Press releases

Scientists leverage smart technology to support farmers and improve food safety: globally every year there are several billion Euro losses to cereals and other crops through fungal infection, which also causes harm to human health from toxins (mycotoxins) produced by these moulds. In a new initiative that is being funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme, a group of scientists, engineers and IT specialists have teamed up to provide knowledge transfer to farmers and other decision makers in the food and feed chains. Using smart technology available on phones and tablets, decision-making tools will be made available to the agricultural and food communities to guide them in taking the most cost-effective actions to minimise fungal infection and mycotoxin formation. Advice will be given in real-time and customised to the individual situation taking into account numerous factors including climatic conditions as a means of forecasting potential fungal infection.

ICC will be responsible for the dissemination of information on the project and its results to a wide audience.

The deadline for submitting abstracts for oral presentations to the 15^th International Cereal and Bread Congress (ICBC) is approaching! Abstracts for oral presentations may be submitted until 20 November 2015 through the conference website www.icbc2016.org after having registered for an account. Please refer to the scientific topics for the accepted conference topics. The deadline for submission of abstracts for poster presentations is 11 January 2016.

Online Registration is open and early birds are eligible for a reduced registration fee if registering before 24 December 2015.

The 15^th ICBC will be a 3.5 day event, and the focus of this international congress will be storage, processing/development and marketing of cereal products meeting consumers' needs (added values in convenience, taste, nutrition and health, safety and security). As the flagship congress of ICC and Cereal Industry, the 15^th ICBC will bring together leading researchers, scientists, food technologists and industry from around the world. For an outline of the scientific topics, please see: www.icbc2016.org/en/#scientific-topics.

The ICC/AISTEC Conference "Grains for feeding the world", organised by the Italian Association for Cereal Science and Technology (AISTEC) in collaboration with the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (ICC), was held at the University of Milan, 1-3 July 2015, with a theme inspired by the broader EXPO theme, "Feeding the planet, energy for life".

The event brought together more than 180 participants from more than 20 countries from around five continents, and provided opportunities for both young and senior scientists and industry representatives for networking and exchanging knowledge about grains and derived products. It also marked the 20^th anniversary of the Italian Association which happens to be in conjunction with the 60^th anniversary of ICC.

The Conference offered participants an outstanding scientific programme with eight scientific sessions and 42 speeches by speakers from all corners of the globe and about 138 posters. It addressed and attracted the global scientific community, as well as international stakeholders, to discuss new topics, products and challenges. It enabled a meeting between science, production and marketing, thanks to the ten exhibitors that actively interacted with participants and contributed to the event with their table top exhibitions of products, equipment and scientific tools, and moreover provided an insight into the state of the art of product innovation and development of the grains world.

The countdown to the 6^th International Dietary Fibre Conference 2015 (DF15) from 1 - 3 June 2015 is running. ICC and INRA are looking forward to welcoming you together with more than 200 delegates from over 35 countries at Les Salons de L'Aveyron in Paris, France, the exquisite venue of DF15.

Excellent speakers and outstanding contributions in the areas of Consumer and regulatory aspects, Colonic microbiota and functions, Metabolic health, Dietary fibre in food, New dietary fibre sources and Dietary fibre properties, classification and analysis as well as Increasing fibre intake are waiting for you at the DF15. This is also the first DF Conference with FDA and EFSA-related speakers and with presentations covering brain health and mental well-being. Check the FINAL PROGRAMME for details at df2015.icc.or.at/programme.

Two pre-conference workshops on Monday (1 June) morning are completing the official programme. See their detailed programme and sign up for any of them as soon as possible since places are limited.

Dear Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure for me to start serving as the new President of ICC for 2015-2016. I feel very honoured to take over this role, along with its corresponding responsibilities.

Over the past ten years, ICC has continued healthy growth and expansion and conquering challenges under the outstanding leadership of the Past Presidents and ICC's Secretary General, to achieve ICC's mission – that of being the pre-eminent international association in the field of cereal science and technology. It is committed to international cooperation through the dissemination of knowledge, conducting research, and developing standard methods contributing to advance innovation, improve food quality, food safety and food security for the health and well-being of all people in the world.

