"Gain insight in the impact of diet changes to health sustainability". Interview with Jacqueline Bloemhof

You are new in  SUSFANS Work package 7. What will be your role in the project?

My role is that of  co-WP 7 leader together with Marianne Geleijnse and besides that I am promoter of the PhD student Ante Ivancic who is  responsible for the development of a theoretical mathematical model for defining SHARP diets.

What is you scientific background?

My scientific background is MSc in Operations Research (’92), PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Science (’96) , Assistant Professor in the area of Closed Loop Supply Chains (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Associate / Personal Professor in Sustainable Supply chain management (from 2010 up till June 2016).

I am expert in the field of quantitative optimization modelling for making supply chains more sustainable. Multi-objective optimization to find balance between various criteria such as economic environment health quality etc.  

What do you think are the benefits of SUSFANS research to the European food system?

The benefits are to have a shared database linking different fields (environmental impacts economic data nutrient schemes) to gain insight in the impact of diet changes to health sustainability and economic impacts in food supply chains for various countries in EU.

What role will the SHARP-model play in the SUSFANS project? What are the benefits?

The SHARP-model will give insight and supports decision making in the trade offs between consumer preferences, nutritional needs, economic impacts in the chain and environmental impacts of the food chain.

In your opinion, what are the most pressing issues towards a sustainable food and nutrition secure food system in Europe?

The most pressing issues in my opinion are:

• the role of the processing industry (salt/sugar in products)
• consumer behaviour and willingness to adapt and
• gaining insight in the food system on the EU level (tracking and tracing of raw materials out of processed products)

The Interview was conducted by Khadija Naïri, March 2017
 

Introduction project TiFN (http://www.tifn.nl/partneroverview/#wur)

TiFN is a platform where industry and academia converge and collaborate to create breakthrough innovations in food and nutrition. TiFN enables the food industry to tackle major societal issues and generate competitive advantage. A lot of Dutch companies are participating in this project as a partner such as: DSM, Campina and Unilever.

As supervisor of the TiFN PhD Student Ante Ivancic Jacqueline is looking for interaction and collaboration between TiFN and SUSFANS and to accomplish that the output of both projects are running parallel. According to her it’s important for TiFN to get in the picture of SUSFANS and to show what they can expect from us. 

Jacqueline explains that it took a while before  the financial construction related to the tasks of WP7 within the SUSFANS project had been arranged. As a result SHARP-BASIC is started in March 2016 as a  TiFN project with the aim to accomplish a link between TiFN and SUSFANS, especially with WP7 (Modelling SHARP diets for EU-consumers). The SHARP-BASIC team consists of: Anneleen Kuijsten, Marianne Geleijnse, Pieter van ‘t Veer, Argyris Kanellopoulos en Ante Ivancic.