From the President and IFST News
2020; Wiley; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/fsat.3404_3.x
ISSN2689-1816
Autores Tópico(s)Supply Chain Resilience and Risk Management
ResumoMost people who know me, I think will agree that I am generally a ‘cup half full’ person. But I must admit that at the time of writing this column, it is difficult to ensure that the ‘virtual’ meniscus in the glass does not sink too far! I am sure many of you will be sharing my concerns that the next few months have hurdles to negotiate that by themselves would seem challenging enough, but together feel like they could be the perfect storm. The lead up to Christmas and the New Year is for many food and drink businesses the busiest time of the year, a time for all the work of the previous year to come to fruition, be that innovative new products, improved efficiencies and logistics or rewarding hard-working team members with an end of year bonus. But 2020 sees us not only dealing with the on-going challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic (balancing the provision of safe food with the safety of our key worker teams) but also the end of the transition period for EU exit. Deal or no deal, much will change on 1 January 2021 and if nothing else, many will be dealing with a whole raft of new paperwork to keep the supply chain moving. These two strains on the system will hopefully be something that we work through and emerge stronger from. But for many, the pressures of the economic situation, changes to work practices and personal challenges will have lasting impacts. At this time, whether we are in industry, academia, government, retired etc. let's make sure we go the extra mile to support colleagues in our community. On the lighter side, I recently had the pleasure of judging the European finals of the Ecotrophelia competition. If you ever needed a life-affirming experience of how innovative, creative and massively professional the new entrants to our ranks are, then Ecotrophelia would be a good place to start. We were presented with some amazingly detailed and impressive new product proposals and although the UK team was not ultimately a winner on the EU platform, the students demonstrated why they were worthy regional winners and a credit to the University of Nottingham and IFST! To help keep the optimism up and to toast the splendid performance of our student team, you could do a whole lot worse than raise a glass of English sparkling wine. I understand it has been a record-breaking year for the industry and let's hope we have some further wins to celebrate over the next few months. Jon Poole IFST's business year started on 1 October, so it is an ideal time to signpost some of IFST's plans for the year ahead. In fact, our strategy and business-planning process started back in January 2020 when the Board, the incoming trustees and the senior executive team held a strategy workshop to start formulating our plans. Little did we know, last January, just how our plans would need to change during the year to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, our underlying charitable purpose remains as it always has. You may have seen that we have refined our mission or purpose to read ‘To recognise and empower food professionals by promoting excellence in science and its application throughout the food chain.’ Not only is this considerably shorter than previously but it also reflects our more externally-facing and output-oriented way of working. Looking at the year ahead, some of our key outputs – what we are already known and respected for – will remain the same (albeit, some will need to be adapted to be deliverable in a virtual environment if current restrictions prevail). For instance, we are already gearing up for our Spring Conference which, in 2021, will be on the theme of ‘Smart Thinking and Smart Working’. This will be held in late April/early May and we will be announcing the precise date in the next few weeks once we are clearer about the likelihood of being able to deliver a physical meeting. Likewise, throughout the year, we will continue to host a wide range of highly topical and relevant webinars (along with, hopefully, real events) – some hosted centrally and some through our increasingly active Subject Interest Groups, our Working Groups and through our Branches. We also recognise that EU Exit is going to impact very many of our members in some way. Consequently we are focusing on creating and signposting reliable information about issues relating to EU departure from a food science and technology perspective to support members. With guidance from our External Affairs Advisory Group, we will continue to engage with relevant government departments where we will use our ongoing discussions to help contribute towards government thinking by providing reliable, independent food science and technology perspectives. Last October, to kick off our business year, you will have seen that we've invited members to participate in a horizon-scanning survey. This is just the first part in an important exercise which will ultimately help provide us with clarity about the demands you, your businesses and the wider professional community are facing. This, in turn, will help inform our priorities in terms of the Institute's scientific and policy outputs. As well as providing a focus for IFST, we aim to publish our findings early in 2021, which we hope will provide a useful perspective for all our members. Last month saw our ninth year of hosting Student LaunchPad events. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year's LaunchPad activities, aimed at university students, obviously had to be hosted online. That said, this also presented us with a big opportunity to widen our reach to potentially encourage students from non-food science-based subjects and also from Further Education (FE) colleges to get involved. In January 2021, we will be inviting all our members to participate in our bi-annual membership survey. It is critical to hear from you, our members, so that we can be responsive to your professional needs. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our service and benefits to you - please don't miss this opportunity to provide your feedback and have your say. So, as you can see, even in the first business quarter of this year, we've had a busy schedule of activities. We have started to plan a virtual Members Week for April next year when we will invite you to join us online to hear more about our activities and hopefully get more involved. Without the time, energy, passion and expertise of those who contribute to IFST, we would not achieve our strategic priorities. The Impact Award is our opportunity to recognise those members (individuals or groups) and showcase activity, which is new, significantly improved, or has been introduced this year as a result of COVID-19. The 2021 Impact Award is open to Committees, Branches, Special Interest Groups, Working Groups and individual members (self-nomination is not permitted). Making a submission involves completing a short 7-question form. Submissions will be open from 1 December 2020 to 19 February 2021. More info here: bit.ly/37JyqBI We were disappointed to cancel our inaugural Members’ Day in 2020 and were not able to share ideas, celebrate successes and reacquaint with friends and colleagues. Overseen by the Volunteers’ Advisory Group, we're moving the concept online for 2021, pulling together what we hope will be an interesting and informative programme for a week of activity in early March. The event is free to all members and some sessions will also be open to non-members too so that they can learn more about IFST. Special Interest Groups, Branches, Working Groups and Committees will be updating you on their activities. We're also planning sessions to support your professional development. We hope to hear from the IFST President and to host a Q&A session with representatives from the Board and the executive. Of course, we also hope to have some fun and create valuable networking opportunities (albeit virtual). Members’ Week is due to end on a high, with a presentation of the 2021 Impact Award. Visit the IFST website in the new year to find out more and register for your place – places for some sessions will be limited, so booking early is recommended. We look forward to welcoming you in March 2021. My name is Aditi Sharma. I'm a master's student studying Applied Food Safety and Quality Management at the University of Greenwich. Whilst studying for my bachelor's degree in Food Technology, I developed a deep interest in the field of food safety. I found it quite intriguing to see how food safety and quality are assured at each level of the food chain, from farm to fork. I also developed a strong interest in food packaging and started following its upcoming trends in the food industry. For my master's dissertation, I focused on edible packaging. It involved the analysis of factors that have the potential to influence consumers to buy products packed in edible materials. In September 2020, I joined IFST as an Administrative Assistant Intern for 12 weeks. My role involved collating information for a literature review, which preceded a horizon-scanning survey to help IFST analyse responses received from our members and gain insights into how the food sector will develop in the next three years. The survey aimed to investigate the factors that will influence future scientific and policy resources; its outputs were presented to the Board, Chairs of our Subject Interest Groups, Branches, External Advisory Group and Working Groups. This will ultimately help inform the Institute's priorities in terms of scientific and policy outputs. IFST aims to support the growing food industry by working with food professionals, associated organisations and government to enhance food security. I've also worked on creating the food packaging knowledge resources, which you will be able to find on the IFST website. Working as an Administrative Assistant Intern at IFST was an enriching experience for me. I learnt a lot from all the team members and gained experience in project management, working as part of a team and coordinating with everyone during lockdown. My internship also helped me gain insights into the various important issues that we need to focus on as