DO YOU KNOW YOUR CANNELLONI FROM YOUR CANNELLINI AND YOUR MOCHA FROM YOUR MATCHA? GIVE THIS ISSUE’S FOOD QUIZ A TRY AND YOU COULD BE IN WITH THE CHANCE OF WINNING A FANTASTIC PRIZE! 

Question 1: Which nut is used to make marzipan? 

Question 2: Which ‘F’ is a flat savoury Italian bread? 

Question 3: What is unusual about the tomato-based soup, gazpacho? 

Question 4: Which type of beans are used to make baked beans? 

Question 5: Which flower does the spice saffron come from? 

Question 6: What is the main flavour of aioli? 

Question 7: What is couscous made from? 

Question 8: What is tripe? 

Question 9: Americans call this vegetable an eggplant, but what is it known as in Ireland/UK? 

Question 10: Which bread ingredient causes it to rise? 

safefood is delighted to offer one lucky quiz winner a fantastic food hamper (similar to pictured). 

To enter: Simply complete the quiz above and send your answers to knowledgenetwork@safefood.eu before 7th August 2020. This competition is open to Knowledge Network members on the island of Ireland only. 

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER OF OUR LAST COMPETITION, GILLIAN MADIGAN, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND THE MARINE, BACKWESTON CAMPUS, CELBRIDGE, CO. KILDARE

FOOD LABELLING AND CONSUMER TRUST SEMINAR

A safefood seminar on “Food Labelling and Consumer Trust” was held in partnership with The Institute for Global Food Security, Queen’s University Belfast on 5th December 2019. The seminar was designed for those working in the food industry, regulatory agencies and public health. Topics up for discussion on the day included consumer trends and labelling requirements; the legal aspects of food labelling; and new food processing technologies. There were 70 attendees at the event, with great interaction and questions after each speaker.

ALLERGEN MASTERCLASS 

Following a successful series of allergen masterclasses in Northern Ireland in recent years, the programme was rolled out across the Republic of Ireland. The masterclasses were run in partnership with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the HSE and were delivered to institutes of technology and colleges of further and higher education throughout the Republic. To date over five hundred students and staff from different catering and hospitality, food science, and product development courses have availed of the classes. 

A chance to Learn

Chief Medical Scientist Niamh Phillips at the Public Health Microbiology Laboratory in St. Finbarr’s Hospital Cork explains how the safefood Knowledge Network has benefited her work. 

Dubliner in a Niamh Phillips has always had a keen interest science and biology. This saw her complete Science Degree in Trinity College Dublin, specialising in microbiology. While working in the Public Health Laboratory in Dublin, she went on to obtain an MSc in Molecular Pathology in 2005, in which she developed and validated a multiplex PCR for the detection and sub-typing of virulence genes in Verocytoxigenic E.coli. In 2006 Niamh moved to Cork to a position in the Public Health Microbiology Laboratory in St. Finbarr’s Hospital. She has held the position of Chief Medical Scientist there since 2011. It’s a role she clearly enjoys in which no two days are the same. 

Niamh’s main focus is to keep all the sections of the laboratory running smoothly, which allows staff to focus on their work. “Our laboratory is one of nine HSE food safety laboratories, designated as official control laboratories under EU Regulation 625/2017. The laboratory is accredited to ISO17025, and my role as technical manager means that I could be developing sampling plans with service users, managing staff rotas, working with the quality manager on audits, or troubleshooting testing issues with technical staff,” she explains. It’s a busy role but Niamh relishes the diversity and the opportunity to keep learning. One of her favourite aspects of her job is the interaction with staff and service users. ”It is fantastically rewarding to engage with our service users to establish their requirements, and then to work with our laboratory team to meet those requirements,” she says. “Many of our service developments require expertise and skills in method validation, IT system administration, quality systems, and change management, and it is very fulfilling to see the team come together and use those skills to improve the service.” It is, however, not without its challenges and requires Niamh to be focused on both organisation and time management. “No sooner have you made a plan to address an issue, something else pops up that requires immediate attention. An ability to multi- task and prioritise activities is a must for this role.”

