S09 - Biosecurity at Retail

Glen 203-204
Organizer: Charles Seaman
Convenors: Larry Hood and James Marsden

1:30 Is Retail Food Really at Risk? — Frank Busta, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

2:00 Before the Backdoor — David Park, Food Defense LLC, Philmont, VA, USA

2:30 On the Inside - Spotting the Vulnerabilities — Steven Grover, Burger King Brands, Miami, FL, USA

3:00 Break

3:30 Guarding the Gate — Rod Wheeler, AIB, Manhattan, KS, USA

4:00 When the Unthinkable Happens — Ron Bottrell, Hill & Knowlton, Chicago, IL, USA

4:30 Circle of Trust - Customer Expectations — Jean Kinsey, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

Abstract
The abundance and availability of safe food in the US has become expectation for consumers. Maintaining the safety of the food supply has been focused primarily on the control and elimination of unintentional contamination. Great strides have been made by food safety professionals and the food industry in successfully managing these natural food safety issues and crises. However, recent global events have raised concern that intentional contamination of food is not only possible but highly probable. Although food security and food safety share some elements in terms of crisis responses and monitoring, crisis prevention techniques are very different for food security versus food safety. This symposium will focus on food security at the retail level (foodservice and food retail). The primary emphasis of the presentations will be to discuss some of the unique food security issues retail operators face in an effort to enhance understanding between retailers, producers and suppliers. The food security threat and government response to it will be discussed as will some of the vulnerabilities that are inherent in retail food operations. In addition to outlining the problem, the presentations will discuss ways to mitigate the threat, respond to it, and how to plan and practice for a crisis. While the subject of this symposium is retail food defense related, a key portion of its audience is producers and suppliers to the food retail industry. The focus of the symposium is to provide the audience with a view of the challenges and issues of food security from the retail perspective. The goal of the symposium is to improve the understanding between producer/processors and retail while fostering a dialogue on food defense strategies and solutions that can be applied along this important link in the food chain. This subject is particularly relative with the US government initiatives in food defense and its recent announcements to assess the security of all major sectors of the food supply chain.