When the vice president of food safety for Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, stood up in front of New Zealand food technologists at their conference earlier this month and asked whether world science had triumphed over foodborne disease, he wasn’t sure what reaction he’d get. “It’s frightening,” Frank Yiannas told the crowd, “that there are people out there who say yes. It’s an ongoing battle, and we really aren’t winning. We haven’t progressed over the past 10 years, and we’re not changing outcomes much.” The three “biggies” that worry him are improper holding time or temperature, poor personal hygiene and contamination protection – and he’s not impressed with the systems of training, inspections and micro-testing in place. “We can spend tens of millions on those things and still food safety is worrying,” he says. “Food safety people have to get better at changing behaviours.” We should all heed his warning…the man feeds 200 million people each week. Before Wal-Mart, he directed safety and health for the Walt Disney World Company for 19 years, so he knows his stuff. Check out his extended comments in our coverage of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology conference in Rotorua earlier this month. July's magazine also takes a look at Brexit, food labelling, the 2nd International Food Design Conference and Studio in Dunedin, Yalumba Vineyard in Australia, a brewery assisting an iconic tourist attraction to clean out non-native trees, the hideous ingredients that might be found in your favourite brew, and how one man’s seafood obsession has become a global sensation. Take a look at this year’s FoodTech PackTech exhibitor floor plan, and check out how your company can test a new food or beverage product in the mouths of the right people with Food Group Friday. It's not often that some recent news impresses me, but the achievement by Professor Barbara Burlingame from Massey University is indeed an achievement we should all applaud and be proud of. Barbara will present a uniquely Kiwi voice to a powerful world organisation, and I'm looking forward to watching her progress. Read her story below. Kathryn Calvert Editor NZ FOODTechnology A CONFERENCE CONVERSATION A NEW APPOINTMENT EDITOR'S NOTE 2016 EVENTS Whitianga Scallop Festival 2016 Whitianga – September 10 www.scallopfestival.co.nz Fi Asia Jakarta – September 21 to 23 – innovative ingredients Figlobal.com/asia-indonesia 2016 NZ Beverage Council annual meeting Wairakei – October 4 to 6 - annual meeting of New Zealand beverage industry. www. nzbc.nz Foodtech Packtech 2016 Auckland – October 11 to 13 – New Zealand’s most important trade tech event for New Zealand food, technology and packaging Foodtechpacktech.co.nz SIAL 2016 Paris – October 16 to 20 – largest food innovation observatory in the world www.sialparis.com Lipids, Neutraceuticals and Healthy Diets through the Life Cycle Nelson – November 8 to 10 www.oilsfats.org.nz Got an event you want your industry to know about? Contact the editor: kcalvert@hayleymedia.com Massey University’s Professor Barbara Burlingame has been selected for the new High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) project team for the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Burlingame, chosen from a pool of 139 high-powered international candidates, is the only appointment from the Southern Hemisphere. The team will address the theme ‘Nutrition and Food Systems’ and will report to the Committee’s 44th session in October 2017, and Burlingame says this global theme reaffirms the importance of integrating sustainability into how the world produces and consumes food. “In New Zealand, we have decades of failed policies and interventions to deal with obesity, diet-related chronic diseases and micronutrient malnutrition. We also have a long history of agriculture contributing to biodiversity loss and degraded and contaminated ecosystems,” Burlingame says. “The CFS maintains that malnutrition is not solely a health sector issue and food production, particularly on the policy side, is not solely an agriculture issue. Giving agriculture and health joint responsibility for providing solutions and bringing in the environment sector to minimise and even reverse damaged agro-ecological zones are necessary to achieve positive results. Our report on nutrition and food systems will provide useful guidance.” The HLPE was created as part of the reform of the international governance of food security and nutrition. Its key function is to keep the CFS up to date with knowledge and emerging issues in food security to inform policy debates and improve quality, effectiveness and coherence from local to international levels. BREAKING NEWS NZ INSTITUTE OF FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY WINNERS Congratulations to the winners of awards presented at the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science & Technology for 2016. They are: ADM Wild Flavours and Fragrances Post-Graduate Student Poster Competition Siripong Kanokruangrong (Massey University) NZIFST Leadership Award Scott Gallacher (MPI) NZIFST Young Technologist Award Nurul Kusumaningrum (Goodman Fielder) NZIFST Distinguished Service Award for the Dairy Industry David Illingworth (NZIFST) Ron Hooker Award for Exemplary Service Dave Pooch (Peppermint Press) JC Andrews Award Rob Archibald (Taranaki Bio Extracts).
FT-Jul16
To see the actual publication please follow the link above