Interreg-PROOF project

Personalised food can have a positive impact on the quality of life of people in need of chronic care. In line with our aging population, this target group is growing and with it comes a wider demand for personalised food. To meet this demand, new food solutions are needed. The key to their development lies in bringing together expertise from the care and food sectors.

Having these new facilities for personalised research and development offers a number of important advantages:

• Meal components are prepared and developed in experimental kitchens;
• Measuring equipment will be available to analyse nutrition;
• The health status and dietary patterns of patients will be screened;
• Exercise rooms allow physical testing and tailor-made supervision;
• The open nature of both research centres is a basic precondition for the sharing of knowledged between the business community, care actors and scientific research.

In addition to the development of the infrastructure, the project partners is collaborating with food companies and care actors to develop personalised food: the first focuses on muscle weakness in the elderly (sarcopenia), and the second focuses on people with chronic lung disease (COPD). To be able to measure the impact of adapted nutrition on patients, the partners are also looking for a suitable digital tool for screening and follow-up actions.

The PROOF project receives financial support from the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Flanders-Netherlands programme. The Province of Limburg (NL), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (NL) and Province of West Flanders (BE) are co-funders of this project.