As someone who loves a challenge and is keen to learn, it’s no surprise that Niamh is a fan of the safefood Knowledge Network and has utilised it in her career. “The safefood Knowledge Network is a fantastic resource for anybody working in a food testing laboratory, indeed for any professional working in the area of food safety,” she says. The network offers a Food Safety Skills fund which gives members the chance to apply for funding to visit other laboratories and attend conferences. Niamh took up this opportunity a number of years ago and the experience was, she says, extremely valuable. “I was funded through the programme to visit the Public Health Laboratory in Belfast for a week. The opportunity to observe the workflows, to learn about the equipment used, and to meet and exchange views with the staff in another Public Health Laboratory was invaluable and is something I still tap into every now and then.” 

The Knowledge Network is perhaps best known for bringing local, national and international experts together to share their expertise with members. As Niamh explains, these talks and events have often provided valuable information and guidance on topics relevant to the laboratory and its staff. “Recently, a number of our laboratory staff attended a training session on the transition to ISO17025:2017 hosted by the Knowledge Network,” she explains. “The workshop was invaluable in giving us a better understanding of the new standard and the changes within it.”

The Network has also helped the laboratory in its work too and, as Niamh explains, the information obtained at these conferences and events is having a real impact on the work Niamh and her colleagues do. “Having attended the safefood Network Conference on Molecular Methods in 2016, we were equipped with the relevant information to select and verify a commercial PCR kit for the detection of salmonella in foods and environmental swabs. We were awarded accreditation for the method in 2019, and will shortly be introducing it as a negative screening test.

This will significantly increase the sensitivity of our method, reduce our hands-on time, and provide a shorter time-to-result.” It’s clear that there is a great working relationship between the laboratory and safefood and this is enabling staff to  upskill and expand their knowledge. “Over the years, safefood has always engaged with us to establish what the emerging areas of interest are for us, and how our service would benefit most from their support,” Niamh says. The fact that safefood workshops are often offered in locations across the island (Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Galway) is also a benefit as it means they are often easier to attend. “It can be challenging to source funding for external training in these times of budgetary constraints, and we are extremely grateful for safefood’s support in up-skilling our staff. There is a wealth of information and knowledge out there, and the Knowledge Network provides the perfect hub to tap into that expertise.” 

About Niamh
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Balbriggan, a seaside town in north Co. Dublin
Is there a book that has inspired you? I tend to go for light fiction as it helps me to unwind at the end of a busy day – I recently read ‘A Man called Ove’ by Frederik Backman which I thoroughly enjoyed.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Living in East Cork, I’m very fortunate to have so many lovely amenities on my doorstep. When
time (and weather) permits, I love to have some quality time with my family walking on Garryvoe
beach, or visiting the arboretum or wildlife park in Fota.

Should insects be on the menu?

In some parts of the world edible insects are a common dish. Should those of us in the west be considering them as a food source too, asks journalist David Burrows.

n the west, insects are not part of our traditional diet. The very thought of eating a mealworm or a cricket is, to many of us, disgusting. “Last week in Malaysia I ate the larvae of black soldier fly as a snack – I’m not expecting to give up potato crisps any time soon,” said Professor Peter Gregory, chair of the UK’s advisory committee on novel foods and processes, at January’s Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum. Gregory might not be a converted insect eater, but there is an argument that more of us need to overcome our neophobia in order to tame climate change and put the brakes on biodiversity loss.

The argument goes like this. Insects are a far more sustainable protein source than traditional meat, using less land, less water and generating fewer greenhouse gases. They could also enhance the circular economy, through for example using by-products from the food sector as feed. “Insects are the apex of the recycling world. All we are trying to do is mimic that,” said Keiran Whitaker, CEO and founder of Entocycle, the UK’s first insect production facility, in an interview with The Grocer. Their feed conversion efficiency statistics are also impressive, being respectively two, four and 12 times as efficient as poultry, pigs and cattle in converting what they eat into ‘meat’. As the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation put it in its 2013 book, Edible Insects: future prospects for food and feed security, “insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint”. 

Research into the nutritional composition of edible insects offers further promise. For example, the crickets and mealworms that are the focus of much attention in Europe have a fresh weight protein content of between 19% and 22% – which is comparable to conventional meat. 

Their fatty acid profile – which is more polyunsaturated – has also been shown to be proportionate to that of fish and poultry. There is even some evidence emerging of the probiotic benefits of some insects: eating cricket powder can support the growth of probiotic bacteria, for example. 

