EU project targets better food risk information for Europeans

Information about food, and especially its risks, flash before our eyes on a daily basis. But how effective and balanced is the information we get? EU-funded researchers believe that enhancing the delivery of information and advice on emerging food risks could help fuel consumer confidence in foods, curb economic losses related to food scares and reduce the number of illnesses linked to foods. The FOODRISC ('Food Risk Communication. Perceptions and communication of food risks/benefits across Europe: development of effective communication strategies') project is working to offer consumers the right information they need about food/risk benefit relationships. Funded under the 'Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology' (KBBE) Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to the tune of EUR 2.97 million, FOODRISC is filling the gaps along the food information chain.

FOODRISC, which is coordinated by Professor Patrick Wall of University College Dublin's School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science in Ireland, has pooled the resources of experts in key fields relevant to food risk and benefit communication, namely industry, academia, research institutes. 'Some of the recent "food scares", such as BSE [Bovine spongiform encephalopathy], Dioxin contamination in Belgium and Ireland and the case where milk was contaminated with melamine in China, have undermined consumer confidence in food,' explains Dr Áine McConnon of University College Dublin, FoodRisC project manager. 'With the food industry now being a global manufacturing and distribution business all possible forms of public communication need to be understood and used.'

The FOODRISC consortium is comparing how traditional and social media for news and information is disseminated in the EU, which in turn will lead to the creation of the effective tools the project seeks to give communication on food risks a huge boost. The new FOODRISC website is a step in this direction. More specifically, social media use has ballooned in just a year, with numbers up by 50% in many countries. Facebook, which has taken the world by storm, has more than 570 million registered users, and the number of users of all types of social media currently tops the 1.25 billion mark. Europe has surpassed the US in the personal use of social media.

One of the objectives of the project is to establish a communication toolkit and best practice recommendations that will support organisations across the EU to offer better communication, information and education services to the public. The project partners say the toolkit will help policymakers, food authorities and other end users who seek to develop common approaches to disseminating information to European consumers. Also on the FOODRISC agenda, say the partners, is the description of key configurations of food risk and benefit relationships and the implications for communicators. The consortium will assess how new social media, like Facebook, Twitter and blogs, can be used to provide guidance on how risk communicators can use these media to their advantage. And the partners will illustrate how consumers can attain, interpret and use information to support the target populations. Kicked off earlier this year and scheduled to end in 2013, FOODRISC brings together experts from Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.

News source: CORDIS link: article

Greece's Piraeus gets green light for rights issue

Greece's fourth-largest lender Piraeus Bank (BOPr.AT) on Monday won shareholder approval to issue new shares and convertible bonds and give its balance sheet a 1.05 billion euro ($1.4 billion) boost. The green light for the cash call, clinched at a second repeat shareholders meeting requiring quorum of 20 percent, will help the bank ease counterparty worries and regain access to wholesale funding, reducing its dependence on the ECB. "We are shielding our balance sheet from any possible risks," the bank's Chairman Michael Sallas told shareholders, noting that 2011 would be a difficult year. He said the terms of the rights issue would be announced by the board on Jan. 3.

Quorum at Monday's shareholder meeting reached 36.5 percent, after the bank failed to gather enough shareholders for a vote at two previous meetings over the past four weeks. "The recession has led to a significant rise in non-performing loans but the banking system has shown resilience as it had a relatively low leverage. Banks endured the crisis and are now strengthening their capital to help the economy even more," Sallas said. With the macroeconomic backdrop seen tough in 2011 as the economy enters its third straight year of recession and liquidity still challenging, Greek lenders have opted for cash calls to be in a better position to cope with the downturn. A similar exercise by Greece's largest bank NBG (NBGr.AT) in October, when it raised 1.8 billion euros, helped it to pry open the interbank funding market and establish credit lines with foreign lenders.

ECB funding to Greek banks has almost doubled this year to 95 billion euros at the end of November. At the same time, the banking system has also suffered 27 billion euros in deposit outflows, an 11 percent contraction. The economic downturn at home, brought about by belt-tightening to dig out of a debt crisis that shook the euro, has led to a rise in impaired credit to about 10 percent of system loans at the end of the third quarter.

News source: Reuters link: article

A consortium of eight Slovenian car companies form consortium for development

A consortium of eight Slovenian car companies was formed in Ljubljana to reduce R&D investment risks and follow the trends in the global car industry. The SiEVA consortium includes companies Hidria, Cimos, Kolektor, Iskra Avtoelektrika, Iskra Mehanizmi, MLM, Polycom and TPV. The name is an abbreviation for 'synergetic, environmentally friendly, safe car'. The company will strive for development of internal combustion engines, hybrids and electric engines, passenger safety and comfort, and production excellence.

The companies invested some EUR 20m in the project and are hoping to get the same amount from the state through a public call for applications for development centres. They also committed to investing over EUR 250m in industrialisation in the next three to five years.

The companies' contribution to SiEVA was determined based on investment potential of each individual company. Kolektor, Cimos, Iskra Avtoelektrika and Hidria thus contributed 80% of the capital (20% each), mostly in own funds but also in equipment.

SiEVA is expected to create some 1,500 jobs and 20 new patent solutions for state-of-the-art environmentally friendly vehicles. The new company will employ 50 top development experts. As part of the project, the eight companies will also propose the opening of new study programmes to meet their needs for staff. The CEO of the new company, which will be based in Sempeter pri Gorici, will be Milos Sturm of Hidria. Ludvik Kumar of Kolektor and Robert Zerjal of Iskra Avtoelektrika will also be in the management.

The global car industry is undergoing a small transition with the introduction of hybrids and electric cars, "which creates room for new players and we want to take advantage of this", Kolektor CEO Radovan Bolko commented on the setting up of SiEVA. The partnership is bringing tremendous potential to Slovenia's car industry, Edvin Sever of Iskra Avtoelektrika said. The companies united in SiEVA generate EUR 1.5bn in revenues a year and employ 16,000 people, 900 of which are researchers and developers.

"We want to create a leading development core of the Slovenian car industry. Without development, we'd have nothing to produce in five years," Sever said. The consortium will also decrease the risks related to investments in R&D, Cimos head Franc Krasovec added. These risks "take" around 9% of the sales revenues per product, which means that if a product is on sale for eight to ten years, the company loses a year's revenues.

News source: Slovenian Times link: article