Spring conference 2015 - Food safety in the court of public opinion

Read James Huscroft's student perspective of the conference

	Session 1 - The court of public opinion Nicole Patterson, Business Development Manager, Leatherhead Food Research Nicole brings a wealth of knowledge and understanding from her 10 years at Leatherhead as a Principal Analyst, before joining the Business Development team in 2015. Undertaking a wide range of commercial and project management, she works across the company as a key contributor to Leatherheads’ commercial strategy with a focus on Food Safety and Nutrition. Nicole’s consumer and sensory experience is often drawn upon to present at conferences and training courses on a variety of topic areas from natural preservatives to nanotechnology. She has a number of research articles to her credit and has contributed to several book chapters. Nicole holds a Business degree from Surrey University, an MRS accreditation for focus group moderation, and MRS Certificates in Qualitative Research, Business Management and Marketing. She is an active member of the IFST and MRS. In her spare time Nicole is an Ironman triathlete, so the development and function of food span both a work and lifestyle interest. View Nicole's presentation
	Sue Davies, Chief Policy Advisor, Which? Sue Davies is Chief Policy Adviser at Which?, the independent consumer organisation where she is responsible for research and policy development on food issues. She has represented consumer interests on a range of government committees and working groups. This has included the Responsibility Deal High Level Steering Group on Food, the Food Research Partnership and the Green Food Project. She is also Chair of the Management Board of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in a personal capacity. She was awarded an MBE for services to food safety in 2003. View Sue's presentation
	Session 2 - Food safety: An international perspective Gale Prince, Saga Food Consultants Gale Prince is recognized as a food safety legend with over 45 years of experience in the field. As a pioneer in the field he has dedicated his career to the advancement of food safety throughout the food industry. He is someone who has made a difference in impacting the culture in our nation's foods safety programs. Gale started his food safety career with the Jewel Companies, before joining The Kroger Co. in 1979 as Corporate Director of Regulatory Affairs. He was involved in establishing a food safety culture for Kroger employees nationwide by demonstrating his commitment to excellence through application of technical expertise in his unending dedication to consumer safety. Gale is recognized as a visionary in establishing food safety programs by application of worldwide food safety intelligence information in developing preventive food safety programs. During his industry career, he compiled a lengthy record of partnerships with various industry, government, technical organizations and trade associations in the advancement of Food Safety. A forty five year member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and also is an IFT Certified Food Scientist. During these many years has served on several IFT committees and task groups dealing national food safety issues. He is Past President of the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) and was the Chairman of IAFP Foundation. He currently on staff at the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD) at the University of Minnesota dealing with food defense. View Gale's presentation
	Session 4 - The BRC standard today David Brackston, Technical Director, BRC Global Standards David joined the British Retail Consortium (BRC) in October 2007 and has overall Technical responsibility for the BRC schemes. He has overseen the rewrites of the BRC Packaging and Storage and Distribution Standards and most recently chaired the working groups developing the Agents and Brokers Standard and managed the rewrite of the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety issue 7. Prior to this he had worked for a Certification Body originally as an auditor before becoming the Quality and Processing Director with responsibility for all post farm gate certification schemes including BRC, IFS and ISO 22000. Having worked both in manufacturing with Associated British Foods and for more than 10 years in retail as Technical Manager and Marketing Manager for ASDA (Wal-Mart) he has a wealth of experience of the management of food safety throughout the supply chain. View David's presentation
	Session 4 - Food Integrity - Life after Elliott Tony Hines, Head of Food Security and Crisis Management, Leatherhead Food Research Tony has studied the relationship between the media and the food industry over a number of years. He works with food retailers and manufacturers and closely with the Regulatory Authorities. He is Chairman of the Food Retailer Incident Management Forum. Tony is a Member of the Food Fraud and Supply Chain Integrity Unit at Leatherhead. He is on the current review panel for PAS 96. Tony has just completed a major study for the FSA on Data Mapping and Prioritisation looking at data sources and gaps in intelligence and information to tackle future food fraud issues. For private clients he has toured Europe on the robustness of integrated meat supply chains. He has over 25 years’ experience in delivering training programs in a lively and unforgettable format and has worked at LFR for over 40 years. In 2008 Tony was appointed as Chairman of the Anaphylaxis Campaign a national charity for people with severe allergies. He is now a Trustee of the Charity. In 2010 Tony was awarded fellowship of the Institute of Food Science and Technology. Tony has been a contractor to the Food Standards Agency on issues associated with the susceptibility and vulnerability of various food supply chains to intentional contamination. He continues to work closely with the Regulatory Authorities on Incident Classification and Risk Assessments in relation to product incidents and product recalls. In 2010 Tony added Food Defence, based on the US model to his portfolio. He works closely with a USA based service provider. Tony’s MBE is for services to the community. He was appointed a visiting Professor in the School of Food and Chemistry at the University of Reading in July 2012. He facilitates a Food Retailer Incident Forum. View Tony's presentation
	Panel Discussion Hosted by Steven Walker, Director General, Campden BRI. Panellists: Guy Poppy, Chief Scientific Adviser, Food Standards Agency David Brackston, Technical Director, BRC Sue Davies, Chief Policy Adviser, Which? John O'Brien, Head of the Food Safety and Quality Competence Pillar, Nestle Research Centre Watch the panel discussion

