CENS role: Project Coordinator
Executor department: IACRAFC CENS
Duration (Years): 2018 - 2020
Funding Source: Science Committee of The Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia

Assuring food safety is one of major and fundamental problems in agriculture. Existence of natural biogeochemical provinces in Armenia leads to penetration of heavy metals to food chain. Implementation of food safety risk assessment through up-to-date research methods opens an opportunity to classify food products according to risk levels. Armenia has never implemented risk assessment in food through the method of the total diet study (TDS), so in the frames of the proposed project for the first time assessment of heavy metal exposure will be done by a TDS. Bearing in mind Armenia’s being a membership in the European Economic Union, food manufacturers must introduce and apply procedures based on HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) principles, hence one of the project’s goals is providing science-based principles to be used not only by manufacturers, but also when exercising a state control.