From the President and IFST News
2021; Wiley; Volume: 35; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/fsat.3502_3.x
ISSN2689-1816
Autores Tópico(s)Supply Chain Resilience and Risk Management
ResumoSince our last issue of Food Science and Technology in March, we have had two IFST events that really demonstrated the operational changes that we have been through. Firstly, we had Members Week from 2–4 March, which encouraged many of our members (and some prospective members too!) to learn more about the Institute and importantly interact with each other. Whilst a chat over a social drink is difficult to replicate on a Zoom meeting, this remote way-of-working certainly has the ability to involve many more people than would have been the case with face-to-face meetings. This was an event that was completely ‘reinvented’, and in my view, benefitted a lot for that. Particularly insightful was the conversation between our own Jon Poole in London and Belinda Moore in Queensland, Australia, who discussed the way that organisations like our own, need to develop to meet the needs of our members. This was a conversation that we may not have thought of facilitating without the impetus to connect online, but I know also provided much food for thought. This was the case for me personally, but I am sure for many others, and these future challenges are certainly something that your Board will need to seriously consider. The other event has been the Spring Conference, which took place between the end of April and beginning of May. In 2020, the Spring Conference was one of our first events that we needed to ‘pivot’ from a ‘physical’ event to an online event and whilst it worked incredibly well, our ability to deliver a highly engaging online conference has clearly come on a lot since then. Whilst I hope that next year we will have returned to at least a ‘hybrid’ event, I think the IFST team should take much credit for delivering such engaging events in such a relatively short period of time and for constantly looking for ways to serve our members better. I am delighted that the theme of this edition is Food Waste. This topic is close to my own heart and a subject I have actively pursued both in my business and personal life. Those that know we well, may be aware of my love of a certain 1970s Good Housekeeping book, called the Glut Cookery Book. This is my own personal bible, but I am sure there are some much more ‘futuristic’ solutions we can all learn from here! For the first time ever, members from around the UK and internationally came together for a week of online events at the start of March. Special Interest Groups, Branches and Working Groups updated us on their latest activities; new and early career colleagues took the opportunity to learn more about professional development; Board members and the Executive updated on latest IFST initiatives and we rekindled old friendships and made new connections in the early evening networking sessions. We also celebrated our successes with the announcements of the 2021 Impact Award and a President's Special Award – congratulations to South East Branch and COVID-19 Advisory Group respectively. Link to playlist: bit.ly/3ekSUm4 As part of our commitment to educate the public about key food science and technology issues, we have released a new Food Science Fact Sheet on Sensory and Consumer Science which answers questions such as: • How do food companies ensure they produce products people want? • Who's involved in sensory testing? • Where do people evaluate products? Read & Share the fact sheet: bit.ly/3awqlRf Back in January of this year we ran our biennial Membership Survey. The IFST team has now reviewed the key messages from this and I am sharing our plans to implement improvements to the member experience over the next few months. This year, the survey included thirty-eight questions and we were very pleased to receive 284 responses (10% of our members). The top types of respondent were Members and Fellows who comprised >80% of the sample. Students made up only 10% of the respondents. This aspect will be covered in more detail later. We are working hard to encourage more engagement with our members and with 55% of the respondents declaring themselves to be ‘inactive’, it would appear we still have a fair amount of work to do. The top three ways of being an active member are through Branches, Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and Working Groups. Inactive members, not surprisingly, cite a lack of time (54%) as being their main obstacle to being more involved. Many members are not sure how they can get involved, with 52% declaring themselves unaware of SIGs and what they do. This is an area we will be working on – to better inform the wider membership of what our six SIGs are focusing on. Our members believe we perform well in terms of being respected by stakeholders in the food sector with a 77% positive rating. Our engagement rate is similarly positive with 72% believing we are suitably engaged with key stakeholders. In terms of member benefits, Food Science and Technology magazine (FS&T) is