food technologists. For example, sustainability in food production and technologies, such as artificial intelligence and data science, which could help us manage resources and feed the growing world population. This internship has been a special experience and an enlightening step towards my professional career in the field of food technology. Aditi Sharma, Admin Assistant Intern, IFST Honorary Fellowship is only occasionally bestowed by the Institute in recognition of those exceptional Members (MIFST) or Fellows (FIFST), who have made extensive personal contributions to the Institute and the food science and technology sector. If you would like to nominate someone, please write in confidence to the CEO (via ce@ifst.org) by 8 January 2021 with full and detailed reasons for the nomination (1000 words max). Your nominee should be unaware of their nomination and self-nominations will not be accepted. More info here: ifst.org/awards/honorary-fellowship We would like to invite our Members (MIFST) and Fellows (FIFST) to consider nominating candidates for the following officer roles that are due for re-election at the AGM 2021. This includes the roles of Honorary Secretary (three years), Honorary Treasurer (three years) and Vice President x 2 (two years). Additionally, nominations are also sought for the role of Education and Careers Group Vice Chair (two years), who will automatically become the Education and Careers Group Chair/Board Trustee from our AGM 2023 for a further term of two years. In early December, Members and Fellows will be sent a formal notice including information about the vacancies and forms to submit nominations. Nominations are open between 7 December 2020 and 8 January 2021. We look forward to receiving your nominations. As the holiday season is upon us, we have been planning and preparing some celebratory content to bring our members together. So, keep an eye out on our website to see what we have in store throughout December 2020. Make sure you are also subscribed to our YouTube channel so you're the first to see what we have planned! Head to: youtube.com/user/TheIFST Don't forget to also follow our social media platforms to find out the latest from IFST. Links are provided at the bottom of the page on our website ifst.org 3 December 2020 IFST WESTERN BRANCH WEBINAR: SHOULD YOU TRUST YOUR CHRISTMAS DINNER? FOOD FRAUD RISKS IN CONTEXT Venue online Food fraud is an emotive topic, and has the potential to both harm consumer health and to destroy a brand's image. Falling victim to fraud is high on most food companies’ risk radars. But it is much harder to assess the likelihood of this risk, to predict the next ‘Horse-Gate’ and to weigh the fraud risk against other food safety risks. Participants will learn about the risks of food fraud, particularly in relation to items that might be found on a Christmas table and possible defence strategies used to prevent this occurring. This will also be put in context of other food safety risks. Target audience IFST members and non-members 10 December 2020 IFST FOOD REGULATORY GROUP WEBINAR: WHEN IS FOOD WASTE NOT WASTE? Venue online Covering the definitions food waste, background and scope, including food loss, food by-products and co-products. When does food become food waste and not a byproduct or coproduct? How is food waste controlled and what is permitted to be done with it? Target audience food manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, charities and anyone with an interest. 11 December 2020 IFST EASTERN BRANCH EVENT: THE CHEMISTRY OF COCKTAILS Venue online This is a fun and informative seasonal event; a revival of a popular roadshow adapted for online participation under the present circumstances. Steve Pearce, CEO, Omega Ingredients and master flavour maker, will present the history of cocktails from prohibition to modern day influences. Describing what makes a good cocktail combination, in order to get the balance of flavour just right and which small errors can result in a disastrous cocktail. The effects of the density of ingredients and whether to shake or stir individual mixtures will also be covered. Steve shows his own twist on the Bloody Mary (the Bloody Samurai), together with an alcohol-free version ‘The Bloody Shame’, the special cocktail Steve invented for the IFST 50th Anniversary celebrations, and finishes with his show-stopping ‘Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster’, inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In addition to discussing some case studies there will be the opportunity to taste samples of commercially available, ready-made cocktails during the lecture. Target Audience IFST members only If you've missed any of our live webinars, you can watch them all online, including our Spring Conference (SC20) ‘box set’, along with webinars organised by our Special Interest Groups and more. Find them here: ifst.org/events/webinars IFST FOOD SAFETY GROUP AND FOOD PROCESSING GROUP WEBINAR: APPLICATIONS FOR ROBOTICS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY – BEYOND PALLETISATION VIDEO RECORDING Robotics have had limited applications in the food industry. Widely used for palletisation