We are happy to announce the programme topics at the 6^th International Dietary Fibre Conference (DF15), Paris, France, 1-3 June 2015:

1. Session - Consumer acceptance

• Innovation and value-chains for grains and fibre (global market-forces etc.)
• Consumers' acceptance and willingness-to-pay

2. Session - Consumer health

• Fibre and chronic disease and immune regulation
• Fibre and intestinal functions
• Colonic microbiota and microbial metabolism
• Caloric value of fibres, glycaemic index, satiety, weight management and obesity
• Application and benefit of fibre to neurocognitive and brain health
• Fibre co-passengers and derived molecules

3. Session - Dietary fibre in food and new ingredients

• New trends in dietary fibre innovation
• Physical structure/properties and composition of dietary fibre preparations
• Resistant starch
• Liquid, solid and semisolid food applications
• The role of fibre in reducing fat and sugar levels in products
• Alternative sources of dietary fibre and novel dietary fibres and fermentable substrates
• Standard and innovative food processing effects on the functionality of dietary fibres and the effects of these modified fibres on health
• Advances in generating fractions and dietary preparations with specific tissues and/or dietary fibre constituents

4. Session - Classification, analysis and regulatory issues

• Fibre identification, classification and analysis: analytical method overview
• Fibre regulatory aspects, government policies, directives and regulations around the world
• Fibre and labelling of nutrients
• In vitro and in vivo issues
• Fibre and health claims and the future for new claims of dietary fibre
• Fibre and food composition databases

5. Session - New criteria to classify dietary fibre

• Dietary fibre mix adapted to each physiological situation, from the new-born to the elderly, from the healthy subject to the patient
• Different fibre properties for different products
• Books of knowledge, decision tool

In the elections for ICC Officials from 12 to 26 October 2014, Prof. Hamit Köksel from Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey received the majority of votes. Prof. Köksel will become ICC President Elect 2015-2016 and succeed Prof. Fengcheng Wang from China as ICC President in 2017-2018. Prof. Hamit Köksel has been connected with ICC for many years and he has been ICC National Delegate since 2002. With Prof. Köksel as incoming President ICC will benefit from his international, diplomatic and scientific experience. Besides, he is the organiser of the next (15^th) ICC Cereal and Bread Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2016.

The QAS volume 6, issue 3 (September 2014) is now available and features a special issue on "Food Chemistry and Safety". Edited by Hamit Köksel and Vural Gökmen, both from Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, the presented research papers were selected from invited presentations in association with the EuroFoodChem XVII conference, which took place 7-10 May 2013 in Istanbul, Turkey. The included papers encompass the latest research trends and findings on the emerging topics of food chemistry and safety. The 10 papers included in this special issue were selected from the papers recommended through an external peer-review process.

The papers in this special issue describe the recent advancements on analytical methodologies for the determination of nanomaterials in complex samples, safety assessment of engineered metallic nanoparticles in foods, performance of multiplex dipstick immunoassay for screening mycotoxins in cereals, analytical challenges in food chemistry proficiency tests, application of e-nose technique for food quality control using novel oligopeptides based materials, and evaluation of safety risks in thermal processing of foods considering processing contaminants such as acrylamide. In addition, some papers describe also the production and characterization of resistant starch and its utilization as food ingredient, thermolysis products of potato starch as potential prebiotics, and anovel cereal fiber drink as a tool for prevention of civilisation disease.

Vienna, 20 June 2014. ICC is proud to announce the launch of the ICC Online Store! You can now purchase all ICC Standard Methods online using a credit card, and immediately download the Standard Methods as PDF files. To celebrate the opening of the Online Store, until 31 December 2014 all ICC Standard Methods are available at the special discount rate of -50 % which is usually only available for customers from member countries. Register one time for free and log in to your account at any time to manage your orders and purchased files.

The store has been developed and deployed by ICC based on the open-source software Drupal Commerce.