With all this in mind – and given the food security challenges facing the world as population grows and resources run out – it’s not surprising insects have been thrust onto the table as a viable food group. “I started looking at this 20 years ago and nobody was aware you could eat insects – and now everybody knows about it,” explains Professor Arnold van Huis, an expert on the topic from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and chief editor of the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed. Van Huis also coedited the FAO book, which arguably spawned interest in this novel foodstuff. “It’s still niche [but] you never know how it will take off,” he adds. 

Global Market Insight forecasts that the European edible insects market – led by Germany and France – will grow 43% between 2018 and 2024. Meanwhile, Meticulous Research says the global market will reach $7.96 billion by 2030, with almost 733,000 tonnes harvested. The fastest growth will be in protein bars and shakes. “We’re starting pretty much from scratch but there’s plenty of potential,” says Rich Ford from Sherlock Studio, a design agency that recently repositioned Crunchy Critters, the longest established edible insects brand in the UK. As Ford notes, insects have been part of the food chain for some time but are often hidden – think cochineal, a food dye made from cochineal bugs that is often labelled E120. Key to future market growth will be to make any bug content blatantly obvious, he says. 

The idea that insects could become mainstream has prompted a rethink of European rules. It was back in 1997 that the EU introduced regulation number 258/97, which concerned novel foods and novel food ingredients. However, the rules weren’t particularly clear when it came to insects (this was 1997 don’t forget). The text mentioned food ingredients “isolated from animals” but when companies started looking at selling whole insects or ingredients made from them (like flour) there was confusion. “Some countries [like France, Spain and Sweden] took the stance that whole insects were novel foods and therefore needed approval, whilst others [including the UK] took a more relaxed approach,” explains Nicolas Carbonnelle, head of the food and beverage practice at international law firm Bird & Bird. Authorisation was also a headache: the process took ages (prompting several French manufacturers to look at the UK market when their domestic one became more restrictive). 

But in January 2018 a reformed and recast novel food regulation (2015/2283) came into force. This “improves conditions so that food businesses can easily bring new and innovative foods to the EU market, while maintaining a high level of food safety for European consumers”, said the European Commission. The first notable change was that insects were mentioned explicitly. “... on the basis of scientific and technological developments that have occurred since 1997, it is appropriate to review, clarify and update the categories of food which constitute novel foods. Those categories should cover whole insects and their parts.” So they now require approval from the European Commission, which brings us to the second change: the centralisation of the authorisation process. Once approved, the novel foods are added to a Union list. What’s more, the process is generic, so once a food makes the list any business can sell it (in accordance with the conditions of use, labelling requirements and so on).

So, which insects are on the list? Well, as of December 2019, none. Yet. Twenty applications have been submitted to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for insects including house crickets, black soldier flies and mealworms. According to IPIFF, the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed, 11 have passed the validity check but the rest are incomplete. However, of the 11 only three have so far fulfilled the ‘completeness/ suitability check’ and are due to be assessed by the authority. “Demonstrating that something new is completely safe is a tricky exercise,” Carbonnelle notes. “But you have to get this right, otherwise it could kill the sector before it’s started.” 

Insects have of course been eaten in other parts of the world for centuries, but the difference here is the ambition to intensify and scale the process. “We know how to produce 100 tonnes but we’re not sure how to do 100,000,” says Vincent Doumeizel, head of the food programme at Lloyd’s Register Foundation. There is a lot we don’t know and there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge. As EFSA noted in its 2015 risk profile on production and consumption of insects for food and feed, “there are no systematically collected data on animal and human consumption of insects”. Particular attention needs to be paid to the specific production methods, the substrate used (for feeding the insects), the stage of harvest, the insect species and developmental stage, EFSA noted. 

There was another significant observation in EFSA’s summary: “When currently allowed feed materials are used as substrate to feed insects, the possible occurrence of microbiological hazards is expected to be comparable to their occurrence in other non- processed sources of protein of animal origin.” This proved to be the launch-pad for a revision of the feed ban rules (which hark back to the BSE crisis). By December 2016, the European Commission had voted to open the aquaculture feed market for insect-derived protein from July 2017. It’s still early days but there is “huge interest”, says Julie Hesketh-Laird, chief executive at the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation. 

