 I'm Professor of European Food Law at the University of Copenhagen. But mostly I'm a private consultant in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. I do teaching in several universities in the world, and I have my own online Food Law Academy. And on the practical side, I represent clients in court. I advise them how to follow food legal requirements and help them create their strategies. So let's start with the session. How did it go? How did it feel going back to in-person conferences after quite a while? It was a relief to talk again to actual people. Online conferences are quite nice, but you only meet on the substance and you don't have the smaller exchanges over coffee, etc. So I'm really happy to be alive and kicking in Copenhagen. And then you also gave your own lecture. Yes. I brought in the regulatory perspective to the discussion. We've seen, well for almost 20 years now, that regulators are struggling how to classify microbial cultures in the food legal context. I took as a starting point that classification is not necessary. We have a food legal system that ensures the safety of all foods, not just the foods that fit into a certain category. So when we discuss is it inside or outside a category, we are talking about the way in which food safety will be ensured, not about safe or not. I explained that from I think at least 2006 onwards, authorities have been struggling to get cultures classified as food additives. There's a problem with this because the category of food additives has been designed for chemicals, for synthetic substances that are used in the food. They have not been designed for living organisms. Just recently, authorities in my country have taken a step to push to create a precedent that they put pressure on businesses to submit applications for the authorization of cultures as food additives. Once businesses do this and once it leads to results either in authorization or rejection, the precedent will have been created that we can discuss food cultures within the legal framework of additives. I'm concerned about this and I think many businesses are concerned about this. So I called upon those that are best placed to take the initiative to create alternative precedence. Within the food additives legislation, there is the possibility, there is a procedure to have a decision on the classification of certain products. And I recommend to follow this procedure with regards to certain food cultures, to get a precedent maybe on the other side as well. The problem is, the European Commission will only follow this procedure at the request of a member state. So businesses, business associations, maybe even consumer associations, they are well advised to talk to their national authorities whether they from the side of their member states are willing to submit such an application. And then because we have the food law, but there are three major groups of people that we need to think about, we're thinking about the scientists that produce or do research on these cultures to add to foods. There's also the business side, so the company that will ultimately produce and sell the product, but then we also have the consumers, right? So from the scientist perspective, how easy is it to have your research in food cultures implemented in terms of the laws? Do they need to be aware of some key issues that could stop their research going into the market? They need to be very aware, you indicate there are three groups of stakeholders, the scientists, the businesses, the consumers, the one cannot live without the other. If you're producing the food, not for consumers to consume, then you're living in a vacuum. And much of what currently is going on has the consumer as a starting point. Consumers want foods to be more natural, to be less chemical in constitution, and scientists respond in research in how to make it happen so that businesses can provide the products to consumers that consumers want. At any of such change, authorities will respond with a certain degree of concern. They want safety to be assured, so they are looking for the certainty that is provided by procedures, by classifications, and their concern is a burden for scientists, because they would have to live up to the requirements to fulfill the procedure, to provide the evidence in the form that authorities want, that the European Food Safety Authority will want. Unfortunately, these procedures are so heavy, in terms of effort, in terms of costs, in terms of time involved, that all but the biggest businesses are inclined to step out of the innovation as soon as these kind of regulatory hurdles come to the play. That's why I think it's of vital importance to contemplate whether to follow the initiative of authorities to set the precedent that the additive context is the one where we should look, or to create counter-presidents, say, well, no, food cultures are normal ingredients, and should be treated as such, and safety should be assessed in that context. And one last question for you today. As a researcher working in this area, do you think it's important for them to also consider the laws as well as their own scientific work? Your question touches upon my identity. As a lawyer, it would be difficult for me to say that the law is not important, or I should have chosen another vocation. For the food business in general, for the researchers, regulatory often is a hurdle, a hurdle that is postponed out of fear that the regulatory people only have one way that they can move their neck, and that's in this direction and never in that direction. Ultimately, if regulatory people are not involved in an early stage, it will become more difficult later on. And my message today was not only be aware of the law, comply with the law, but also at this moment in time we still have the opportunity to contribute to shaping to what the law actually means in this context. So my call upon businesses and upon researchers would be, don't sit and wait till the others have gotten it their way, but make sure that you set the agenda. Yeah, great. I think that is a very nice way to wrap up this small interview. Thank you for your time, and enjoy the rest of the conference. I certainly will. Thank you for your nice interview.