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Food Protection Trends COMMENTARY from the Executive Director "The Board and staff of IAFP work hard
to assist and improve the profession
of food safety professionals at all levels” This month I thought it might be interesting to answer the question; how does IAFP fulfill its mission of “providing food safety professionals worldwide with a forum to exchange information on protecting the food supply?” The easy answer and most visible ways in which we fulfill our mission are through our journals and Annual Meeting. Of course the two journals are Food Protection Trends and the Journal of Food Protection. Each of these journals is distributed worldwide to more than 3,000 Members or subscribers. From a survey taken in 2001, we found that both journals were passed on to other interested readers bringing our audience to more than 9,000 for FPT and over 11,000 for JFP. This is a huge audience with which we share our science-based information for food safety professionals! We rely on many authors to provide this information for our publications and we are very happy to have so many willing participants. Everyone working in this arena realizes that keeping all food products safe from contamination keeps consumer confidence at a high level and that is why it is so important to continue this free sharing of information. Our Annual Meeting continues to thrive due to its very focused nature. We are determined to Another, more recent method of sharing information is though our meeting held last October in Prague. It was the first time ever that IAFP held a meeting outside of North America! As you can see on the next page, we are planning our second European Symposium on Food Safety to be held in Barcelona at the end of November. Additional details will be available next month and on the IAFP Web site. So, those are the visible ways IAFP supports food safety professionals, but you might ask, is that all IAFP does? No way! We participate in many additional programs that support the profession. Since 1999, we have supported a speaker program for all IAFP Affiliates. Affiliate organizations may request one of the IAFP Board Members to come to their meeting to present a topic of interest before their audience. At the same time, the Board Members are able to interact with food safety professionals at a state or local level (some of who are unable to attend IAFP Annual Meeting) and inform them about IAFP, our journals and our Annual Meeting. About two years ago, we expanded on the Affiliate Speaker Program and made IAFP Board Members available to colleges and universities under what we call our University Speaker Program. Board Members are called upon to visit universities where they are able to present pertinent information on food science and food safety while doing so under the umbrella of IAFP. Again, they are able to share information about IAFP so that students become familiar with the organization and our journals. This has been a very successful program when used. Recently, IAFP was contacted by Occupational Information Networks, Data Collection Program (O*NET) to assist in updating a job description for microbiologists. This is a very scientific and in-depth search into developing job descriptions that can be used by many different users for many purposes. O*NET is operated by the United States Department of Labor and serves as the United States’ primary source of occupational information. The O*NET Data Collection Program is con-ducted by Research Triangle Institute (RTI) on behalf of the United States Department of Labor and is designed to provide data that are valid, reliable, current, and regularly updated. We were happy to help out and see this as a service to the profession. A few months ago, I was contacted by leaders of a multi-agency, US project working with a delegation of 15 food safety officials from China. The organizers wanted IAFP to talk with the delegation about developing food safety professionals and describe where IAFP fits within this puzzle. I enlisted the help of our Past President, Jim Dickson since he is located in Ames at Iowa State University (only 35 miles from IAFP’s offices). Jim gave a presentation on attracting students to food safety related programs and educating them at universities such as Iowa State. My presentation focused on our mission of providing food safety professionals with a forum to exchange information about protecting the food supply. You may view pictures and a short write up from the evening we spent with the Chinese delegation. They are shown on page 401. In addition to those programs expanded on above, IAFP supports the Partnership for Food Safety Education, the 3-A Sanitary Standards, the Conference for Food Protection and other similar groups. We make it a point to get out and meet with Members and prospective Members at shows such as the Food Safety World and Food Safety Summit and we plan to participate this fall in a couple of new endeavors. One new area of participation will be with a retail foodservice food safety conference that holds a goal to improve communication across boundaries. As you can see, there are a number of ways, in addition to the most visible ones, that IAFP builds on its mission. I hope this has been informative for you as an IAFP Member. We want you to know that we are more than just journals and an Annual Meeting. The Board and staff of IAFP work hard to assist and improve the profession of food safety professionals at all levels!
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