Parallel session A - The evidence under the microscope

	Session 6A - Tackling Public Enemy number one: Campylobacter Jeremy Hall, Group Technical Director, Bernard Matthews Attended Harper Adams University, and since then have worked for two turkey processors two broiler companies and a major retailer, Marks and Spencer. I am Group Technical Director a role occupied for 15 years, and I sit on the BPC Technical committee, the Quality British Turkey TAC and also chair the Campden Meat and Poultry Member interest group. Member of Red Tractor / Assured food standards Technical Advisory Committee.( TAC ) I have worked on technical issues all of my life and still find I am able to learn new ideas and systems. Involved in several research projects on campylobacters, salmonella’s and E Coli as well as carbon footprinting, and ways to reduce campylobacters and other pathogens. I hope I can make this talk very interesting and show how we can remove this risk from poultry carcasses. View Jeremy's presentation
	Session 7A - Future microbiological trends Roy Betts, Head of Microbiology, Campden BRI Dr Roy Betts is Head of Microbiology at Campden BRI, and currently manages a large team of scientists and technicians. He is a recognised expert in food microbiology and related issues having developed the research area of rapid methods therefore giving Campden BRI an international reputation as a scientific centre of excellence within the microbiological field. Roy regularly lectures on Microbiological risks to foods, microbiological test methods, pathogens and risk in food manufacture. He regularly visits and assesses both laboratories and production sites for good operating practices and is frequently involved in troubleshooting and microbiological root cause analysis. Dr Roy Betts is a valued member of many committees. With an International reputation as an expert in food microbiology he has received personal invitations to speak at international symposia in the US, Australia, New Zealand, India, Korea, China and throughout the EU and regularly prepares papers for leading publications. Roy has presented over 100 publications/papers on food microbiology in journals and at Symposia. In his spare time Roy enjoys long distance trail and fell running. View Roy's presentation
	Session 8A - Consumer attitudes to thresholds Lynne Regent, Chief Executive, Anaphylaxis Campaign Lynne joined the Anaphylaxis Campaign as Chief Executive (CEO) in October 2008. Prior to taking up this role she spent 30 years working in the NHS in the UK, ultimately as the Chief Executive of Crawley PCT in the South East. As CEO of the Anaphylaxis Campaign her role is to ensure that the charity achieves its objective of helping people at risk of severe allergies live their lives. Alongside this, she is co-chairman of the National Allergy Strategy Group (NASG), which is the alliance of the professional organisation for Immunologists and Allergists, the patient Allergy Charities and industry partners in the UK.This group lobbies for better allergy care across the UK. She is also on the Patient Organising Committee for EACCI, on the committee of I FAAA (International Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Association) , and chairs the Patient Organisations Committee of the British Society of Immunologists. During 2013-2017 she is spearheading the UK patient group involvement in iFAAM which is the largest ever European-wide study of the severely allergic population to be undertaken, and is examining an integrated approach to food allergens and allergy risk management. View Lynne's presentation

Session 6A - Tackling Public Enemy number one: Campylobacter

Jeremy Hall, Group Technical Director, Bernard Matthews

Attended Harper Adams University, and since then have worked for two turkey processors two broiler companies and a major retailer, Marks and Spencer.

I am Group Technical Director a role occupied for 15 years, and I sit on the BPC Technical committee, the Quality British Turkey TAC and also chair the Campden Meat and Poultry Member interest group. Member of Red Tractor / Assured food standards Technical Advisory Committee.( TAC )

I have worked on technical issues all of my life and still find I am able to learn new ideas and systems. Involved in several research projects on campylobacters, salmonella’s and E Coli as well as carbon footprinting, and ways to reduce campylobacters and other pathogens.

I hope I can make this talk very interesting and show how we can remove this risk from poultry carcasses.

View Jeremy's presentation

Session 7A - Future microbiological trends

Roy Betts, Head of Microbiology, Campden BRI

Dr Roy Betts is Head of Microbiology at Campden BRI, and currently manages a large team of scientists and technicians. He is a recognised expert in food microbiology and related issues having developed the research area of rapid methods therefore giving Campden BRI an international reputation as a scientific centre of excellence within the microbiological field.
Roy regularly lectures on Microbiological risks to foods, microbiological test methods, pathogens and risk in food manufacture. He regularly visits and assesses both laboratories and production sites for good operating practices and is frequently involved in troubleshooting and microbiological root cause analysis.

Dr Roy Betts is a valued member of many committees. With an International reputation as an expert in food microbiology he has received personal invitations to speak at international symposia in the US, Australia, New Zealand, India, Korea, China and throughout the EU and regularly prepares papers for leading publications. Roy has presented over 100 publications/papers on food microbiology in journals and at Symposia.

