The main scope of activity of the Institute is conducting basic and applied research in the field of agri-food biotechnology, safe production and storage of food, food and feed safety and quality to support the agri-food industry, including food distributors, and conducting activities aimed at improving the quality of people’s lives.
IBPRS-PIB is supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Education and Science of Poland.
IBPRS-PIB cooperates with industrial partners from various sectors of the agri-food and related sectors, including environmental protection, renewable energy and refrigeration. The mission of the Institute is to create modern, energy-saving technologies in the field of fermentation industries, fruit and vegetable industry, food concentrates, cereal and milling, baking and confectionery, sugar, meat and fat, as well as technical solutions and projects to improve food quality, including the development of analytical methods.
The Institute consists of 12 Scientific Departments equipped with modern laboratories using over 600 accredited research methods (ISO 17025: 2018-02; food testing and certification by Polish Centre for Accreditation; https://www.pca.gov.pl/en/). The Institute’s research laboratories with Accreditation Certificates provide a wide range of analytical services related to the quality assessment of agri-food industry products for the Polish and international customers and governmental regulatory authorities.
The strategic R&D areas of the Institute is shaping science-based favorable technological and regulatory conditions to provide safe and high-quality food for humans and for animal production.
The Institute has a long-documented tradition and experience of research in food safety and analysis. Until 1990, part of its tasks included supervision of the national feed and food industry including storage and distribution and creating the obligatory industry standards. Nowadays, the Institute frequently serves as a voluntary quality control for the interested privately-owned food processing plants and distributors (HACCP, analysis of raw material, final products, control of technological processes, sampling and analyzing food products for wholesalers, retailers – both Polish and international, and consumers). The Institute has collaborated with many international organizations, including FAO, WHO, IARC (Intl. Agency for Research on Cancer) in relation, for example, to chemical food contaminants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrosamines, etc.). The Institute, for years, has been responsible for monitoring, as a service to the Ministry of Agriculture, of the quality and the presence of chemical contaminant, including persistent organic pollutants, covered by provisions of the Stockholm Convention. Department of Chemical Food Analysis of IBPRS-PIB is specifically concerned with food safety and collecting samples to determine mycotoxins, pesticides – plant health products and others contaminants. The Institute monitors the annual grain crop for the whole country determining contamination with heavy metals, mycotoxins and pesticides. In addition, it monitors contaminants in grain resulting from the EU intervention buying. Similar safety analyses have been performed for meat products, fats and oils, vegetables, imported raw materials and foods, supplements, and so on.
The Institute is one of the few scientific and research institutions in the country supplying pure, very often patented, microbial cultures for fermentation industries. IBPRS-PIB provides strains of microorganisms with high utility value for the distillery, brewing, wine, bakery, fermented feeds (silage) and foods, industries. The activities include mainly searching, selection, characterization in terms of identification, evaluation of specific biochemical properties of technological importance, and application of microorganisms for biological preservation of food (vegetable, fruits, and harvested cereals), feed, and biological control of pathogens and toxic fungi.