Editorial

Dear readers,

The second PromSTAP-year is almost over. Retrospective it was a very active and I think successful year. This issue of the PromSTAP-Newsletter is dedicated to all the activities conducted by PromSTAP participants in order to exchange and disseminate their know how in food safety and food quality.

The year started with a series of interregional workshops in Genoa, Lyon and Bonn dealing with the improvement of public-private-partnerships, support of SMEs and the development of monitoring systems. In April the PromSTAP project was presented at the permanent representation of NRW in Brussels on the occasion of an exhibition with the thematic focus on agricultural and food research. The event was organised by the University of Bonn and the Government of the State of NRW. More than 120 stakeholders and representatives of the European policy community in Brussels were present. In addition to that PromSTAP was presented at the 3rd Central European Congress on Food in Bulgaria and at the 7th International Conference on Management in AgriFood Chains and Networks in the Netherlands.

But by far the most important event in 2007 was the first annual PromSTAP conference in Genoa, which was accompanied by three component workshops the day before. More than 60 PromSTAP participants had the opportunity to show and discuss their first results with experts from seven different countries.

Last but not least I would like to draw your attention to the first training activity conducted at the University of Bonn in November this year. More than 500 participants, working in SMEs like restaurants, snack bars, canteen kitchens etc. registered for a HACCP training course in order to learn how to implement the new EU hygiene rules and thus to improve food quality standards. Considering that all these participants are only from the immediate vicinity of Bonn, shows the need and importance of a project like PromSTAP.

Martin Hamer RFO-Coordinator

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