Highlights from the First Three Webinars of the METROFOOD-IT Consortium

The first three webinars of the series organized by the METROFOOD-IT Consortium took place at the end of January (here is the complete calendar METROFOOD-IT cycle of webinars dedicated to innovation in the agri-food sector,  METROFOOD-IT ciclo di webinar dedicati all’innovazione nel settore agroalimentare-Webinar, that envisage 30 live events to be held until mid-April), with a strong participation from an audience mainly composed of professionals and experts from the research world.

At the core of the first three webinars were the concepts of measurement and measure, which are also fundamental to the METROFOOD project, both at the national and European levels.

In particular, during the first live session (entitled Foundations of Measurement Theory), Professor Giovanni Organtini from the University of Rome La Sapienza introduced the topic to the participants by posing a question: is there a "true" value of measurement that could, even ideally, be obtained under perfect conditions?

In short, the answer is negative: the result of a measurement is indeed a statistical distribution. Performing a measurement always means extracting random numbers with a distribution that depends on the experimental setup and the investigated phenomenon. In this sense, it can be stated that the mean is the best estimator of the value of a quantity. Furthermore, in any case, one must always take into account the existence of measurement uncertainty.

The Theme of Measurement Uncertainty

This last theme was precisely the focus of the third webinar "Measurement Quality and the Role of Measurement Uncertainty," conducted by Professor Leopoldo Angrisani from the University Federico II of Naples.

Firstly, the webinar highlighted how there are different objectives and purposes for implementing a measurement:

• Commercial, to regulate commercial exchanges;
• Scientific, to better understand and validate physical laws;
• Industrial, to regulate and control, monitor, and evaluate parameters of the production process.

But, regardless of the purposes, any measurement must deal with measurement uncertainty, a term that, however, has a completely different meaning from that of error, which is often confused with it.

The uncertainty of the measurement result reflects the lack of exact knowledge of the value of the measured quantity. It mainly arises from random effects and from the imperfect correction of the value of the measured quantity for systematic effects.

In any case, the value of the measured quantity after correction for recognized systematic effects remains only an estimate of the value of the measured quantity.

The Role of Reference Materials for the Agri-food Sector

The second webinar, entitled "The Importance of Reference Materials for the Agri-food Sector," was held by METROFOOD-IT coordinator Claudia Zoani, a researcher at ENEA. It initially focused on metrology. This discipline includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurements in all sectors, including routine measurements. It also applies to analytical sciences, biological and clinical measurements, regardless of the relative magnitude of the measurement uncertainty.

The researcher then highlighted how metrology can demonstrate the traceability of food not only based on documentation but also by demonstrating the authenticity of raw materials and products through traceable measurements, comparing and making data interoperable. In this sense, an extremely important role is ensured by reference materials (RMs): according to the official definition, these are "sufficiently homogeneous and stable materials with specified properties, established to be suitable for the intended use in a measurement or for the examination of classified properties."

Reference materials are at the core of all METROFOOD-IT Consortium activities: they are used, for example, for instrument calibration, method validation, assessing result uncertainty, product conformity, or laboratory competency. Reference materials enable the comparability of measurement results obtained in different locations or times, and if certified through a metrologically valid procedure, they allow for measurement traceability.

The METROFOOD-IT Consortium can rely on facilities for the production of Reference Materials for agri-food, located at the C.R. Casaccia ENEA (small scale) and at the C.R. Trisaia (Matera) on an industrial scale.