CAFPA Spring 2012 Meeting Notes
May 17th, 2012
Topic: Sprout Safety (Scroll to bottom for speaker presentations)
1:00 pm to 1:10pm Keith Lampel, CAFPA President’s Address:
- Elections of new officers for 2012 announced in January.
- Revision of CAFPA’s Constitution was approved by members in January.
- CAFPA was invited to become members into the Washington Academy of Science (WAS) and was accepted. WAS held their biannual CapSci meeting this past March 31 and April 1. CAFPA held a session on March 31 with a focus on Food Safety. George Wilson, Manan Sharma and Keith Lampel represented CAFPA and presented three talks.
- CAFPA was invited to a meeting with the local IFT branch (Washington DC Section) held on April 10, 2012. Title of meeting was “Ensuring the Safety of Imported Foods and Operating Globally”.
- CAFPA was invited by the chair Interagency Risk Assessment Consortium to plan and hold a joint meeting in the fall of 2012. The invitation expressed whether CAFPA would be interested in partnering with IRAC, help organize a public meeting on “Food safety risk assessment” and provide some of the speakers.
- Several CAFPA members were judges at the University of Maryland, Nutrition and Food Science Department Graduate Student Poster Day. CAFPA awarded two prizes to two students: First Prize-$200, Certificate, and ICMSF Volume 8 book (generously donated by Jenny Scott) went to Ph.D. candidate Wenting Ju for his work on the characterization of virulence factors in pathogenic E. coli. ; Second Prize-$200 and Certificate went to Ph.D. candidate Nancy Tong for her work on biofilms.
- Manan Sharma presented the qualifications for CAFPA’s Student Travel Award for the 2012 IAFP annual meeting to be held in Providence, Rhode Island.
1:10pm– 2:40pm
Three speakers provided interesting points on different views concerning various aspects of one food item, sprouts. Mic Burnett is the Director of Training for the nationwide chain of Jason’s Deli. He summarized the response of his company to the foodborne outbreak related to sprouts used in Jason Deli’s foods.
Joy Johanson from the Food and Drug Administration provided a broad overview of the Agency’s present rules and what may be the future regulations that would affect the sprout industry. She explained the New Sprout Safety Alliance.
Dr. Kathleen Rajkowski, United States Department of Agriculture, ARS, in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania presented her research results as it pertains to different treatments on sprouts to reduce pathogen load.
2:40pm – 3:30pm Roundtable Discussion
After the conclusion of the speakers’ presentation, a roundtable discussion was held. Much attention was given to the fact that there does not seem to be a safe, effective means to treat sprouts (or seeds) to significantly reduce the numbers of bacterial pathogens in this food commodity. Several factors need to be considered in applying an effective treatment including Cl ion concentration, organic loads and pH of the washwater, and seed type. Pathogens of concern seem to center on Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7.
3:30pm Meeting Adjourned
Our speakers have graciously agreed to provide their presentations:
Presentation by Mic Burnett (Jason’s Deli): Jasons Sprouts Story (for CAFPA)
Presentation by Joy Johanson (FDA): SproutSafetyAlliance JJohanson 5-17-12
Presentation by Dr. Kathleen Rajkowski (USDA): Rajkowskidcmeeing2012