omics technologies to facilitate the access to these tecnologies to the food industry and to optimise their use, at all stages of the value chain of the design and biological assessment of ingredients, nutraceuticals and functional foods.

Currently, the use of omics sciences in the food industry is essential to face the trend towards personalisation of nutritional recommendations and to promote health, maintenance and optimisation of physiological functions and disease prevention. However, despite its enormous potential, the incorporation of omics technologies into research and business development in the food sector is still very limited. The Red TecnomiFood project drives itself to change this situation, generating scientific and advanced knowledge in the use of omics in food fields.

The Red TecnomiFood have designed various activities addressed to optimise, economically and technically, and coordinated with the other 5 centres forming the aggrupation, the selection and validation processes of new ingredients with healthy potential. In addition, the project also incorporates actions aimed at enhancing the training and recruitment of talent, increasing the presence and international impact of the network and promoting the transfer, exploitation and dissemination of results.

The objectives of the aggrupation are:

• Increase the training of personnel and equipment in the technology centres of the network to increase the specialisation and the scientific and technological strengths of omics technologies in the field of nutrition.
• Generate technological benefits and scientific recognition so that companies use the experience of the network to carry out their innovation processes in new functional products.
• Design operational flows (workflow) of application of omics technologies that respond to business requirements.
• Generate an ecosystem of business innovation that promotes new business models based on omics technologies.

The Red TecnomiFood group will enable agri-food companies to demonstrate, in a much simpler and affordable way, the beneficial effects of the nutraceuticals and functional foods they produce on consumer health. And this is possible by turning omics sciences into fundamental tools to gain knowledge on the impact of these products on the prevention of diet-related pathologies, thus contributing to promote an increasingly precision nutrition to improve society well-being.

The consortium, accredited as a Cervera Excellence Centre, is lead by Eurecat, through its Omic Sciences and Nutrition and Health units, and formed with the Azti Fundazioa, Ainia, the Centro Nacional de Tecnología y Seguridad Alimentaria (CNTA) and the Asociación Nacional de Fabricantes de Conservas de Pescados y Mariscos – Centro Técnico de Conservación de Productos de la Pesca (ANFACO – CECOPESCA).

The project, that has an execution period of 3 years (2020-2022), counts with a financing of approximately 4 million of euros of the Science, Innovation and Universities Ministry.