Now the hope is that authorisation for pig and poultry feed will follow. Producers are keen to access the new feed, which could help replace some of the soya in livestock diets. “We are a long way off commercial viability,” said Máire Burnett, technical director at the British Poultry Council at January’s ‘Pigs and poultry – optimising production’ event near Edinburgh, Scotland, organised by Moredun Research Institute (MRI). “[Due to the regulations], we can’t even do small trials yet [but] we are hoping to see some changes this year.” 

What farmed insects are fed on tends to be a closely guarded secret. Feed them on the same things that livestock eat and any hazards will be comparable to other animal proteins, says EFSA. However, the race is on to find the perfect ‘waste’ feed, which will not only improve the economics of the production systems but also reduce its environmental impacts. This is an opportunity to put the circular economy in practice, provided the food safety box can be ticked.

EFSA’s first decisions are expected sometime this year. For the time being, the insects available to buy in shops or at restaurants fall into two categories: either they are illegal – “it happens more often than you might think,” says Caroline Commandeur, legal consultant at the law firm Keller and Heckman – or they are benefitting from the transitional measures in the novel food regulation. This allowed whole insects of a specific species (or a product thereof) to be placed on some national markets, provided: the relevant authority considered them not covered by the previous novel food regulation; they were legally placed on this national market before 1 January 2018; and on the condition that an application for authorisation under the new regulations was submitted before 1 January 2019. There is also legislation on food hygiene and food information to consumers for example that “is likely to ensure the compliance and the safety of these products during the transition period”, according to IPIFF. 

Those rearing and selling insects are out to prove their products are both safe and sustainable (some research has showed crickets fed poultry feed offered “little improvement in protein conversion efficiency”, which is a key metric in determining the ecological footprint of grain-based livestock protein). Questions on welfare are also likely to crop up: Compassion in World Farming has found some evidence that insects are sentient, but until we know more they should be “given the benefit of the doubt”. Another outstanding issue relates to allergenicity, with research having shown that those allergic to shrimp are “highly likely to react to mealworms in the same way”. Currently, the EU’s allergen list is a closed loop but as understanding evolves and insects creep into more products the list could be extended.

As Van Huis notes, this is a sector in its infancy with lots to learn on everything from genetics to feed. “A lot of things have to be done before they are competitive [with other proteins],” he says. The glare of those ‘obsidian eyes’ will be hard to shake but there is little doubt edible insects are in the spotlight. 

About David

David is a freelance specialising in sustainability  and food/retail.  A graduate in agricultural sciences and a post graduate periodical Journalism - David is currently freelance writer, editor and researcher for serveral food business publications including Poultry Business, Farmers Guardian and Retail Week.

A Helping Hand

Peter Simpson Head of Food Technology at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise in Co Tyrone on providing vital support to the agri-food industry - and innovations in healthy food.

A school visit to what is now his current workplace made a young Peter Simpson think about combining his interests in science and food for the first time. After completing a BSc (Hons) in Food Science at Belfast Queens University he joined the pork and bacon industry, working in roles focused on food safety, HACCP and quality systems. He moved to what was then known as Loughry College to a role as Food Technologist which saw him providing advice to all sectors on a range of technical issues. Later, Peter managed the Food Business Incubation Centre, then the Further Education programmes in food, sending new graduates out into key jobs within the local food industry. 

Today, Peter is Head of Food Technology at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), an integral part of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). “My specific role is to provide support to the agri-food industry, and in particular those people who are employed in food processing,” he explains. “This means working with over 250 food, drink and packaging busineses a year, helping these businesses adopt the latest technologies through knowledge transfer.” 

Part of Peter’s remit involves implementing CAFRE’s plan to develop partnerships with international organisations and educational establishments to strengthen knowledge transfer provision and underpin economic growth. Peter and the team work on a large number of technical projects per year and they also train over 1,800 people annually on accredited, mandatory, or company-specific courses. “I have a fantastic team of 30 food technologists and food technology technicians, all of whom have extensive experience.  

We are also closely connected to the further and higher education provision at the Loughry Campus and work with our education colleagues to support the full-time and part-time courses for industry entrants.” 