still seen as the most highly valued, with knowledge resources including our peer-reviewed International Journal of Food Science and Technology (IJFS&T) coming in closely behind, followed by our online and in-person events. Members have been missing our ‘Forums’ and we are delighted to say that in April this year, we introduced a new online members’ area ‘IFST Community’. Overall – more than 90% of our members considered their membership to offer them good or excellent value for money and 79% would refer us to colleagues, which is good to hear. Areas where we are actively looking to improve include engagement with our student and early careers members. We aim to undertake specific surveys with these groups in the autumn of 2021. Our top publication continues to be Food Science & Technology, with 83% of respondents reporting they had accessed FS&T and found it useful. A further 59% report having similarly accessed IJFST online and 54% regularly accessing our information statements. Many respondents reported they would like the opportunity to vote for FS&T themes and we are looking to introduce this from September 2021 for the March 2022 edition onwards. Many members reported difficulties in finding resources and materials on the IFST website. This is being addressed with a new improved search function. This new functionality will enable searches to be carried out, not only of our main website resources but also content from FS&T and IJFST online. We are also planning a new dedicated scientific and policy resources e-update. To address members’ reported lack of understanding over what our SIGS and Working Groups are involved with and how to get involved, we encourage members to visit our new ‘IFST Community’, which is an area where you can post questions, comments and review posts by other members. It is no longer necessary to be a member of a committee to be actively involved in a SIG, each SIG has a group on ‘IFST Community’, which you can access and post in. Our members also reported an interest in a very wide range of technical subject areas including: • food chemistry/biochemistry • food biotechnology and fermentation • functional foods and ingredients • food processing technologies • food contact materials/packaging • food engineering/automation/robotics We have passed this information to our SIGS and will encourage them to incorporate these subject areas into their events and outputs over the next few months. We were delighted to receive nearly 100 offers to contribute to our publications or to be involved as an expert. We are looking at ways to improve contact with these members, which may involve further use of IFST Communities. Our Branches are highly valued by respondents with over 50% saying they engaged in Branch activities. We are currently considering some changes to our Branch structure to recognise and support the UK's four devolved nations. Deborah Kendale, Business Development Director, IFST IFST carried out a horizon scanning activity from September 2020 to January 2021 to collect views from our membership on potential emerging issues of importance for the food and drink sector over the next three years. The findings will be used to help establish priorities for future IFST activities and the allocation of resources, as well as informing the broader IFST membership and wider stakeholders. All IFST members were invited in an initial brainstorm online survey to reflect on the progress and advancements already achieved in recent years. We asked our members to consider the potential challenges, opportunities, external pressures and drivers that might impact upon their ability as a food science and technology professional to carry out their role including: • the resources or ‘toolkits’ available to support them, • the career choices and opportunities available to them, • the freedom of their current organisation in the food sector to operate and its application of science and technology innovation, • food security, including supply accessibility and reliability, food safety and quality of nutrition in their region food system as well as in the national and global food system, • consumer food purchasing and dietary choices. Rachel Ward Scientific Policy Director, IFST During Allergy Awareness Week (26-30 April) we published a podcast episode, the first for IFST. Listen to the podcast here youtu.be/fFsitGKkY0M The COVID-19 pandemic has made it very difficult to access sites to carry out inspections and audits. In this issue of FS&T, several senior IFST Fellows remind us of the principles underpinning competent food businesses and highlight some options for verification in the absence of physical site audits. Science isn't finished until it's communicated. Sir Mark Walport In November 2020, we launched a Twitter page to highlight the excellent research published in our International Journal of Food Science & Technology (IJFST). IJFST's purpose is to promote new knowledge and techniques in the food sciences and particularly to serve the industrial and research communities by providing high quality refereed original papers in food