Subtitled ’Whole Grain Products: the Holy Grail for Health Conscious Consumers?’, this conference at Newcastle University aims to explore the use of wholegrains and their role in nutrition, health and food manufacturing. The aim is to contribute to current debates by policy-makers, such as EFSA and the FDA in the US, on ways to promote wholegrain use, legislate on associated health claims and establish workable definitions of whole grain and wholegrain foods.

An interactive programme with leading experts from the industry will consist of an open discussion forum to help define whole grain, in collaboration with the AACC International Whole Grains Task Force, together with the ICC and the EU Integrated Project Healthgrain networks; and a half-day symposium, organised by the Grainity project, a consortium of researchers from the Nordic countries, focusing on rye. The open plenary session will review progress made since the last summit in 2005 and will be followed by four challenging presentations on the lead topics of the conference: nutrition, technology, consumer perception and EU vs US regulatory and labelling issues. These themes will be continued in four, half-day parallel sessions, with invited speakers and the latest research, followed by a summing-up in a closing plenary session.

 

www.cerealsandeurope.net/springmeeting