2011 Food Safety Summit Adds to Conference Program

The Food Safety Summit announced a few changes to the educational program, including the addition of a fourth workshop focused on HACCP, the approval on continuing education credits from the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) and the addition of Robert Corrigan as a prominent speaker in the newly titled Pest Management session. The 13th annual Food Safety Summit will take place April 19-21 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC. 
 
“Our educational advisory committee is on the front lines every day in the fight for food safety, and are always looking for the best ways to enhance the program for our attendees,” said Emily Patten, director of tradeshows and conferences for BNP Media, producers of the Food Safety Summit. “Having prominent speakers like Robert Corrigan and sessions on HACCP makes our program that much stronger and more worthwhile. We are also pleased to announce that the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) has approved 23.25 contact hours of continuing education credit for classes taken at The Food Safety Summit.”
 
A well-known name in the industry, Bobby Corrigan, Industrial Pest Management Specialist, RMC Pest Management Consulting from Richmond, Ind. will lead the session, The New Thinking in Pest Management for Food Safety Systems. Corrigan is a part-time consultant to the pest management and food industry and also serves as a part-time scientist for the City of New York working on the war on rats. Prior to becoming a consultant, Corrigan was a staff member of Purdue University’s Department of Entomology for 16 years where he worked as a teacher and staff specialist in the Center for Urban Pest Management. Corrigan is the author and/or co-author of three textbooks on pest management, and has also published over 150 technical articles for a variety of magazines and Universities fact sheets. Corrigan was inducted into the Pest Management Hall of Fame in 2008.
 
In the session, Corrigan will address the heightened emphasis in food safety as a result of the Food Safety Enhancement Act as well as the significant outbreaks of foodborne illness around the United States during the past several years. While each outbreak has been unique in profile, vermin-related causes and issues are usually an important part of the early considerations in diagnosing what may have gone wrong. Thus, pest management as both a science and as a service to the food industry continues to increase in importance. This session addresses the critical need for pest management in food safety systems and emphasizes that the old model of a pest technician merely checking evenly-spaced mouse traps or “spraying” around the exterior walls to keep pests under control can no longer suffice in meeting the high demands of protecting food during production, distribution and onto “for sale” at the retail level.
 
Another enhancement to the program is the addition of a fourth workshop on Tuesday afternoon titled: HACCP is NOT a 4-Letter Word led by Donna Schaffner, director of food safety, quality assurance and training, Rutgers Food Innovation Center. Despite being touted as the cure-all for food safety issues by some government officials, HACCP is often cursed by food processors as difficult to understand and impossible to actually “do.” This session gives practical real-life examples of what HACCP is and is not capable of doing for a food processing business. Since “death is in the details” quite literally, when it comes to food safety, this session outlines components of a successful HACCP program and allows participants to ask questions for advice on creating or updating a HACCP plan for their specific products.
 
Other conference sessions on Wednesday and Thursday will feature government issues including Food Regulations: What New Mandates Face the Food Industry in 2011 and Beyond; The FDA Food Code: Content, Adoption and Implementation to manufacturing issues including Traceability, Managing Allergens and Food Defense to pressing issues including Food Safety Media Training and Working with Public Health Officials.