science and technology. Today, more than ever, it has become increasingly important to communicate new scientific research and increase the visibility of the amazing discoveries found by researchers. What better way to communicate the research in our journal through social media, particularly Twitter. In recent years, Twitter has become a hub for scientists and science communicators as a platform to connect with scientific colleagues, promote research and reach a much broader audience, for example the public, stakeholders and the media. By sharing the novel research published in our journal, we aim to broaden its reach to all Food Science & Technology professionals, researchers and communicators. Our IJFST Twitter curators are both PhD students with a good grasp of a variety of mainstream topics in food science and technology. They play a crucial role in quickly and accurately identifying the best Twitter content in tweets, photos and videos from our journal. Currently in this role, since November 2020, are Kiu Sum and Katherine (Kate) Hurst. Kate and Kiu have been reading lots of papers from IJFST, and translating them into engaging tweets of less than 240 characters. They also identify the ‘Paper of the month’, which is made open access each month for all to read. To see our tweets, follow @IJFoodSciTech on Twitter at: twitter.com/IJFoodSciTech Meet Kiu Sum ‘I am currently a Doctoral Researcher in nutrition at the School of Life Sciences at the University of Westminster. My research focuses on doctors’ nutrition and dietary behaviour during shift work. With interests in science communication and public engagement aside from my PhD, the opportunity to be part of the Twitter Curator team was an exciting prospect for extending my science knowledge and engaging with a wider audience. ‘It has been amazing to see our Twitter account grow ever since it started in winter 2020. But with this international science journal, what fascinates me the most has been learning about the diverse range of topics within food science and technology researched by an array of international authors – for example, those from Asia to Africa and Europe. Despite my somewhat limited prior knowledge in food science, it is through this role that I have developed my insights in the whole farm to fork timeline. Learning about science within a classroom can only give you so much. But learning more about research from IJFST connects the theory to the applications. ‘As one would imagine, science communication requires raising awareness and transmitting science-evidenced-based related topics to both knowledgeable scientists and non-expert audiences in an accessible way. This is a skill I have learnt. Yet, the most challenging part is translating the whole paper into the limited 240 characters on Twitter! Nevertheless, I have so far very much enjoyed working with Kate, Mariam and the IJFST team and I am excited to see how the IJFST engagement continues to grow.’ Meet Katherine (Kate) Hurst ‘Like Kiu, I was interested in science communication and outreach. However, I had limited experience apart from poster and oral presentations at various conferences during my PhD, so I decided to apply for the role of Twitter Curator. I am currently in the final year of my PhD researching approaches for reducing sodium within the UK diet. Before starting this exciting new role, I did not know much about the extent of science communication except for trade journals and the magazines I often read from the IFST. It has been inspiring to engage in the science communication world on various social media platforms. There is vast popularity in science communication from journals like the IJFST, research groups, academics and students, on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Especially during the last year, COVID restrictions have increased isolation from other researchers in our labs. Reading about others’ research on these platforms has been helpful to feel part of a community and remain inspired by other scientists. This opportunity with IJFST also inspired me to help drive the social media content of our Food Flavour Research Group on Twitter and LinkedIn (@UoNFoodFlavour). I enjoy finding creative ways to portray scientific research and information and hope to continue to do this in the future within other job opportunities.’ This issue has brought together specialists in the field who have provided examples of the utilisation of different techniques and methods currently available to target food traceability and security. ■ Pumpkin oil press cake protein as a new carrier for encapsulation Valorisation of pumpkin oil cake as a source of a new protein carrier material for encapsulation was examined in order to enrich food products. Cookies were used as a model system for addition of encapsulates at three different levels: 10%, 15% and 20%. ■ Metabolic and microbial modulation of phenolic compounds from raspberry leaf extract Raspberry leaves, by-products in raspberry production, are also a rich source of bioactive phytochemicals. The changes of phenolic compounds in raspberry leaf extract (RLE) under in vitro digestion were studied by HPLC-MS and 16S rRNA. The results showed that the phenolic compounds in RLE were relatively stable during in vitro gastric digestion, however, in the subsequent intestinal digestion and colonic fermentation, their content decreased sharply. A large amount of hydroxyphenylpropionic acid, hydroxyphenylacetic acid and urolithins were produced under the action of gut microbiota. Moreover, compared with the control, RLE significantly reduced the ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes in all volunteers, and increased the relative abundances of some beneficial bacteria, Enterococcus, Prevotella, and decreased the relative abundances of potential pathogens, Clostridium and Faecalibacterium. These findings suggest that RLE during in vitro digestion and fermentation has positive effects on gut microbiota and the potential value of maintaining intestinal health. Jing Yang et al., 2021, File Code number IJFST-2021-31116.R2 ■ Dr Parag Acharya FIFST, Senior Lecturer - University of Greenwich ■ Rhian Blake FIFST, Technical Manager - Waitrose & Partners Ltd ■ Mark Bristow FIFST, Global Technical Director - Pret a Manger ■ Stuart Campbell FIFST ■ Garry Chapman FIFST ■ Bertrand Emond FIFST, Professional Development & Culture Excellence Lead - Campden BRI ■ Ruth Fingleton FIFST, Head of Innovation - The FSC Group ■ Asha Gautam FIFST,Vice President Food & Agriculture - UK, Ireland & Spain - TUV Nord ■ Peter Headridge FIFST, Chief Executive Officer - Campden BRI ■ Dinesh Khadka FIFST, Technical Manager - DW Baking ■ Kerry Newton FIFST, Consultant ■ Christophe Noël FIFST, Innovation Director - SGS Analytics United Kingdom Ltd ■ Marcin Paluch FIFST, Company Director - MP Technical Solutions ■ Brett Rogers FIFST, Business Development Manager - Fuerst Day Lawson (FDL) ■ Jill Walker FIFST, Report Review Technologist - NSF ■ Monica White FIFST, Food Safety Consultant - Monica White Consulting ■ David Wolf FIFST, Director - Wolf Pack Food Solutions ■ Danny Bayliss MIFST, New Technology Lead - Campden BRI ■ Matthew Broadbent MIFST, Quality And Sourcing Manager - Bazooka Candy Brands ■ Dessie Brady MIFST, Food Technologist - College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise ■ Beth Clemmit MIFST, Research & Development Technologist - Quorn Foods ■ Andreia Dias MIFST, Technical and Quality Manager - Andina Ingham Ltd ■ Athanasios Dolias MIFST,Technical Manager - Tesco Stores Ltd ■ Charlotte Ford MIFST,Microbiologist - Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) ■ David Hannaford MIFST, Process Manager - Oscar Mayer Ltd ■ Catrin Hobbs MIFST, Ingredients Technical Manager - Innocent Drinks ■ Alan Johnston MIFST, Food Technologist - CAFRE (DAERA) ■ Renante Lutero MIFST, Laboratory Operations Manager - AsureQuality Motabaqah ■ Thomas Polson MIFST, Project Engineer - Willett Food Project ■ Benjamin Price MIFST, Associate Principal Scientist - RSSL ■ Maud Silvent MIFST, Senior Scientist - RSSL ■ Emily Smith MIFST, Food Safety Specialist - Harrods Ltd ■ James Spinks MIFST, Senior Scientist - RSSL ■ Philip Wadsworth MIFST, Director - Intrinsic Training Solutions ■ Elaine Wigham MIFST, Technical Consultant - Elaine Wigham Consultancy ■ Nick Willett MIFST, Operations Director - Willett Food Project ■ Sarah Wolton MIFST, Managing Director/Food Labelling Consultant - SJW Technical Ltd ■ Lilan Yan MIFST, Technical Manager - Tesco Stores Ltd ■ Stuart Campbell CSci ■ Dr Jan Mei Soon CSci, Senior Lecturer in Food Safety - University of Central Lancashire ■ Monica White CSci, Food Safety Consultant - Monica White Consulting ■ Jessica Elgar RSci, Application technologist - Sensient Flavors Ltd ■ Duarte Mancelos RSci, Bakery Technologist - Tesco Stores Ltd ■ Max Randall RSci, Technical Graduate - BerryWell Group ■ Catriona Rankine RSci, Technical Manager - Oscar Mayer Ltd Erith ■ Colin Edmondson RSciTech, Quality Assurance - Coca-Cola Ireland Ltd ■ Andrew Broomfield RFoodSM, Consultant - Resolve Safety Solutions ■ Stuart Campbell RFoodSM ■ Ching Chan RFoodSM, Industrial Microbiologist - McCormick (UK) Ltd ■ Paul Gregory RFoodSM, Technical Service Manager - Holchem Laboratories ■ Elie Haddad RFoodSM, NPI / Technical Manager - Kerry Foods ■ Nicola Johnston RFoodSM, Environmental Health Officer - Independent Environmental Health Consultant ■ Ankit Joshi RFoodSM, Senior Technical Manager - Panificio Italiano ■ Trevor Messenger RFoodSM, Food Safety Consultant ■ Marcin Paluch RFoodSM, Company Director - MP Technical Solutions ■ Laura Rippin RFoodSM, Group Auditor - Samworth Brothers ■ Jill Walker RFoodSM, Report Review Technologist - NSF ■ Elaine Wigham RFoodSM, Technical Consultant - Elaine Wigham Consultancy ■ Monica White RFoodSP, Food Safety Consultant - Monica White Consulting ■ Andrew Broomfield RPFAM, Consultant - Resolve Safety Solutions ■ Nicola Johnston RPFAM, Environmental Health Officer - Independent Environmental Health Consultant ■ Ankit Joshi RPFAM, Senior Technical Manager - Panificio Italiano ■ Trevor Messenger RPFAM, Food Safety Consultant
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