Food Safety, Food Quality and Consumer Protection

Food quality depends on the production, primary processing and further processing of agricultural raw materials. We deal with the quality characteristics of raw materials and foodstuffs and their contamination by harmful substances. For example, we adapt existing protocols for the metabolism of pesticides in crop plants and animals to veterinary drugs, feed additives and new livestock taxa. We are also developing cell-metabolic alternatives to animal experiments. We track degradation and transformation products using radioactive labelling, including during food processing. Within the Fraunhofer Agriculture and Food Industry Alliance, these issues are extended to the entire food chain.

Research, development and services

Uptake and metabolism of agrochemicals

Rotational crop studies

Uptake and metabolism in crops
- Central European crops (e.g. maize and other cereals, leafy vegetables, potatoes and other vegetables, tomatoes and rapeseed)
- subtropical/tropical crops (e.g. sugar cane, peanut, soybean and cotton)
- permanent crops (e. g. grapevine and apples)

Metabolism in animals cultured for food production
- metabolism and feeding studies in fish
- metabolism in fish hepatocytes and liver S9 fractions
- metabolism studies in hens and goats

Identification of unknown metabolites using 14C-labeling, high-resolution LC-MS and LC-SPE/NMR under GLP conditions (NMR)

Food safety and food quality

Substance-related analysis of food and feed according to international guidelines

Special instrumental analysis for the detection of charac­teristic ingredients, aroma compounds, contaminants and residues in food and feed (including drinking water) as well as complex consumer products

Development of cost-effective high-throughput screening methods and rapid, convenient test methods

Detection procedures based on biochemistry and molecular biology