RIKILT Wageningen University & Research and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA)’s Laboratory for Food and Feed Safety will merge into a new institute effective June 1 2019. This institute will be called Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR) and will be part of Wageningen University & Research.

With the merger of the two organizations, the Netherlands will be welcoming a unique knowledge institute for food and feed safety. The new institute can carry out lab work for the NVWA and the Dutch central government in a more effective and knowledge intensive manner, according to a press release.

“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 to act as an important resource during incidents and crises that affect the NVWA, the ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (MZS), as well as play a role during environmental, poisoning and food contamination incidents. WFSR will also function as an international and European reference laboratory,” the press release states

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

The merger was agreed upon after a long and laborious process, part of which was the political decision made in June 2018 that was confirmed in a letter to parliament by the ministers of LNV and MZS.