Newsletter #5 – August 2016

Interesting speeches at Primoris seminar 2016

Right before the beginning of the summer holidays, we organized our yearly seminar in Nazareth (Belgium). As we face numerous challenges in food safety on different levels, we made it our main theme throughout the afternoon. Also, the independent Belgian lab Primoris exists 15 years this year and we celebrated this special birthday during the seminar.

We were happy to see that the seminar was highly appreciated by the attendees.
Carine De Clercq, director Primoris: “When we think about the food safety of vegetal products, pesticide residues come quickly to mind. Of course, these residues are still the center of our attention, but the past few years, other substances that could threaten food safety have risen to the surface. That’s why we haven’t limited the seminar to pesticide residues but we’ve also discussed a few important groups of contaminants like mycotoxins and viruses”.

Hans Braeckman (Primoris Belgium), Liesbeth Jacxsens (Agro ABC), Mieke Uyttendaele (UGent), Walter Van Ormelingen (FASFC) and Frans Verstraete (DG Santé) gave a lecture about the challenges we face, each focusing on their own specialty.

• Contaminants in Europe: the near future
  • Frans Verstraete, European commission, DG Santé
• Developments in the lab world
  • Hans Braeckman, Primoris Belgium, Head of Product Management
• Viruses in fruit and vegetables: how and what?
  • Mieke Uyttendaele, Ghent University, director laboratory of Food Microbiology and Food Preservation
• Cumulative risk assessment of residues: what holds the future?
  • Liesbeth Jacxsens, Agro ABC vzw
• Results of the residue monitoring: tendencies and new challenges
  • Walter Van Ormelingen, Federal Agency for the safety of the food chain

We need your help!

We’re looking forward to welcoming you at our seminar in 2017. As we want to keep innovating every year, we are looking for new topics. Is there a specific topic that you’d like to see discussed? Or do you have an interesting speaker in mind? Please let us know by email communications.be@primoris-lab.com.

Did you attend the seminar and do you still have a question for one of the speakers? Please let us know by email and we’ll make sure you get an answer from that speaker.