In his spare time Roy enjoys long distance trail and fell running.

View Roy's presentation

Session 8A - Consumer attitudes to thresholds

Lynne Regent, Chief Executive, Anaphylaxis Campaign

Lynne joined the Anaphylaxis Campaign as Chief Executive (CEO) in October 2008. Prior to taking up this role she spent 30 years working in the NHS in the UK, ultimately as the Chief Executive of Crawley PCT in the South East. As CEO of the Anaphylaxis Campaign her role is to ensure that the charity achieves its objective of helping people at risk of severe allergies live their lives. Alongside this, she is co-chairman of the National Allergy Strategy Group (NASG), which is the alliance of the professional organisation for Immunologists and Allergists, the patient Allergy Charities and industry partners in the UK.This group lobbies for better allergy care across the UK. She is also on the Patient Organising Committee for EACCI, on the committee of I FAAA (International Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Association) , and chairs the Patient Organisations Committee of the British Society of Immunologists.

During 2013-2017 she is spearheading the UK patient group involvement in iFAAM which is the largest ever European-wide study of the severely allergic population to be undertaken, and is examining an integrated approach to food allergens and allergy risk management.

View Lynne's presentation

Parallel session B - The public expects integrity - Managing the supply chain

Session 6B - Managing a complex supply chain

Bizhan Pourkomalian, Director, Food safety and supplier workplace accountability, McDonald's

Bizhan holds an Hons. Degree in Biochemistry, PhD in Microbial Physiology from Aberdeen University and MBA from Warwick University. He holds the Chair for Microbiological Risk Analysis Task Force of ILSI Europe and is a member of GFSI technical committees.

After graduating in 1994 he took up the position of research scientist at Unilever Research, where he was involved in sauce development and botulinum laboratory management. In 1997 he moved to Leatherhead Food International to become Principal Scientist. The role required developing, training and auditing food safety systems.

He joined McDonald’s Europe in January 2000 and is now the Food Safety and Supplier Workplace Accountability Director. He is responsible for providing direction and developing management systems for the company on matters relating to food safety, supplier workplace accountability and Incident Management. In this role the direction is given to the supply chain, farm to across the counter, in 39 countries across Europe. The European zone includes over 7400 restaurants and over 1000 supplier facilities.

View Bizhan's presentation

Session 7B - Making sampling and testing work for you

Barbara Hirst, Consultant on Food Safety and Quality, RSSL

Barbara is Consultant on Food Safety and Quality in the RSSL department of Consultancy. Previously, she managed the department of DNA and Protein which is responsible for the analytical testing for allergens, meat and fish speciation, GMOs, rice authenticity, cattle parental genotyping and other molecular biology services.

She has worked at RSSL for 17 years and been responsible for growing the analytical testing service in the molecular biology areas as well as working to grow the allergen and food quality consultancy offering. RSSL partner with clients to understand the issues they have with allergen control and then target the help to analytical testing, factory visits or training.

Through the many different types of situations and samples, she has a vast experience of choosing and validating the most appropriate type of testing.

View Barbara's presentation

Paul Brereton, Co-ordinator, Agri-food Research, Fera

Session 8B - Measuring change: The future strategy for authenticating the food chain

Paul Brereton, Co-ordinator of Agri-food Research, Fera

Paul Brereton is Co-ordinator of Agri-food Research at the Food and Environment Research Agency based in York, UK. A government scientist working at science-policy interface, he has over 30 years experience of applied research in the area of food safety and quality.

As well as leading numerous national activities, Paul has co-ordinated two of the world’s largest research projects in the area of food authenticity and traceability: the €20M TRACE project (Tracing the origin of food) and currently FOODINTEGRITY a €12M EU sponsored research project that aims to address, at a European level, many of the gaps identified during the recent horsemeat incident. He has published over 70 peer reviewed papers on food safety and quality and recently edited the book “New analytical approaches for verifying the origin of food” (Woodhead/Elsevier). He and has close links with the food industry, UK Public sector, academia and the European Commission.

View Paul's presentation

Session 9 - The impact of social media on reputational risk

Simon Taylor, Crisis, Issues and Public Affairs Consultant

Simon is a very senior corporate and public affairs consultant, particularly in reputation protection, crisis and issue management. He has more than 30 years of experience working both in global agencies and also in major corporations at the most senior levels. Simon has most recently been VP External Communications at Visa Europe, Corporate Affairs Director (BIMEA) for Cadbury, as well as Cadbury’s Global Director of Crisis Management. Whilst at Cadbury, he led the response and follow up to the salmonella contamination that took place in 2006. Previously he was Head of Press and Public Affairs for the UNHCR based in London and a Director at PR agencies Ogilvy PR and Grayling.

He now advises companies on crisis response and preparedness, preparing and reviewing crisis plans and undertaking crisis and issue management training on a global basis.

View Simon's presentation

Jon Poole, CE, IFST