It is a varied and interesting role which brings together all sorts of sections of the wider industry, something that Peter relishes. He and his team also love the challenge of pushing the boundaries of what can be done with food. “At the moment one of the key areas of work is helping businesses reformulate products to make them healthier,” he says. “Reducing salt and/or sugar and/or fat in food products is quite a challenge! Not only can reformulation drastically affect taste it can also have implications for cost, labelling and shelf-life. Thankfully within my team we have the breadth of expertise to address these issues. A recent project that we carried with the Food Standards Agency and the Northern Ireland bakery sector showed that nothing is impossible and even highly calorific goods such as scones can be made healthier.” 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, sustainability has also become a significant focus for the team’s work. “Helping businesses address plastics issues and reduce waste is a priority,” Peter explains. “Atp Loughry we have a team of packaging specialists which provides advice on topics including recyclable barrier films, compostable materials and augmented labelling. These are areas that every sector is interested in. There is also considerable interest in plant proteins. We are happy to work on projects like this providing the raw materials are both local and sustainable.” 

CAFRE is also a hugely valuable resource for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). “Our role is to ‘help them to help themselves’ so we have a number of intervention strategies,” Peter says. Having world-class facilities at their disposal means Peter and his colleagues can take a small food business along what he calls the innovation pathway. Amenities such as a food innovation centre, a food technology centre and a food business incubation centre are joined by a monthly Invest NI pop-up business library offering advice to would-be entrepreneurs. In short, there is a huge amount of help available and, as Peter says, the good news is that there are a number of funding streams, such as Invest NI Innovation vouchers, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) and Intertrade Ireland Fusion that small businesses can access. For more information go to www.cafre.ac.uk. 

About Peter
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Magherafelt, Co Derry and now live quite near there, between the beautiful Sperrin Mountains and Lough Neagh.
Do you cook? What are you favourite foods?
I enjoy cooking but don’t expect to see me on MasterChef any time soon! I like to test my attempts at Indian and Italian cooking out on my family.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I have two young children so spare time is scarce. If I get a chance, motorcycling and music are my favourite way of spending some ‘me time’.

Did you know that December is the busiest month of the year on the safefood website?

Last year, more than 100,000 people visited safefood.eu between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Some of the most popular searches on our website include: how to defrost a turkey; where to store it; how long to cook it; and how to know when it's properly cooked. For 2019, we'll be on hand to answer all those food safety questions and take the stress out of cooking Christmas dinner - it's the meal of the year that people really want to get right. Our website has lots of practical advice and tools including a turkey cooking-time calculator; helpful how-to videos and tasty Christmas recipes. And for Christmas planning and advice, our Chefbot will be available throughout December on Facebook messenger; simply search @safefood.eu

Congratulations to the winner of our last competition, Brenda Lennon, Public Analyst's Lab, Galway.

The answer to the previous crossword was HERRING.

safefood is delighted to offer one lucky crossword winner a luxury hamper of gourmet food from Arcadia Delicatessen
in Belfast.

Simply find the hidden word in the crossword, made up from the letters highlighted, and send the answer to knowledgenetwork@safefood.eu before 1st February 2020.

This competition is open to Knowledge Network Members on the island of Ireland only.

ACROSS

1   Small edible crustaceans (7)
5   Saturated solution of sugar boiled to prevent fermentation (5)
8   In the US, the eggplant (9)
9   Tasty mixture or liquid into which bite-sized foods are immersed
(3)
10   Meatballs from south Asia (5)
12   Mashed potato-topped minced beef pie (7)
13   Sweet white wine from the Bordeaux region (6)
14   Small bits or morsels of food (6)
17   In France with cheese, the croque-monsieur (7)
19   Gripping and lifting instrument used in kitchens to extract
awkward items from pots, pans, etc (5)
21   Boiled, fried, poached, scrambled, etc, etc... (3)
22   Small sausage in a narrow casing (9)
24   Kitchen waste used to feed farm animals (5)
25   French white wine of the German border valleys (7)

DOWN

1   Cut of meat (pork, beef or lamb) from the lower part of the leg
(5)
2   Cut of meat (pork or beef) on the bone (3)
3   Sweet dark wine from Sicily (7)
4   Turning on-and-off device on electric food appliances (6)
5   Slowly cook food to obtain the optimum amount of juices (5)
6   Variant of the fish from Pacific waters known as sockeye (3,6)
7   Chillies, capsicum and condiments (7)
11   Italian word for cheese (9)
13   Angostura, for one (7)
15   Fixed portions of food that are allotted, especially in times of
scarcity (7)
16   Chardonnay would fit this description of a (dry) white wine (6)
18   Tortillas rolled to cup around a filling (5)
20   Italian white wine from the Venice area (5)
23   French word for garlic (3)

