Food Protection Trends - January/February 2015 - 6

COMMENTARY
FROM YOUR PRESIDENT

Donald L. Zink

"Leveraging" is a term used by
organizations to refer to expending a
modest investment of resources or effort
to return a greater than expected result.
IAFP has leveraged its resources for
many years to expand and globalize the
sharing of information on protecting
the food supply. IAFP does this by
partnering in various ways with other
organizations with a food safety
mission. Many of you are familiar with
the Association's decades long partnership with the International
Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). ILSI funds food safety research
grants and invites its grantees to present their findings at IAFP
Annual Meetings. This relationship benefits both IAFP and ILSI
by introducing a wider community of scientists to IAFP. The
Association is also a founding member and supporter of 3-A
Sanitary Standards, Inc. IAFP Members Ron Schmidt and Ken
Anderson represent IAFP on the 3-A Board of Directors and help
ensure the continued evolution of sanitary design standards.

FROM YOUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Has anyone else noticed how fast the
months (and years) go by? I can hardly
believe it is already the beginning of
2015! It seems not too long ago that
summer was just ending (in North
America) and children were beginning
their school year. Now, the first semester
has passed and we are looking forward
to the return of warmer weather and the
summer of 2015.
We have more IAFP activities planned
in the upcoming year, 2015, such as the European Symposium on
Food Safety (April), the Turkish Food Safety Conference (May)
and IAFP 2015 ( July). In addition, we will again participate as
Global Host of the China International Food Safety and Quality
Conference (November) and be actively involved in the Middle
East Symposium on Food Safety in conjunction with the Dubai
International Food Safety Conference (also November). I expect
by this time next year, we will think back and wonder where 2015
has gone too!
There are a few items presented in this issue of Food Protection
Trends that should pique your interest. One is a report on three
conferences that were completed in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Those include the Latin America Symposium on Food Safety
held in Iguaza Falls, Brazil last October and the China and Dubai
meetings held in November. You can review the write up and
pictures presented beginning on page 59, or you may want to visit
the conference Web sites for more extensive coverage of these
events.
The other important item shown on page 70 is the financial
report for our Fiscal Year Ending (FYE) on August 31, 2014. IAFP
concluded an outstanding year financially in 2014 adding more
than $490,000 to the General Operating Fund of the Association.

6

Food Protection Trends

January/February

IAFP is a contributing partner of the Partnership for Food
Safety Education. This is a partnership of government, industry
and consumer groups that work together to ensure that consumers
and educators have access to science-based food safety information
and resources. You can read more about the Partnership for Food
Safety Education at www.fightbac.org. IAFP supports the work of
the IFT - Global Food Traceability Center (GFTC). The Center
was formed in the summer of 2013 for the purpose of providing
applied research, advice and expertise about data sharing and food
product traceability. More information about the GFTC is at www.
ift.org/gftc.aspx.
IAFP also works together with other food safety conferences
such as the Food Safety and Security Summit and the GFSI -
Global Food Safety Conference. At these meetings we connect
with people who may not be familiar with IAFP and we often
attract new Members and exhibitors to the Association's Annual
Meeting.
I think that these leveraging efforts are helping to promote the
preeminence of IAFP as a food safety forum and I wanted you to
be aware of some of these efforts and help to identify more good
opportunities for IAFP to partner with others to advance our food
safety mission.

David W. Tharp
This was achieved through the hard work and dedication of many
IAFP Members, our Executive Board and the IAFP staff. A special
thank you is due to our exhibitors and sponsors who support IAFP
not only at the Annual Meeting, but in other meetings around the
globe. We are so very fortunate to have enthusiastic supporters
and so many IAFP Members who help to promote the Association
to their colleagues in food safety. It is because of you that IAFP is a
highly successful Association!
From the financial report, you can clearly see the value of
the Annual Meeting to IAFP. Without the net results generated
through the Annual Meeting, Membership fees and other fees
would have to be raised to continue the business of the Association.
Overall, our total revenues totaled $3.5 million with expenses at just
more than $3 million leaving us with net results for the fiscal year of
$492,000. This, added to our previous reserves, puts our General
Operating Fund at $1.85 million as of August 31, 2014.
Many IAFP Members have read my column or attended the
IAFP Business Meeting (at Annual Meeting) and have heard me
say that our goal is to hold one half of our operating budget in
reserves. I believe with this financial report, we can claim success
in achieving this goal. We can all be proud of this success that has
been 20 years in the making - congratulations!
One final note about the financial report relates to the IAFP
Foundation. This (fiscal) year, our investments performed
amazingly (as did our General Fund investments), and
contributions to the Foundation at IAFP 2014 were above all
expectations. We spent out more on Foundation initiatives during
FYE August 31, 2014 than ever before, but with this support, we
were able to increase the Foundation's reserves to $1.36 million.
This was an increase of more than $230,000 for the year.
So, as we begin 2015, we wish everyone a prosperous and Happy
New Year. We thank all IAFP Members who help to provide a safe
food supply to our public and who work to "Advance Food Safety
Worldwide!"
http://www.fightbac.org http://www.ift.org/gftc.aspx http://www.ift.org/gftc.aspx
Food Protection Trends - January/February 2015

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