Food Protection Trends - November/December 2023 - 551

Kowalcyk will become Chair Emeritus, Sarah Murphy
will become the new Chair and Daniel Weller will
become the new Vice-Chair.
New Business: The meeting started with a welcome
from the Board and reminders. Each member of
the PDG introduced themselves. It was announced
that JFP (Journal of Food Protection) is available
as open access, notifications must be activated to
receive the journal publications. It was also reminded
that members can sign up for the IAFP mentorship
program.
Barbara Kowalcyk welcomed the PDG attendees.
All attendees accepted the previous minutes. Barbara
Kowalcyk is an outcoming chair, and Sarah Murphy
is the current chair. The committee is accepting
nominations for the secretary position for this PDG.
Overview of roundtables and symposia, the PDG
cosponsor these roundtables alongside other PDGs.
Data sharing was mentioned as an important topic that
would be discussed at a roundtable.
Roundtable about Data Management:
The presenters of the roundtable were introduced.
The roundtable had presenters from academia, FDA,
and organizations. The presenters gave an insight
into the current challenges of data sharing. Attendees
were encouraged to ask questions and participate.
After the introduction, the roundtable started with the
main question: " How to convince growers/people that
investing in data management is important? " all the
presenters agreed that people do see a return on
investment despite the challenges. It was noted that
there is an opportunity in risk factors associated with
food safety, it is necessary to share across academics
and companies to get involved in data sharing. Retail
inspections have a high-performing sector, when
looking at the data, they realized there are many things
that could be performed much better. This data allowed
them to rethink how to improve.
There was participation from a manufacturer's point
of view, manufacturers want the data to be a means to
solve a problem, the trustworthiness of the data, and
how to prioritize the data. Data aggregation is how to
separate data in an effective way. Discussion started
around this topic, inspectors may have long inspection
times. There are many challenges when it comes to
working with data in a controlled environment. An
attendee mentioned that this is an important topic, in
the food industry, there has been a lot of predictive
model data, thousands of food companies have had
issues with people outsourcing their data, and there is
a concern about how data is protected and handled.
On Wednesday morning there will be a meeting
discussion about cybersecurity. It was mentioned that
another challenge with data management is how much
of the information can be shared. It is possible to design
a platform that can conform to these points. Another
participant mentioned how to handle quantitative and
qualitative data, from FDA regulators and mentioned
that it is possible to apply multicriteria models or semiquantitative
models. There was participation raised
another question, " has there been a need to change
this or improve data sharing " A second question was
" Is there a value that is seen in sharing data in the
first place " Government data systems have a lot to
be desired, there is an interest on these models,
alongside a return for them. A participant that works
with providing software technology for data analysis
mentioned that it is interesting how there is a focus
on who is going to benefit from the data, how is it
going to be shared, and who verifies it. A question
that was raised " What are the biggest hurdles seen
within companies or organizations when it comes to
data sharing " One of the challenges is showing the
importance and usefulness of data. It was mentioned
that for FDA it takes a significant amount of time to
gather data, making data comparable, it is necessary to
create data dictionaries, transparency is key to capture
differences in information. It was mentioned that one
of the obstacles to data sharing is " what is in it for me.
Another challenge that was mentioned is that data can
be stolen easily, if there is a good data system setup,
if possible for it to be used. As an answer during the
roundtable, most data of organizations is voluntary.
A question that was raised was " How to go about
working with massive amounts of variables in data sets "
It was answered that they prioritize what the customer
is asking for. Another question of a participant is that
companies could be interested in how to transfer data
in a way that can be analyzed and understood. From
an academia perspective, is to prepare data that is
significant for food safety. A participant asked " How to
engage users to act " Engagement is tracked in FDA
websites, this is focused on data analysis, not solely
on the user. A comment that was mentioned is that it
is necessary to define the problems or challenges for
organizations in data sharing and food safety.
Symposia and Webinar Ideas:
The deadline for submitting symposium proposals
to IAFP is October 3, 2023. Daniel Weller will keep
track of webinars and symposium ideas. One proposal
was " Defining a Food Safety Data Standard for
Laboratories. " It was commented that it would be
necessary to engage in ways that people can be
active. It was commented it might be good to target
an industry for data standards. Another idea is to
segregate this topic into groups. Another suggestion
was " Leading Indicators in Data Sharing in Food
Safety. " " Traceability and International Perspective "
was another suggestion. " Needs of Publics and Private
Sectors: How to train people in data sharing. " Another
discussion was " Food Safety Data Standard in Water. "
Symposium on using " Correlated Data. " A suggestion
was " How to Take a Process and How to Capture
the Data Correctly. " A suggestion was " Differences
in Mechanisms in Date Sharing from an International
Perspective. " Another idea was " Date Digitalization. "
" How to Define Data Metrics " and " What is Define as
November/December Food Protection Trends 551
Food Protection Trends - November/December 2023

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