Following the successful series of allergen masterclasses for staff and students in the colleges of further and higher education in Northern Ireland in 2018, the programme is being rolled out to the catering & hospitality students and staff in the different institutes of technology and vocational colleges in the Republic of Ireland.  The inaugural masterclass took place on the 20^th September in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology Renmore campus. Presentations were given by James McIntosh of safefood, Pat O’Mahony from FSAI an7d Helen Carney from the HSE-Environmental health. Upwards of 130 staff and students from at least four courses attended and the feedback was positive. Further masterclasses are planned for the rest of 2019 and early 2020 including Cork and Kinsale in October and Sligo in November.

During 2019, safefood hosted six food safety workshops throughout the island of Ireland, in partnership with Teagasc.  The aim of these workshops was to help small and medium-sized food businesses and provide practical advice on good food safety practices. Workshops were attended by participants representing 98 food businesses.  Feedback was overwhelmingly positive and attendees provided some great comments and ideas which will influence new workshops now being planned for 2020.

Speakers at the Food Safety Workshop Series 2019 from Left: Dr James McIntosh (safefood), Mr Eddie O’Neill (Teagasc) and Dr Kieran Jordan (Jordan Consulting)

safefood hosted the seminar Food Safety Risks And Challenges In The Produce Sector on the 5^th November 2019 in Dublin.  The event had covered a range of microbiological topics in the area with international and national speakers presenting their latest work in the area.  The event was very successful with over 65 people in attendance and plenty of interesting presentations and discussions throughout the day.

Speakers at the Food Safety Risks And Challenges In The Produce Sector Seminar. From Left: Aidan O’ Donnell (DAFM), Dr Peter Feng (Formerly US FDA), Dr Mary Lenahan (FSAI), Dr Rachel Chalmers (Public Health Wales), Dr Ana Allende (EFSA), Martin D’Agostino (Campden BRI Group) Dr Nicolae Corcionivoschi (AFBI), Dr Achim Schmalenberger (UL) and Dr Kaye Burgess (Teagasc)

safefood and the Institute for Global Food Security in Queen’s University Belfast hosted a one-day conference that focused on the analysis of food allergens, their management in the supply chain and the regulation and enforcement of food law on allergens. The conference entitled Food Allergy, Human, Analytical & Regulatory Implications, was held at Riddel Hall, Queen’s University Belfast on 21^st October and was attended by over 100 Environmental Health Officers, food industry personnel and MSc students.            

Speakers at the Food Allergy – Human, Analytical and Regulatory Implications conference from left: Dr Michael Dillon, QUB; Carol Whyte, Moy Park; Dr James McIntosh, safefood; Christine McAnally, QUB; Michael Bell, NIFDA; Dr Michael Walker, LGC; Adrian Rogers, Romer Labs UK; Lynn Patterson, LP Associates; Dr Hazel Gowland, Allergy Action UK; Dr Helen Dodds, CIEH; Julie Barrett, Julie Barratt Legal Training; Helen Morrissey, Belfast City Council; Gary McFarlane, Director CIEH NI; Sharon Gilmore, Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland.

Dr James McIntosh (safefood) opening the Food Allergy – Human, Analytical and Regulatory Implications Conference in Belfast

We talk to Stella Graham from the award-winning Foodovation Centre on how it helps small businesses take that next step to success.

The Foodovation Centre at North West Regional College in Derry-Londonderry is an award-winning centre of excellence for food development and technology. It helps small businesses with product development and upskills them so they have the knowledge and skills to take their business to the next level.

Foodovation has clients in all sectors of the food industry including meat, poultry, fish, dairy, bakery, sauces, meals and drinks. The centre opened in November 2016 following a £500K investment by the college, which had been offering hands-on advice and support to new businesses for a number of years. Foodovation Centre Manager Stella Graham has worked in the food industry for over 10 years, specifically in product development across the bakery, dairy and meat sectors. She has put her knowledge of the product development process to good use in her role within Foodovation, which she has held for the past year.

