Opening of Wageningen Food Safety Research

Minister’s video message

Minister Carola Schouten of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality congratulated the staff of WFSR via a video message during the official opening on 3 June. She emphasised the importance of food and feed safety. In her message she underlined the importance of the new institute: citizens and government have to be able to rely on laboratory research of the highest standard.

Unique knowledge institution

WFSR is a unique knowledge institution for food and feed safety in the Netherlands. The new institute can carry out lab work for the NVWA and the Dutch central government in a more effective and knowledge intensive manner. This merger will benefit our knowledge in the area of food and feed safety, as well as our knowledge of food fraud. Wageningen Food Safety Research is an important resource during incidents and crises that affect the NVWA, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, and also plays a role during environmental, poisoning and food contamination incidents. WFSR will also function as an international and European reference laboratory.

Owing to this joining of forces, the new institute will be able to further enhance its reputation as a world-class research centre.

Close collaboration

RIKILT (230 employees) and the Laboratory for Food and Feed Safety (130 employees) are located in the same building on Wageningen Campus and have been working closely together for some time already.

The merger was established following a lengthy process. In June 2018, minister Carola Schouten of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and minister Bruno Bruins of Health, Welfare and Sport confirmed this political decision in a letter to parliament.