Hosted by Dr Dharmarai Naicker, CSIR Competence Area Manager: Agroprocessing and Food

Food safety is an issue of growing importance due to several world-wide trends that contribute to increasing safety risks in food systems, such as the growing movement of people across borders; increased movement of agricultural and food products across borders; rapid urbanisation; changes in food processing and handling practices; and the emergence and re-emergence of diseases, pathogens, toxins and other issues.

Digital building blocks such as big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, blockchain, nano-technologies and advances in sciences such as genomics for precision nutrition are some of the technologies that the CSIR is integrating to support the advancement of the agriculture and food industry to improve industry competitiveness while ensuring societal needs are meet. The panel will discuss disruptive technologies such as traceability, blockchain technologies as applied to food safety, nanosensors in smart food packaging; as well as the application of genomics for precision nutrition; innovation gaps; and CSIR key focus areas to transform the industry.

Dr Dharmarai Naicker, CSIR Competence Area Manager: Agroprocessing and Food (Host); Yael Joffe PhD RD FACN, CSO 3X4 Genetics; Michele Francis Padayachee, Executive, GS1 South Africa Division of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa; Tarryn Daniels, Program Manager: AIDC -GS1 South Africa, A division of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa; Charlene De Wit, Zone Asia Oceania and Africa: Quality, Nestlé; Nikolay Andreychikov, Business Driver, Automation and Digital Solutions, Tetra Pak Greater Middle East and Africa Cluster.