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recording secretary of Minutes: Leslie Thompson and Vanessa Cranford. old business: 1. Symposia and Roundtable: The organizers discussed the following symposia and indicated the progress of the speaker presentations. a. Mon., Aug. 2, p.m.: Less Recognized and Presumptive Pathogens: What Now, What Next? (Organized: Joshua Gurtler, Reginald Bennett and Purnendu Vasavada.) b. Tues., Aug. 3, a.m.: Significance and Detection of STEC or Non-O157:H7 E. coli (Organized: Michael Brodsky and Beatriz Quinones). c. Tues., Aug. 3, p.m.: Food and Food Environment Test Considerations in View of Changing Regulations (Organized: Jeffrey Kornacki). d. Wed., Aug. 4, p.m.: Bacterial Toxins: A Past or an Emerging Issue for Food and Beverage Safety? (Organized: Patrice Arbault and Julian Cox). e. Roundtable Wed., Aug. 4, a.m.: Non-O157 Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC) current methodology and method development. (Developed by USDA FSIS and coordinated by the Applied Lab Methods PDG) Aug. 4 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon. Sample Prep Update–Mary Lou Tortorello announced that the sample prep white paper was published in 2009 in the Journal of Food Protection. The white paper from the meats subgroup is still in progress. Educational Webinars Offered–Vanessa Cranford updated the PDG on a summary of the Webinars that were offered during the past year. a. The Webinar titled “Use of Predictive Microbiology Information Portal, the USDAPathogen Modeling Program and COMBASE” (Vijay Juneja USDA, ARS) had 41 attendants that participated. It discussed the following topics: PMIP http://portal.arserrc.gov – a comprehensive Web portal for predictive microbiology that includes food pathogen data, predictive models and other useful information about microbial food safety, ComBase http:// combase.arserrc.gov – an international database of experimental data on the growth, inactivation and survival of food pathogens, and PMP http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/ docs.htm?docid=6786 – Pathogen Modeling Program, a stand-alone windows application that can be used to make prediction on the growth, inactivation and survival of food pathogens. b. The Webinar titled “Clostridium perfringens – An Overview, Impact, Current Methods for Detection and Areas of Concern to the Food Industry,” (Vijay Juneja USDA, ARS and Keith Schneider, UF) had 34 attendants. It discussed the following topics: an overview of the organism Clostridium perfringens, transmission, impact, current methods for detection, and areas of concern to the food industry; including controlling growth during cooling of the cooked foods, USDA regulations, including of less than 1 log increase in case of cooling deviations, and FDA code - time\ temp for cooling; the latter part of the presentation would include predictive models c.

for C. perfringens applicable to the cooling of cooked products and how these models are developed. The Webinar titled “Campylobacters in Foods and Their Implications for Public Health” (Omar Oyarzabal, Alabama State University) had 48 attendants. It discussed the following topics: Module 1 will present information on the organism and epidemiology in general, Module 2 will present the latest on methods used for isolation, reviewing the protocol from the FDA and the USDA, and Module 3 will present the information on current Regulatory requirements and what may be on the horizon.

The upcoming meetings offered by members of the PDG were discussed: i. Omar Oyarzabel announced the 4th Annual Campylobacter WorkshopAlabama State University, Fall 2010. Purnendu C. Vasavada announced the 30th Food Microbiology Symposium – University of Wisconsin, Oct. 17–20 http://www2.uwrf.edu/afs-all/institutes/ foodmicro/.

ii.

Vanessa thanked the PDG symposia organizers and Webinar participants for their hard work, dedication and commitment to the PDG. New business: It was discussed during the preparation teleconference call in July for the Annual Meeting that the time would be split for discussing topics for development of articles for Food Protection Trends and Symposia/Workshop/Roundtable topics. 1. Articles/ Papers: a. The first paper discussed that the roundtable being held on Wednesday, Aug. 4, would be complied and developed into a paper. i. The United Stated Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS) is trying to identify the most appropriate methodology for non-O157 STEC testing of raw ground beef and manufacturing trim. USDA FSIS will share expectations for method fitnessfor-purpose, performance characteristics and method equivalence determination. The goal of this meeting of government scientists, academia, technology companies, and industry is to discuss the capabilities of existing methodologies and the feasibility for implementation of such methods by food testing laboratories. Denise Eblen, Leslie Thompson and Vanessa Cranford as points of paper.

ii. b.

The second paper discussed was pet food testing. i. Indaue discussed that animal feed methods for both indicator and pathogens should be addressed. She also discussed that the Salmonella serotypes that are missed by current methods of detection should be included. Indaue informed the PDG that pet food is an issue because there are people who are buying pet food to eat.

ii.

722 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS | NOVEMBER 2010

http://www2.uwrf.edu/afs-all/institutes/foodmicro/ http://portal.arserrc.gov http://combase.arserrc.gov http://combase.arserrc.gov http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=6786 http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=6786

Food Protection Trends - November 2010

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