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Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation

My Perspective, April 2001

To provide food safety professionals worldwide with a forum to exchange information on protecting the food supply
By Jenny Scott, IAFP President

The Mission of the International Association for Food Protection is to provide food safety professionals worldwide with a forum to exchange information on protecting the food supply. What does this mean to you? Are we achieving our mission? Here is my perspective on this issue.

IAFP fulfills its mission in several ways. First and foremost is through publication of the Association’s journals. Many consider the Journal of Food Protection (JFP) to be the premier journal for publication of research on microbial food safety. ISI (the Institute for Scientific Information) publishes a Journal Citation Report that ranks journals by the number of times they are cited in a given year, providing an objective way to determine the journals with the highest scholarly impact within subject areas. In 1998 the Journal of Food Protection ranked number 14 in "impact factor" among journals in Food Science and Technology. For comparison purposes, Food Microbiology ranked number 22, the International Journal of Food Microbiology ranked 5,
the Journal of Food Safety ranked 70, and the Journal of Food Science ranked number 17 out of 90 journals in this category. In 2000, 274 manuscripts were published and 486 manuscripts were submitted to JFP. Almost 50% of the manuscripts published in 2000 were submitted from authors outside the US; manuscripts came from 29 different countries.

We also provide a forum for exchange of information on food safety and food sanitation through Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation, which is read by over 6,000 individuals worldwide. The journal publishes informational articles, IAFP news, industry news, a section on industry-related products, coming events and more. We welcome input from our Members here — letters to the editor, "Thoughts on Food Safety," and, in particular, articles of interest to food safety professionals (Members and non-members alike are welcome to contribute). Papers in DFES are generally practical in nature and less technical than those in JFP. They may describe solutions to problems, field investigations, organization and application
of food control programs, food safety training and education programs, and similar subjects. Often talks and presentations given at meetings of affiliate groups, at the IAFP Annual Meeting, or at other food safety meetings can be modified to make them appropriate for publication. We can’t fulfill our mission here without your help. I urge you to share your experiences with other food safety professionals through articles in DFES.

The next most important way we fulfill our mission is through our Annual Meeting. Many recognize this meeting as the leading food safety conference. In this day and age when everyone wants to climb on the food safety bandwagon, as we prepare for our 88th Annual Meeting; IAFP is comfortably ensconced as the leader. We pack a lot in four days — Committee and Professional Development Group (PDG) meetings, scientific symposia, technical papers and posters, exhibits of the latest food safety products and services, our annual business meeting and an awards banquet. Not to mention the social events. There are countless opportunities to network with food safety professionals from around the world. Last year’s meeting attracted over 1,300 attendees from 31 countries! I can’t think of a better way to exchange food safety information. We’re looking forward to another successful "information exchange" this August in Minneapolis. You can help us fulfill our mission by participating.

Some of our Committees have many years of serving as a forum for sharing food safety information. Of particular note is the Committee on Communicable Diseases Affecting Man, which has prepared manuals on investigating foodborne and waterborne disease that have been widely distributed around the globe.

I mentioned our PDGs above. These groups are relatively new in the Association, being established several years ago to pro-vide a forum for discussion of specific areas of interest to food safety professionals in the Association. Many are commodity-oriented, such as Meat and Poultry, Fruit and Vegetable, and Seafood Safety and Quality while others are discipline-related, such as Risk Management. Our newest PDG is the Student PDG, which provides students with opportunities to network with their peers from other universities, with food safety professionals in their areas of interests and with potential future employers. Our Annual Meeting also provides them the opportunity to share their latest research findings with others in the field.

IAFP also uses workshops to fulfill its mission. We generally hold two workshops prior to
the Annual Meeting and one or two elsewhere during the year. Workshops with their working groups and hands-on exercises allow us to provide more in-depth treatment of and discussion about particular topics of interest, led by experts in the field.

And another means of fulfilling our mission of providing a forum for information exchange is through the IAFP Audiovisual Library. IAFP Members can borrow a wide variety of education and training videos on dairy, food and environmental sanitation from over 100 tapes in our library. See page 315 for a description of tapes and a request form, or visit our Web site at www. foodprotection.org. We welcome your contributions to the library, as well as suggestions for videos you think we should add to it.

And last, but not least, IAFP fulfills its mission through our Web site, which is developing as
a means of communicating IAFP activities to Members and non-members throughout the world. Our Web site is only three-years old, but it is growing by leaps and bounds. We have big plans for providing more and more information through this vehicle. Stay tuned for new developments here.

In summary, these are only a few of the ways IAFP accomplishes its mission. From my perspective, we are doing a good job. But I’m sure there are ways we can do better. We welcome your input on ways to enhance how we accomplish our mission and advance food safety worldwide.

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