and packaging fairly uniform items, they have been slow to be adopted elsewhere either because of issues with cleanability, closer interaction with humans or that the items to be handled are more complex or non-uniform, such as soft fruit and cuts of meat. This webinar looks at some of the recent developments in handling non-uniform and complex items in the food industry. Target Audience Food professionals and students IFST SENSORY SCIENCE GROUP WEBINAR: TEXT-ANALYTICS TASTER VIDEO RECORDING This webinar presents a selection of the current state of text analytics tools and applications. It discusses the opportunities they offer, their maturity and their usefulness for consumer research in the food and other industries. Specific focus is given to the automatic categorisation and analysis of large amounts of text data, such as customer feedback or survey responses. The process is illustrated with a case study from the market research department of an up-and-coming food and beverage start-up. Target Audience Sensory and consumer research professionals, marketing insights and R&D teams. IFST SENSORY SCIENCE GROUP WEBINAR: WHO NEEDS AI WHEN WE HAVE HI? VIDEO RECORDING A quick introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI), including Machine Learning (ML), followed by several examples of AI and ML in food and non-food applications within sensory and consumer science, some of which you may be very familiar with. Attendees are given advice on how to learn more about the applications of these techniques and how to implement them in their workplace. The role of Human Intelligence (HI) in the context of AI is explored. Future applications of AI in sensory science are also discussed. Target Audience Sensory and Consumer Scientists, Food Professionals, Students. Want to keep up with the latest in Food Science & Technology research? Make sure you're following our new Twitter page for our International Journal of Food Science & Technology (IJFST)! twitter.com/IJFoodSciTech IJFST promotes new knowledge and techniques in the food sciences and particularly serves the industrial and research communities by providing high quality refereed original papers in food science and technology. IJFST has a current Impact Factor of 2.773. More information is available here: https://bit.ly/2Jez7sy IJFST has a forthcoming special issue on Food Security scheduled for publication in Spring 2021 with Daniel Cozzolino, Principal Research Fellow/Associate Professor QAAFI – University of Queensland, as Guest Editor. Full details are available at: ifst.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/13652621/homepage/food_traceability_and_security.html Tea is one of the most valued beverages throughout the world and is vulnerable to economically motivated fraud. The objective of the study was to explore the use of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and data fusion to identify the authenticity of Keemun black tea quality categories by combining multivariate analysis and data fusion. Data fusion that integrated texture characteristics based on grey level co-occurrence matrix and visible and near-infrared spectral features via competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) was used for modeling. Support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) were utilised for the classification of tea samples of seven grades. The RF model using fused data gave the best performance with the correct discriminant rate of 92.70% for the prediction set. This study demonstrated that HSI coupled with RF was effective in identifying tea sample rank. Ren et al., 2020, doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14624 This work aimed to develop an online method for screening deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination in whole wheat meals by visible/near-infrared (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy and computer vision coupling technology. Spectral and image information about samples with various DON levels was collected at a speed of 0.15m s-1 on a conveyor belt. The data were then integrated and subjected to chemometric analysis. Discriminant analysis showed that samples could be classified by setting 1000 μg kg-1 as the cut-off value. The best correct classified rate obtained in prediction was 93.55% based on fusion of spectral and image features, with reduced prediction uncertainty as compared to single feature. However, quantification of DON was not successful due to poor model performance. These results indicate that, although not accurate enough to provide conclusive results, this coupling technology could be adopted for rapid screening of DON contamination in cereals and feeds during processing. Zhang et al., 2020, doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14775 Adulteration of canola oil with four potential edible oils was analysed using FT-IR and chemometric methods. The adulterants (corn, peanut, soybean, and sunflower oils) were studied in four different mixtures (canola oil + adulterant oils: 90+10, 95+5, 98+2 and 99+1 in volume). Excellent classification results were obtained when multi-class approaches were performed with a maximum