Q-Pork Chains

Sustainable solutions for the pig value chain

More than 50 working groups from 21 countries worked together for five years to improve pork production processes. The EU and industry provided a total of 20.73 million euros for this purpose. GIQS and its members have been able to use 18% of the total budget of Q-PorkChains through their research, pilot and demonstration activities.

Source: Leah Kelley/Pexels

The aim of “Q-PorkChains” was to improve the processes in pork production. It was the largest EU research project in this field to date. It was coordinated by the University of Copenhagen. The project partners came from the fields of market research, animal production, meat research, molecular genetics, quality management and agricultural economics. The subprojects thus reflected all facets of the meat value chain. GIQS e.V. coordinated the practical implementation of the results.

The International Cooperation Platform had the task of steering application-oriented research in companies, pilot chains and networks. 1.5 million was reserved for testing the promising innovations from the project, which were only awarded to industrial partners in the course of the project. Furthermore, GIQS, as the “SME Liaison Office”, had the role of informing small and medium-sized enterprises throughout Europe about the developments and results of Q-PorkChains and supporting their participation in the project activities.

Project goal

The objective of Q-PorkChains was to develop innovative, integrated and sustainable food production chains of high quality pork products matching consumer demands, by development and testing of advanced and multi-disciplinary approaches for identification, characterisation, prediction, and control of the quality of pork and pork products in different stages of the pork chain in diverse production systems. Q-PorkChains was the largest project of the EU six framework program, which was engaged in meat science. More than 50 organisations from 21 countries worked together on the project for five years, from 2007-2011.

Eight research and development modules

Research, technology and innovation from „fork-to-farm“ were addressed in six research modules I-VI, which were the pillars of the project, and one horizontal pilot and demonstration module (Module A). Another horizontal module (Module B) included communication and knowledge transfer.

Module A, coordinated by GIQS e.V., ensures that research is followed by innovative measures in order to test the practical suitability of the research results and finally to exploit them. This was done through application-oriented research in pilot and demonstration chains.

The core of Module B was to transfer new knowledge in education and training programmes at different educational levels from vocational school to university. GIQS took the role as “SME Liaison Office”, to inform Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) throughout entire Europe about the development and results of Q-PorkChains and to support their involvement in project activities.

Projectpartners

Numerous partners participated in the Q-PorkChains project. Here is a selection of those participants who were also GIQS members.

  • Funding programme: FP6
  • Budget: 14 MM Euro
  • Term: 01/07 - 12/11
  • Partners: GIQS + 50