EUFIC Presents Food Labelling Project FLABEL at Communication Star Award

On 1 March, the European Union (EU) funded project “AgriFoodResults” hosted its communication award, Communication Star, for best practice communication in FP 6 and 7 projects.

4/11/2011 --- On 1 March, the European Union (EU) funded project “AgriFoodResults” hosted its communication award, Communication Star, for best practice communication in FP 6 and 7 projects. The European Food Information Council (EUFIC) was nominated with the project FLABEL.

FLABEL, Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life, was nominated because of its well-structured and multifaceted communication actions which include effective media outreach to raise awareness, putting in place solid communication tools and utilising new media to disseminate research results. After a well-received presentation, FLABEL ended up runner up and the award went to the FP6 project HELENA, a project on adolescent nutrition and obesity led by the Spanish University of Zaragoza. As a communication partner, EUFIC has played a major role in HELENA’s communication success. For example, EUFIC has produced a podcast summarising the results of HELENA which is available both on EUFIC’s own website as well as the HELENA website.

Maive Rute, Director of the Biotechnologies, Agriculture and Food Directorate of DG Research and Innovation, European Commission introduced the Communication Star award. Rute stated that the need for communication in getting exciting ideas, research project findings and new ways of working out to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), policy-makers and the general public, is an increasingly important task in creating the successful Innovation Union flagship initiative.

Speaking on behalf of the jury, Mella Frewen, Director General at CIAA (Confédération des Industries Agro-Alimentaires de l'UE), said that she was very pleased to be involved in such an exciting project. Helping spread the important findings of FP-funded agri-food research certainly will benefit all stakeholders: industry, most notably SMEs, policy-makers and society at large.