Food Protection Trends - July/August 2022 - 276

COMMENTARY
FROM YOUR PRESIDENT Ruth L. Petran
Greetings everyone!
I'm excited to attend the upcoming
Annual Meeting in just a little over 2
months from the writing of this column
and hope that you are too! Meetings
are an important vehicle to bring food
safety professionals together so that new
research, new ideas and new technologies
can be optimally shared. An in-person
meeting also supports the exhibitors
and sponsors much more effectively than can be achieved in virtual
meetings. However as public health professionals, we take the needed
public health protocols specific to each of us and I urge you all to
consider what's needed to keep yourselves healthy.
While wearing a mask much of the time indoors and frequently
testing myself for COVID antigens, I had the recent privilege of
attending the European IAFP conference in Munich, Germany. It was
a real treat for me to interact personally with experts from all over the
world. Thanks to the Organizing Committee led by Cargill's Anett
Winkler for an excellent meeting! We were also honored to have the
2020 Student Travel Award recipient, Alessia Delbrueck from the
ETH Zurich in Switzerland with us.
Here are a few things that resonated with me:
* The practicalities of risk management considering how science
needs to mesh with business realities.
* Awareness of new technologies - e.g., cold plasma as an intervention
- while not forgetting that threats from familiar hazards
that continue to need our attention.
* These include biofilms, food allergens, and norovirus and that
we need to stay focused on various food commodities, lab
methods, and optimizing communications.
* It's exciting to see many offerings of plant-based proteins but
need to keep in mind that their hazards may be different from
what we see in traditional protein sources.
FROM YOUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR David W. Tharp
As Ruth mentioned in her column,
IAFP 2022 is quickly approaching. It is an
exciting time for IAFP as we enter the postCOVID
era. All of our indicators show
that the meeting this year should be in the
range of 80% of where we stood in 2019
(Louisville). That would be a vast improvement
over our meeting held last year in
Phoenix where we had about 40% of our
2019 attendance in person for IAFP 2021.
We know it will still be difficult for many IAFP Members and food
safety professionals to travel to Pittsburgh. In fact, our international
registration numbers are showing this to be true. Although we are
seeing many people from outside of North America registering, we
know the number of international attendees will be less than normal.
We will miss this element of IAFP's Annual Meeting and hope that we
see a return of our international delegations to IAFP 2023 in Toronto.
For our Pittsburgh meeting, we are looking forward to seeing many
Members who we have not seen since 2019. We hope that everyone
will respect each other's health and not attend if you are not feeling
well. Please, if possible, have your vaccine before coming to Pittsburgh.
Wear a mask if you prefer to protect yourself and others.
276 Food Protection Trends July/August
In addition to gaining knowledge from meetings, our membership in
IAFP includes access to scientific information from the monthly IAFP
Report emailed newsletter and our two technical publications - Journal
of Food Protection and Food Protection Trends, recognized among the
leading publications in the field of food safety. They cover a very full
global spectrum of information that you will find helpful regardless of
your role in food protection. Included are regulatory updates, applied
research, technology applications and industry news, that provide
resources relevant to the field of food safety.
But did you know that you can also access historical copies of these
publications dating back more than 100 years? The names of the
publications have changed some through the years, but the high level of
helpful technical content has remained consistent as IAFP furthers its
mission to provide food safety professionals worldwide with a forum to
exchange information on protecting the food supply. Our organization
has a fascinating yet so important history.
This access to the history is a good example of open access which
makes research information available to readers at no cost. This is very
different from the traditional subscription model in which readers have
access to such information by paying a subscription fee. Open access
works to increase the visibility and reuse of academic research results.
And to end this commentary, here's some exciting news...IAFP is
pleased to announce that starting in 2023 the Journal of Food Protection
will be published by Elsevier as an Open Access journal. These changes
will shorten the time to publication and make the journal freely available
to all readers globally.
This is a big step forward for our organization giving us an even
brighter future! Thank you all for your kindnesses this past year and
for the continuing support you will give to Michelle Danyluk as she
soon assumes the IAFP presidency...
This year also includes a return to in-person Committee and
Professional Development Group (PDG) meetings. All meetings
will be held on Sunday, July 31 in Pittsburgh. Did you know that PDGs
are open to all IAFP Members and food safety professionals? All you
have to do is go to the meeting(s) to participate. IAFP Members can
" join " a PDG by adding the PDG to their Member profile through the
IAFP website. You can always call (or email) the office and we can assist
you in joining a PDG.
In addition, the IAFP Business Meeting will be held at lunchtime
on Tuesday, August 2 in Pittsburgh. All IAFP Members are welcome
to attend the Business Meeting. This year, Members will vote on one
change to the IAFP Constitution and five changes to the Bylaws. The
proposed amendments can be located on the IAFP website under
the " About " dropdown and then " Governance " (scroll down). Please
review the changes and attend the Business Meeting to cast your vote!
IAFP 2022 will be less than one month away by the time you read
this column. Hopefully, you already have your plans to be with us in
Pittsburgh! We look forward to welcoming you to Pittsburgh later this
month.
Food Protection Trends - July/August 2022

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