1. Protein type in meat products
2. Press Release
3. The 1st Annual Meeting of the FP7 Network of Excellence HighTech Europe
4. HighTech Europe launches the European Food Processing Implementation Award
5. Knowledge Auction on Food Packaging innovations

  
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Date: 23-24.03.2010

The 1st Annual Meeting on HighTech Europe was held from 23rd March to 24th March, 2010 in the facilities of Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Action of the Catalonian Government, Barcelona, Spain. 45 participants representing the 22 beneficiaries involved in this network attended the two days meeting.
HighTech Europe is a Network of Excellence facilitates the implementation of high-tech processing at industrial scale via strongly connected regional knowledge transfer chains consisting of basic-applied science centres, industry federations, Innovation Relay Centre and SMEs.
The Network of Excellence HighTech Europe under 7th Framework Program of the EC is organizing annually a meeting where all the beneficiaries attend together with the EC officer assigned to the Project. The second official meeting, the kick-off meeting was held in Brussels in August 2008, was divided into two parts. In the first day, all beneficiaries attended work package meetings in parallel sessions in order to discuss results from the last period and to plan activities for the next period. The second day was dedicated to present achievements of the first year to the whole consortium, and to discuss management aspects related to the reporting activities for the end of the first year of project.
Chairmen Dr. Volker Heinz (DIL, Germany) the coordinator of HighTech Europe and Dr. Lluis Silva (IRTA, Spain) the official organizer of the 1st Annual HighTech Europe Meeting, gave the formal opening address and highlighted the importance and necessity of such a network for the food processing industry. Dr. Volker Heinz thanked beneficiaries for their involvement in the HighTech Europe activities, for the successful work and first achievements.
One of the present results is the HighTech Europe website, which is providing a good future platform and opportunity for all the project beneficiaries to stay in touch and share information. An online interactive portal is under development and will be accessible for pilot application for HighTech Europe beneficiaries at the end of April 2010. This database will provide information about latest findings and show innovation potential and potential for improvement for the food processing sector.
To broaden the network and to involve further stakeholder in HighTech Europe activities an Associated Membership Platform (AMP) will be launched soon. Information about the AMP will be available on the homepage.
HighTech Europe is considered to be the central and instrumental strategic incubator for development of new concepts and ideas that, once transferred to the industry, will enable the European agro-food industry to compete and possibly take back the lead in the highly competitive global market, and will provide a nucleus for the establishment of the European Institute for Food Processing.