Food research has huge potential, says Coughlan

THE nature and extent of food-related research was described yesterday as exciting in its nature and in its possibilities.

Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan said this type of research offers the prospects of an ever closer alignment between food production on one hand and health concerns and conditions, lifestyle factors, food safety and nutritional considerations on the other.

She was speaking in Dublin at the launch of Supporting Food Innovation, a publication that gives details of the achievements in publicly funded food research and development between 2001 and 2004 under FIRM, the Food Institutional Research Programme.