Dubai International Food Safety Conference Dubai , United Arab Emirates, November 2014

The IUFoST Symposium on International Perspectives on Food Safety, chaired by IUFoST Past President Professor Pingfan Rao, was held during the Dubai International Food Safety Conference in November 2014. Abstracts of papers provided by IUFoST speakers are presented below.

How Does IUFoST Work With Industry, Academia and Governments to Drive Global Food Safety?” 

Dr Mary K. Schmidl, Adjunct Professor, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN 55108, USA, Co-Chair, IUFoST Food Safety Committee and Advisory Board Member, and IFT Past President.

The International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) mission is to promote international co-operation and information exchange, to provide education and training to food scientists and technologists around the world and to promote professionalism and profession organisation among food scientists and technologists. With over 75 member countries, five regional groupings (EFFoST in Europe, MENAFoST in the Middle East and North Africa, WAAFoST in West Africa, FIFSTA in Asia and ALACCTA in Latin America) and representing more than 300,000 food scientists and technologists worldwide, IUFoST is the world voice of food science and technology.

Providing access to adequate amounts of nutritious, safe and culturally appropriate food for 9.3 billion people in the year 2050 is one of the most daunting challenges facing mankind and IUFoST today. This is because the “next generation” of the safe and wholesome food supply system must be done in an environmentally sustainable, reliable and socially just manner. At the core of food security is access to safe, healthy food and optimal nutrition for all. Changing food patterns, especially in the developing countries, also contribute to the challenge of achieving safe and secured food. Rising incomes around the world have led to improvement in the diets of tens of millions of people.

 Collaboration is the key for success and a focus for IUFoST. People, processes and places that interact to move food from the farm to the table need to work together to create solutions for the future generations. Food safety is a complex sustainable development issue, linked to nutrition and health but also to sustainable economic development, environment, and trade yet everyone can have an impact large or small. 

Delivering Safe Fresh Produce Using Food Technology

Dr Herbert Buckenhueskes, Professor and Head, Department of Food Technology  DLG, Frankfurt, Germany, and Chair, IUFoST Committee on Fresh Produce, and Religious, Ethnic and Ethical Foods

Given the slight spoilage of peeled and sliced vegetables the question arises how fresh produce can be manufactured, transported and sold in a way that they arrive to the consumer as fresh and enjoyable products with an appropriate shelf life. To ensure this, it requires the application of the entire modern food science knowledge  along the entire value chain. This begins with the selection and appropriate breeding of varieties, which tend to the mechanical procedures of cleaning and peeling with as little as possible discoloration, but still taste good. It goes on about the demands that measures of HACCP are already brought forward as far as possible to the field, that harvest methods and timing are adjusted to the characteristics of each fruit and that a rapid and intensive cooling and a gentle transport take place. Highest requirements are also demanded on the processing technology in order to guarantee the ultimate three requirements: fast, gentle and cooled. A gentle processing especially demands a high level of peeling and slicing techniques, but also in product-oriented drying, refrigerating and last but not least portioning systems. 

Of crucial importance for the quality of fresh produce are the amazing developments in packaging technology. The use of a modified atmosphere is not new. However, the practice as well as advances in physiological research have shown that each fruit and vegetable shows specific requirements for an optimal composition of the atmosphere in the packages. These requirements can be met by using breathing packaging films but more modern and advanced by micro-perforation systems, which are directly integrated into the packaging process.

Managing Food Safety Events at the international Level – The Increasing Impact of Viruses

Dr Peter Ben Embarek, Food Safety and Zoonoses at the World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland, Member of IUFoST Global Food Safety Curricula Initiative Council

With and increasingly complex and globalised food supply, food safety events are becoming more and more often international in their nature. This , because an outbreak of a foodborne disease is affecting several countries or citizens of different countries exposed to a common source or contaminated foods are circulating in international trade and need to be recalled from multiple locations. To help share information and data rapidly between countries involved in these events, INFOSAN, the international food safety authorities network was launched 10 years ago by WHO and FAO. The presentation will present the work of the network and show its role and value in facilitating the management of food safety events at the international level. The presentation will use recent examples showing the increasing importance of emerging and well known food related viruses.

Food Safety and the Global Dairy Supply

Prof Mansel Griffiths, University of Guelph and Director, Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, Guelph, Canada, and a Member of IUFoST ‘s Global Food Safety Curricula Initiative Council

While dairy products marketed throughout the world continue to be among the safest foods available to consumers, the past few years have seen the emergence of issues related to the intentional adulteration of milk with chemical contaminants, the potential for viral outbreaks of foodborne illness related to pasteurised milk, and the role of mycobacteria in public health. These and other issues are being tackled through changes in legislation, development of better methods of detection and industry-led initiatives. The dairy industry response to these threats will be discussed and an attempt will be made to identify emerging problems that face all stakeholders involved in the provision of safe milk and dairy products.

Top Chinese Food Scare Stories: How Many are Real?

Dr Pingfan Rao, IUFoST Past President and Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology Vice President, and Professor, Zhejiang Gongshang University, China

Food safety has unfailingly been listed among the top public concerns since the beginning of the new millennium. Food related stories have become the most sensational stories in Chinese media, resulting wave after wave of excitement and panic. Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology has organized expert panels to analyze the annual top food related media stories for the past 3 years since 2012, and found that most of those stories were not real due to misinformation and misunderstanding. For example, of the top 12 influential food safety related media stories, only 4 were food safety risk related with only two hazardous. The huge discrepancy between the general public perception and the science-based understanding indicates a formidable challenge of educating public, media and decision maker about food. The 3 consecutive years of the CIFST initiative of expert analysis followed by communication with media and decision makers has proved to be an effective approach to improve the societal consensus about food safety.

Note: The above talk by Pingfan Rao was the subject of a Plenary talk presented in another session during the Dubai conference