The IFT Food Expo brings together buyers and sellers from all corners of the food science and technology world. With more than 1,000 exhibitors and 500 ingredient companies, the potential for great ideas, professional connections, new opportunities, and profitable relationships is nearly endless.

GS1 US' U Connect conference brings together manufacturers, retailers, and distributors which use the GS1 standards for product identification (the U.P.C.), bar codes and RFID tags and to share product information.

U Connect 2010 will offer educational, informational and networking sessions focused on how the GS1 stanards support product tracing and supply chain visibility. It will also feature information describing how the standards can be used to support product recall situations.

More information is available here.

The 4th Annual Congress on Food Safety & Quality will be held in Shanghai. The 4th Annual event will mainly cover updated regulations, green food conception, safety and quality focusing on the food production and the chain stores of F&B. It will be completely designed with "Comply with Latest Domestic & Global Regulations & Standards to Achieve Pro-active Guarantee in Your Food Chain"as its guideline."

For more information, please visit http://www.foodsafetycongress.com/

Sponsor Organization:JFPS China

Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and CDC's National Center of Public Health Informatics will cosponsor two Epi Info training courses at Emory University in May 2010. A basic level course will be held May 17--19, and an intermediate to advanced level course will be held May 20--22. These courses are designed for practitioners of epidemiology and computing who wish to develop software applications using Epi Info for Windows.

The basic level course covers MakeView, Analysis, Enter, Epi Map, and Epi Report on a beginner's level. The intermediate to advanced level covers importing/converting other data formats; creating relational databases; advanced check-coding and using Epi Info functions; advanced analysis, including linear regression, logistic regression, Kaplan Meier, Cox proportional hazards, complex sample frequencies, tables, and means; special topics on Epi Map and Epi Report; and issues related to the enrollees' own projects.

Tuition is charged for these courses. Additional information and application forms are available from Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health by mail (attention: Pia Valeriano, 1518 Clifton Rd. NE, Rm. 746, Atlanta, GA 30322); by fax (404-727-4590); online (http://www.sph.emory.edu/epicourses); or by e-mail (pvaleri@emory.edu).

Sustainability is rapidly becoming more than a buzzword for the produce industry. Buyers, governments and public advocates are demanding changes in the way you do business, but at the same time, companies are beginning to realize the very practical benefits of reducing input costs, recycling and reusing materials, turning waste streams into positive benefits, and more.

Join global leaders for the kick-off event for the new United Foundation Center for Global Produce Sustainability, founded through the generous support of Bayer CropScience. In this one-day post-show conference, you'll hear from retailers, produce companies, government officials, and others on the real impact that sustainability can have on your business.

This year's post-show conference builds on the successful food safety conference held last year, which attracted more than 300 industry leaders. With more trade show hours than last year compressed into a packed two-day format, it's easy to extend your post-show learning curve without spending a week away from home. To attend this post-show conference, you must register for the All Access Pass or the Global Conference on Produce Sustainability.

More information here.

Contact info@ofpa.on.ca or visit www.ofpa.on.ca.
Event Website: http://www.ofpa.on.ca

The 12th Annual Food Safety Summit, the largest and most established food safety and defense exposition in North America on food safety, quality assurance and food security will be held Monday, April 12 through Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at the Washington DC Convention Center. The Summit is owned and operated by BNP Media, the world's largest media producer for the food, beverage and packaging industries. For more information on attending or exhibiting, visit www.foodsafetysummit.com or call 847-405-4000.

Basic/Advanced HACCP and ISO22000 trainings within one Week:

April 12-13, 2010 = Basic HACCP
April 13-14, 2010 = Advanced HACCP
April 15-16, 2010 = ISO22000

For more information, you may click on the following website.
http://foodhaccp.com/2010haccp/

The Conference for Food Protection is a non-profit organization that originated in 1971. The structure of the Conference provides a representative and equitable partnership among regulators, industry, academia, professional organizations and consumers to identify problems, formulate recommendations, and develop and implement practices that ensure food safety. New rapidly-developing food technologies and marketing innovations challenge all groups involved in food production and monitoring to work together to enhance the quality of our food supply. The Conference for Food Protection meets at least biennially to provide that forum.

More information here.

Upper Midwest Dairy Industry Association with Iowa Association for Food Protection, Spring Meetings, April 7 at Holiday Inn South in Rochester, MN, and April 8 at Holiday Inn in Alexandria, MN. Contact Dale Heintz at 507.951.0756 or daheintz@landolakes.com.

The Missouri Milk, Food, and Environmental Health Association is sponsoring its Annual Educational Conference, which will be held in Columbia, MO, March 31 - April 2, 2010. For more information, contact Steve Sikes, email: sikess@lpha.mopublic.org.

The Federal Government and the food industry are pursuing major new efforts to reduce foodborne illness that include science-based preventive controls in food production and processing. As recommended by the President's Food Safety Working Group, one element of the Federal Government's food-safety initiatives includes regularly assessing performance metrics for measuring progress in reducing foodborne illness. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are collaborating to address the methodological and data challenges involved in the development of feasible and effective food-safety metrics.

