Deadline for RAFA 2026 Early Registration and Oral Abstract Submission is approaching
RAFA: Deadline for RAFA 2026 Early Registration and Oral Abstract Submission is approaching
The countdown is on for one of the world’s leading conferences dedicated to food analysis. The 12th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Food Analysis (RAFA 2026), taking place in Prague from 3–6 November 2026, is approaching two important milestones: the Early Bird registration deadline and the deadline for oral abstract submissions, both ending on 30 June 2026. Researchers, analysts, industry professionals, regulators, and students are encouraged to secure their participation at a reduced registration rate and take advantage of the opportunity to present their latest scientific results to the international food analysis community.
RAFA 2026 will once again bring together leading experts from academia, industry, and regulatory organizations to discuss the latest developments in food safety, authenticity, contaminants, non-target screening, PFAS, microplastics, food contact materials, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytical technologies. The preliminary program already features an outstanding lineup of internationally recognized speakers addressing some of the most pressing challenges in modern food analysis and food safety.
Registration
👉Register to attend RAFA 2026!
Early-bird registration until 30 June, 2026
After successful submission of your registration, you will receive by e-mail (i) an automatic confirmation of receipt indicating the total amount of payment due (either for bank transfer or for on-line payment by card), (ii) login to Member section where you can administrate your profile, submit your abstracts, and from September 2026 register for satellite events, workshops and seminars. If it will not be delivered within a few minutes after submission of your registration please contact us at [email protected].
As soon as payment of registration fee is processed, you will also receive by e-mail (iii) confirmation of payment.
Registration Fees
- Smart rate (Until 30 June, 2026): € 655
- Regular registration (Until 30 September, 2026): € 855
- Late registration (From 1 October, 2026): € 955
- Student rate*
- Until 30 June, 2026: € 465
- From 1 July, 2026: € 605
* The proof of student status (e.g. copy of a student identify card) is requested as an attachment of the registration form.
The regular registration fee will include:
- Attendance at all scientific sessions, workshops, seminars, vendor seminars and other satellite events
- Access to the poster and exhibition area
- Conference kit (name badge, conference bag, conference documents, certificate of participation, certificate of presentation on request)
- Final programme
- E-Book of Abstracts
- Coffee breaks
- Buffet luncheons
- Welcome drink
In the registration form you can register free of charge for the welcome drink and you can also order ticket(s) for the conference dinner (€ 85).
Please note that your registration is firm when your payment has been received.
Abstract submission
In order to submit an abstract, you must first register to attend RAFA 2026. After registration you will receive an access to the Member section where you can submit your abstract(s).
After successful submission of your abstract you will receive an automatic confirmation of receipt of submitted abstract via e-mail. If it will not be delivered within a few minutes after submission of your abstract please check at first your spam box-mail and then contact us at [email protected].
Please ensure that your abstract does not contain spelling, grammatical or scientific errors. Even though modifications of your submitted abstract will be allowed in the Abstract section of the Member section until the deadline for the abstract submission, please be confident on the lack of errors in your final version prior to starting the submission process.
The abstract will be reproduced exactly as submitted. No proofreading will be done, although some corrections may be requested by the reviewers.
If you need to withdraw your abstract, a written statement reflecting the reasons for this decision must be sent to [email protected] no later than September 30, 2026.
Important notice:
1 registered participant can submit no more than 2 abstracts.
To apply for a young scientist’s oral presentation, as an indication please respect the rule that you should be born in 1991 or later.
The text of the abstract should be limited to 3000 characters including spaces. Tables and pictures are not allowed.
Abstracts of oral presentations and posters will be included into the "e-Book of Abstracts" only after receipt of the conference registration fee. Any payment of the registration fee has to be received until September 30, 2026, otherwise contribution(s) will not be included into the e-Book of Abstracts and the Conference programme.
Program
Invited Speakers
Food allergen risk assessment: Past, present, future
- Ben Remington from Remington Consulting Group B.V., Utrecht, the Netherlands & University of Nebraska, USA
Food allergy and allergen management are global public health issues, and consumer protection depends on transparent and trustworthy labelling. While 30 years of scientific advances show that low level exposures, or reference doses, are unlikely to trigger reactions in most allergic individuals, harmonized and globally aligned regulations are still needed to promote consistent allergen risk assessment and labelling decisions. This presentation will discuss the landscape of allergen risk assessment, global policy developments, current research and future needs in the area.
Unmasking hidden adulteration in honey: Strategies for detecting and characterizing honeys produced from sugar-fed colonies
- Oscar Nuñez Burcio from University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
From hive to jar, not all honey tells the same story. This presentation addresses hidden adulteration associated with sugar-fed bee colonies, highlighting implications for authenticity, production practices, and the need for a more precise characterization of honey to ensure consumer trust.
Analytical and toxicological methods for safety of food contact materials
- Erich Leitner from Graz University of Technology, Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Food Chemistry, Graz, Austria
Food packaging plays a critical role in protecting and preserving food throughout the supply chain. All packaging materials intended to come into contact with food must comply with strict EU safety rules. Due to increased complexity of packaging solutions, lowering legal limits and increasing numbers of target compounds, we also have to adapt the strategies used to verify and guarantee the safety of these materials.
Data-driven strategies to reduce complexity in non-target HRMS analysis of food samples
- Anneli Kruve from Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
LC/HRMS based non-target screening can detect hundreds to thousands of chemical features in complex food and environmental samples. Investigating all of these in detail is practically impossible, so which ones to focus on? Novel computational tools developed in computational mass spectrometry allow predicting the toxicity and concentration of the detected chemical features even if these have not yet been fully structurally elucidated. Combining these predictions enables us to focus on the chemical features possessing high risk.
Role of AI in the identification of emerging food systems risks
- Ákos Bernard Jóźwiak from Syreon Research Institute, Budapest, Hungary
AI-assisted evidence synthesis – spanning curated scientific evidence, exposome data, and network analysis – is the backbone of next-generation emerging chemical food safety risk identification, enabling earlier signals and more resilient surveillance systems.
Challenges of microplastics analysis in the context of food safety
- Dorte Herzke from Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
Food and food packaging are major sources of micro- and nanoplastic exposure. Plastics used in processing, storage, and packaging can release particles through heat, abrasion, and degradation. Small particles below 2 µm may cross gut barriers and carry chemicals, highlighting the need for robust and sensitive measurement methods.
Never-ending analytical challenges in PFAS analysis of food
- Darina Dvořáková from University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czechia
Exploring and monitoring PFAS in food requires advanced strategies. Combining targeted, suspect, and non-target HRMS analysis, determination of total fluorine and sum parameters, and novel sensors provides new insights into PFAS occurrence and supports food safety monitoring.
An overview of the latest scientific knowledge on process contaminants in food for appropriate risk management measures
- Thierry Delatour from Nestlé Research, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Recent scientific findings related to acrylamide and furans formation, occurrence and analytical methods in food provide important insights for risk management.
