European project partners look for food companies to test BEAMitup platform

A joint project between SwissDeCode (CH), Microbion (IT), IATA CSIC (ES) and the University of Helsinki (FI) is looking for food corporates that want to improve their quality control methods and to assess the newly developed BEAMitup platform. After successfully completing the internal validation of the system within the scope of EIT Food Covid-19 Rapid Response Call, the next step is to bring this platform to real industry settings. As part of the EIT’s Crisis Response Initiative, this activity directly contributes to the European Union’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The new platform is an on-site device which will be operated directly by the company’s staff. Without requiring any laboratory equipment, it analyses food samples and aims to provide ISO certified results in just 30 minutes. This represents a great improvement for food companies who currently have to wait for laboratories to analyse their samples, a process which can take several days.

With the support of EIT Food, the partners have adapted the device to detect the presence of a surrogate SARS-CoV-2 virus, in food or environmental samples, in order to validate internal sanitisation procedures. Nevertheless, the versatility of the platform means that it can be developed to meet other testing needs of companies, such as detecting adulterants, GMO, allergens, etc.

“We are thankful to EIT Food for supporting our developments and believing in the potential of our technology as much as we do. We are excited to work with food companies that support innovation and want to be part of the development of the standard food industry technology for real-time certification of food authenticity and quality,” said Brij Sahi, CEO & co-founder of SwissDeCode.

“EIT Food is a great ecosystem which promotes competitiveness and resilience of the European agri-food sector applying the Open Innovation approach. Projects like this allow industry to quickly validate new technologies in their process and provide a fast-track to innovation uptake,” said Antonio Del Casale, CEO & co-founder of Microbion.

A limited number of food companies will have first-hand access to the platform, and the opportunity to evaluate it. After a successful first assessment, the device will be tailored to their specific testing needs and the company becomes one of the first in the industry to use the platform on scale. Interested companies should get in touch with SwissDeCode to discuss their testing needs and schedule their online demo without commitment.