The agencies will engage the food-safety expert and stakeholder communities to discuss this subject through a series of public workshops. The first workshop, which will be held March 30, 2010, in Washington, D.C., is called Measuring Progress on Food Safety: Current Status and Future Directions.

The purpose of the workshop is to discuss current and potential measurements for assessing progress in food safety and to provide workshop participants an opportunity to learn about metrics and to consider and suggest metrics for assessing the effects that policies and interventions have on foodborne illness. FDA and FSIS base decisions about policies and other interventions related to food safety, in part, on CDC's analyses of data on foodborne illness.

The workshop will focus on the current status and challenges involved in measuring foodborne illness and trends over time, including incidence and trends in the overall burden of foodborne illness and illnesses associated with specific foodborne pathogens and specific pathogens that affect specific foods. The workshop will include a discussion of other measures that are, or could be, used to measure food-safety progress that cannot be directly linked to health outcomes.

    •    Pre-registration deadline: March 24, 2010
    •    For additional information and to register Online, go to: http://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/WorkshopsMeetingsConferences/ucm201102.htm

Advancements in Food Safety Education:  Trends, Tools, and Technologies

Presented by USDA and NSF

Visit here for more information

The Michigan Environmental Health Association's 2010 Annual Educational Conference will be held in Bay City, MI. March 23-25, 2010.  For more information, contact Nancy Atwood, email: natwood@hline.org.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Office of Food Safety announced a public meeting to provide information and receive comments on agenda items and draft U.S. positions that will be discussed at the 26th Session of the Codex Committee on General Principles (CCGP), to be held in Paris, France, April 12 - 16, 2010.

The public meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 23, 2010, from 1:30 to 4 p.m., in Room 107-A, USDA, Jamie L. Whitten Building, 1200 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC. To participate through teleconference, dial (866) 692-3158, and enter the passcode 5986642. A complete agenda and documents relating to the 26th Session of CCGP will be available on the Codex Alimentarius Web site at http://www.codexalimentarius.net/current.jsp?lang=en.

CCGP was established to deal with Codex rules and procedures--including the establishment of principles which define the purpose and scope of Codex and the nature of Codex standards--as well as the development of mechanisms to address any economic impact statements. The Committee is hosted by France. Among the agenda items for the 26th session of CCGP is the Draft Revised Code of Ethics for International Trade in Foods. 

Sponsor Organization: IFPTI/University of Tennessee,
Center for Agriculture & Food Security Preparedness

Important information: All costs, including travel will be reinbursed by IFPTI

Link to register: http://www.ifpti.org/Food_Vulnerability_Assessment.cfm 

On March 20 experts in infectious diseases and on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in animals will convene a daylong symposium at The Ohio State University to explore the human and animal health threats posed by this emerging health problem. Health workers are aware that MRSA can be transferred from person to person; they might be less aware of the risks posed to animals by human transmission, and they might not know that animals can transfer the pathogen to humans.

Experts at the symposium will present a description of this pathogen and of other methicillin-resistant Staphylococci, as well as offer a summary of their epidemiology and impact on humans and animals. The symposium is targeted to both human health professionals and animal health professionals. This "One Health, One Medicine" approach to studying these pathogens offers a broader understanding of the impact of the diseases in the human health setting, as well as veterinary setting.

The two featured keynote speakers are Scott Weese, DVM, DVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, who is recognized internationally for his work on MRSA in animals, and Paul Morley, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, an infectious diseases control expert. Weese will provide a worldwide MRSA update; Morley will describe handling MRSA cases to decrease the risk of diseases transmission in veterinary settings.

Registration for the symposium is available at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine Office of Veterinary Continuing Education. Online registration requires establishing a log-in name and password. Cost for the full-day meeting is $60 ($35 for students). Registration can also be mailed or faxed. A downloadable PDF of a brochure is also available. For more information and links to both methods of registration, please visit the Office of Veterinary Continuing Education Web site.

This year's expanded program focuses on other pathogens as well as E. coli. Featured speakers include Dr. James Marsden, NAMP Senior Science Advisor and Regent's Distinguished Professor at Kansas State University; Dr. Dennis Burson, Professor Meat Extension and Food Safety Specialist, University of Nebraska; and Bobby Palesano, Vice President of Technical Services, International HACCP Alliance

Integrated Food Safety Traceability Systems - traceability capabilities, costs and trends.

Sponsor Organization:  ComplianceOnline.   

More information is available here.

Save the Date! The 2010 IEHA Annual Education Conference, "The Future of Environmental Health" is March 17-19, at Boise State University, Student Union Building. Nelson Fabian, executive director for the National Environmental Health Association, will be the keynote speaker on Wednesday morning.

Register here.


A Brief Note from the President-Elect

Just a few weeks until our spring conference, March 17-19 at the BSU Student Union Building. We're excited to have Nelson Fabian, executive Director of NEHA, deliver our keynote address on Wednesday morning. We have concurrent sessions planned, which encompass onsite wasterwater, food safety and protection, children's environmental health issues, solid waste, environmental health research, and a general topics session sovering everything from mercury and fish adviories to the new lead rule, brownfields, and more! For those traveling in from outside the Boise area, we have once again reserved a block of rooms at the Safari Inn. The conference is a great way to pick up some CEUs towards your REHS credential--and to network with colleagues from around the state.