error of 3%, using 1630 or 16 wavenumbers as variables. In the case of one-class approaches, the selection of variables (16 wavenumbers) was necessary, improving the classification error to 5%. The differences observed using the different methods were related to the nature of each model depending on how the boundaries are set, responding either to a Principal Component Analysis-based or Partial Least Squares-based algorithm. Gagneten et al., 2020, doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14866 Selvarani Elahi, Deputy Government Chemist, Executive Director at the Food Authenticity Network and Executive Director and Business Manager, Food Research, LGC, has been awarded an MBE for services to Food Measurement Science in the Queen's Birthday 2020 Honours List. Jon Poole, Chief Executive of IFST commented: ‘It's always great to hear that an IFST member has been recognised in the Queen's honours and so I was obviously delighted to hear Selvarani will be joining a small but growing number of our highly respected members to have received such an honour.’ Sterling Crew, Chair of the Food Authenticity Network commented ‘I am very happy that Selvarani's achievements have been recognised by this honour. She has done fantastic thought leadership work at the Food Authenticity Network, which was a recommendation in the Elliott Review in the wake of the 2013 UK horsemeat episode and is the only one of its kind in the world’. ■ Shaun Kokott FIFST, Head of Suppliers, External Manufacturers & Ethical Trading Compliance – Cargill Ltd ■ Dr Rosemary McKee FIFST, Senior Food Technologist – College of Agriculture Food and Rural Enterprise ■ Stuart Tucker FIFST, Quality Control / Compliance Manager – Bath Ales Brewery / St.Austell Brewery ■ Neil Honeywell FIFST, Food Operations Consultant – International Foods Advisory ■ Andrea Boardman FIFST, Food Safety Consultant – AB Food Safety Consultancy Ltd ■ Peter Littleton FIFST, Technical Director – Christeyns Food Hygiene ■ Christopher Edwards FIFST, Head of Quality – Müller UK and Ireland Group ■ Tessa Anderson FIFST, Director – Pack Copy Sent Ltd ■ Gordon Brown FIFST, Technical Director – Yeo Valley ■ Carole Bingley FIFST, Food Product Development and Ingredient Application Specialist – Reading Scientific Services Ltd ■ Valia Christidou FIFST ■ Su Dakin FIFST, Director – Su Dakin Consulting ■ Ankit Joshi FIFST, Senior Technical Manager – Panificio Italiano ■ Ann Smith FIFST, Director – Gresham Food Ltd ■ Barry Twidale FIFST, Regional Quality Manager – Kellogg's ■ Dr Emmanuel Alamu FIFST, Associate Scientist/Food Science and Technology – International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) ■ Sarah Vaudrey FIFST, Consultant ■ Andes Mong FIFST, Section Manager of Food – SGS Hong Kong Ltd ■ Duncan Smith FIFST, Food Business Consultant – Duncans Global Food Solutions ■ Dr Yvonne Stedman FIFST, Director – Salvus Food Consulting Ltd. ■ Fiona Kibby FIFST, Food Safety Lead EMEA – Amazon ■ Colin Edmondson MIFST, Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement Technician – Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company ■ Milan Havlicek MIFST, Food Technology Development Inspector – Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs ■ Audrey Kelly MIFST, Food Technologist – Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs ■ Craig Jones MIFST, Senior Policy Advisor – Food Standards Agency (London) ■ Christopher Forsythe MIFST, Director – CF Technical Solutions Ltd ■ Judith Gourley MIFST, Food Technologist Technician – Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs ■ Adele Dallas MIFST, Lecturer – College of Agriculture Food and Rural Enterprise ■ Teody Salivia MIFST, QMS Manager – Celebes Coconut Corporation ■ Sandeepa Nekkanti MIFST, Regulatory Manager – Mizkan Europe Ltd ■ Osahon Osawe MIFST, Process Development Technologist – Samworth Brothers ■ Dr Simona Grasso MIFST, Senior Research Fellow – University of Reading ■ Ann-Marie Lawton MIFST, Licensing Assistant – Mission Control Ltd ■ Rakesh Thapar MIFST, Director – HealthnSafety4u ■ Victoria Shiels MIFST, Food Technologist – College of Agriculture Food and Rural Enterprise ■ Andy Broomfield MIFST, Consultant ■ Andrea Boardman RFoodSM, Food Safety Consultant – AB Food Safety Consultancy Ltd ■ Christopher Forsythe RFoodSM, Director – CF Technical Solutions Ltd ■ John Globe RFoodSM, Independent Auditor – JMG Quality Management Ltd ■ Titilayo Nosiru RFoodSM, Tutor – Aspire Sussex ■ Andes Mong RFoodSM, Section Manager of Food – SGS Hong Kong Ltd ■ Andrew Jeffrey RFoodSM ■ Roger Anderton RFoodSP, Director – Brendan Anderton Butchers Limited ■ Sarah Vaudrey RFoodSP, Consultant ■ Aileen Livingstone RFoodSPrac, Meat Hygiene Inspector – Food Standards Scotland ■ Craig Park RFoodSPrac, Meat Hygiene Inspector – Food Standards Scotland ■ Andrea Boardman, Food Safety Consultant – AB Food Safety Consultancy Ltd ■ Christopher Forsythe, Director – CF Technical Solutions Ltd ■ John Globe, Independent Auditor – JMG Quality Management Ltd ■ Titilayo Nosiru, Tutor – Aspire Sussex ■ Andrew Jeffrey ■ Joseph Oladunjoye, Quality Manager - Avara Foods
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