News
Timely identification of food safety hazards in animal feed with dashboard
Wageningen Food Safety Research (part of Wageningen University & Research), together with private partners from the animal feed sector, has developed a digital interactive dashboard that provides insight into food safety. The dashboard provides an overview of potential food safety hazards and can provide predictions on the likelihood of the occurrence of such hazards in feed ingredients from different countries of origin.
Timely insight into hazards offers future users the opportunity to take control measures and to set up monitoring in a risk-based manner.
The dashboard was developed as part of the PRORISKFEED project, a collaboration between the research institute and organisations in the animal feed sector (Securefeed, GMP+ International and Trouw Nutrition). Pilots are currently underway at these organizations to test the system in practice.
Historical monitoring data
The dashboard, a so-called Decision Support System (DSS), uses 10 years of historical monitoring data. It provides an interactive overview of this historical data, such as trend lines over time and world maps showing the presence of contaminants in animal feed. The focus of the dashboard is now on mycotoxins, dioxins, heavy metals and pesticides in feed materials.
Predictive models
The monitoring data were combined with other relevant data such as the maximum limits and guideline values of contaminants in animal feed, trade data, socio-economic data and weather data. All this data was then used to create predictive models based on machine learning techniques. A separate prediction model has been developed for each substance group (dioxins, mycotoxins, pesticides and heavy metals). These models provide a prediction about the probability of occurrence of the hazard group in a particular feed ingredient per country of origin. In a possible follow-up project, other hazards can be examined.