The Chair for Excellence in European Food Chains aims to carry out research on perspectives for improving performance in agrifood chains by identifying the places where value is created. Risks will also be taken into account. In addition, the Chair will accompany major players in the fields of food and nutrition to help them understand current nutritional and sociological changes in order for the firms to react appropriately.

Research projects began on July 1, 2005.

There are two research projects to begin with :

Project 1 : “Diet, nutrition, lifestyles and chronic illness”

The relation between, on the one hand, diet, nutrition and lifestyles, and non-communicable illness, on the other, is a serious contemporary preoccupation in public health at the start of the 21st century. The objective of this project is to identify possible future scenarios with which agrifood firms could be confronted. A second objective is to help these firms to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow and change the direction of their present strategy in order to seize certain opportunities.

Project 2 : “Product innovation and process innovation in agrifood”

Innovation presents an indisputable source of performance for agrifood firms through the differentiation of products and the improvement of manufacturing procedures. However, innovation is itself a long, costly and risky process. This project concerns two dimensions of innovation: product and process innovation.

The objective is to improve understanding of :

- the acceptance of a product by consumers and by society in general

- the process of transforming an innovative idea into an industrial and commercial success.

Indeed, beyond its purely nutritional function, food becomes part of the human body in all its dimensions: health, social, cultural, emotional, economic, etc. In reflection on innovation, all these dimensions must be taken into account.

The Chair is steered by a committee composed of the founding members. It is managed by the Chair’s co-directors, professors Francis Declerck (Agronomist and Doctor of Agrifood Economics and Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA) and Olivier Fourcadet (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Doctor of Agrifood Economics and Strategy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA). In addition, Perinne Nadaud is a researcher associate (BS degree in nutrition, Laval University, Québec, Canada, and Master’s degree in Human Nutrition, specialization in public health from the University of Glasgow, UK).

 For further information about Francis Declerck

 For further information about Olivier Fourcadet