In the future, the Online Store will be extended to include other sections such as event registrations and ordering services and products powered by ICC Services GmbH.

Start shopping now!

For technical questions, please contact Robert Allerstorfer at the ICC Headquarters.

Vienna, 12 May 2014. An EU-funded research project is shining a spotlight on the benefits, risks and quality of botanicals. Some 30 international research groups worked in a multi-disciplinary consortium to investigate whether botanicals available as drops, capsules, lozenges, tablets and pills, for example, truly deliver on what they promise. The PlantLIBRA research project started in 2010 and ends in May this year. Some 110 experts from over 30 countries participate in the wrap-up event in Vienna, 12-14 May 2014 (plantlibra2014.icc.or.at). The event is managed by ICC, which is also a consortium partner in this EU funded project (www.icc.or.at/projects/plantlibra).

The 25 nations involved in the "PlantLIBRA" research project all pursued the same goal: to record the benefits and risks of botanicals and test the quality of the products available on the market. The experts involved also compiled a database that will make it easier for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and other national authorities to assess botanicals.

Some 110 participants from over 30 countries from 5 continents discussed the current knowledge and the research needs at the latest ICC International Symposium "Bioactive Compounds in Cereal Grains and Foods", which was held in Vienna, Austria, 24-25 April 2014. An initial discussion at the Science Café expressed how multi-faceted the impact and the research of bioactive compounds of cereals and foods are. It was generally agreed that the consumer needs to be better informed and that any claims of foods concerning health promotion or fighting life style diseases need to be substantiated by science. In various technical sessions the scientist had often referred to the difficulty to precisely pinpoint to one compound for a certain health beneficial impact, because synergistic effects and dose dependent efficacies of various bioactive components are usually found in the same food. In more than 20 oral presentations given by renown speakers from around the globe, such as Trust Beta from the University of Manitoba (Canada), or Joseph Awika from Texas A&M University (USA), Fred Brouns from Maastrich University (the Netherlands) or Regine Schönlechner from BOKU (Austria) - to name a few - and over 40 posters, this symposium gave new and multi-actor insight in the identity of bioactive compounds in cereals, their functions and health promoting effects, as well as their fate in food processing. At the end of the symposium Alastair Ross (from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and Chair of the meeting) and John Taylor (from the University of Pretoria, South Africa) summarized the outcomes as follows:

• There is a need for comprehensive characterisation of materials (e.g. individual phenolics and specific proteins, not total phenolics/antioxidants or total protein)
• Enzymatic treatments and fermentation seem to be more effective for releasing bioactives than physical processes alone
• New application of milling and fractionation technologies are popular, but questions remain about unused fractions
• Costs of complex processing – are these new processes for liberating bioactives cost effective?
• There is greater need for bringing the knowledge and methods on "minor" grains and pseudocereals up to the level of the "major" grains
• We need to investigate bioactives in combination with dietary fibre – the two are essentially inseparable in the diet, and should be inseparable in our research!
• Sensory aspects and consumer acceptance/education are critical, if we are to bring our concepts and new processes to market
• We need to be well informed about controversies related to cereal intake, and how we can play a role in helping people make the best choices for them, and not based on fear
• Our knowledge on bioactives in cereals is still really in its infancy, and although we can see the potential, we need to work together to take the new process ideas and newly identified compounds to proven health benefits in humans.

Dear colleagues, dear friends,

I would like to start the New Year with all my best wishes for yourself, your family, your team and your organization.

More than ever, the importance of cereals for feeding the world is in the focus globally. All our efforts should aim to move towards a world without hunger. This concerns not only to progress on genetics and agronomy but also more qualitative aspects to ensure the safety of raw material and to develop end-products with nutritional and sensory qualities expected by consumers. Faced with these challenges we need to strengthen our global vision and to commit ourselves further to multidisciplinary approaches. This role will be developed in the coming years by ICC through the mobilisation of more researchers, more institutions and more corporate members over the world. We are pleased to welcome within ICC New Country Members: Brazil, India and New Zealand, as well as a new Corporate Member: TLR International Laboratories, Netherlands.