Stella supports entrepreneurs and businesses with turning their ideas and recipes into market viable products. “Foodovation is all about ‘realising business ambitions in food and drink’ and my role varies daily from helping a local chef turn their recipe into a shelf-ready product, to helping someone with a great idea or hobby to develop their product so they can sell at local food markets,” she explains. “As a team we offer a ‘hands on’ approach to product development covering everything from recipe development and standardisation to detailed research and testing for food and drink companies. It is very busy as so many small companies have so many great ideas. It is a delight to see these companies and people grow, through acquiring new skills and developing their business opportunities.”

The centre’s state-of-the-art facility is fully equipped with everything an entrepreneur or business could need to upscale production, including a kitchen studio and development kitchen. Clients are also assisted with technical knowledge and skills transfer so that they can develop their current product and more in the future too. “We are able to assist businesses leverage support from the Department for the Economy (DfE), such as InnovateUs and Skills Focus, to get the skills needed to sustain and grow their business by innovation and skills development. We also help them to tap into Invest NI funding such as Innovation Vouchers,” Stella explains.  “We like to think of the Foodovation Centre as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for food and drink product development. Our aim is to ‘transform ideas into market ready products’.”

As Stella explains, many producers visit the Foodovation Centre with an idea but don’t entirely know how to progress to the next stage. The centre helps to take that nugget of an idea and develop it into a viable plan in practical ways – and producers pick up valuable knowledge and skills at the same time. “So many producers are delighted that the support is available as food and drink product development is a ‘minefield’ to approach on your own. Through using the Foodovation Centre, and the programmes such as Innovate Us and Innovation Vouchers, they develop their skills as well as developing great products.” A centre such as this can also provide the important benefit of bringing likeminded people together. Producers and businesspeople who are experiencing the same things can meet others who are in the same boat and build a strong network. It’s an important support, both personally and professionally, at what can be a very stressful time.

As Stella points out, clients of the Foodovation Centre face a number of challenges on a day-to-day basis and the centre provides the practical support that helps to smooth the path ahead. “A small or start up business is a large undertaking. The clients’ energy and enthusiasm usually means they embrace the challenges and, with our help and support, find their way around these.” Common challenges include a lack of space to develop products, lack of time to commit to new product development, lack of skills on how to take their products to the next level, as well as financial challenges. However with great support, such as that of the Foodovation centre the results, Stella says, can be fantastic. “Their entrepreneurial spirit is infectious and there is a real sense of achievement when the project is delivered both for the client and for ourselves.”

In the three years it has been active, demand for support from the Foodovation Centre has grown significantly – and the team is constantly adapting to make sure it fits the needs of both its client and the ever-changing market. “The Foodovation team has doubled in size and the number of local businesses supported has increased significantly,” Stella notes, adding, “The icing on the cake is that many of these  businesses are still innovating and growing. They really appreciate the support they received from the Foodovation Centre to help them on their journey, and keep in touch with us as their businesses grow.”

ABOUT STELLA GRAHAM

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Randalstown, a small town outside Antrim best known for Shane’s Castle.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I am a keen ‘foodie’ and love eating out, trying new restaurants and foods and taking part in food tours. There are so many great products on our doorstep here that we take for granted. I also enjoy the gym, swimming and reading.

What do you never leave the house without?

I never leave the house without my phone. I would be totally lost without it as I can now use it to pay for things, directions, finding new places to try and keeping in touch.

Established in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement, this year marks 20 years of safefood promoting food safety, and importantly North/South-working on the island of Ireland. During that time, we know that addressing food safety is a shared responsibility.

In  2003,  our first major food safety awareness campaign It’s in your hands’ focused on food poisoning risks caused by cross-contamination and poor food safety habits at home. There was enormous public attention in 2012 when food safety was put under the blue UV light treatment in a domestic kitchen TV ad showing how easily Campylobacter can get transferred around the kitchen at home and amongst family members. A subsequent campaign ‘Don’t Take Risks’ reinforced the safety messages and concentrated on effective cooking, cleaning and hand washing, whilst the importance of food safety for vulnerable groups was emphasised in our ‘Listen to the voice’ campaign in 2017, which identified food safety risks among the over
65-year-olds. 

Our current handwashing campaign ‘Rufus’ was created to help teach kids in pre-school settings across the island how to wash their hands as the best way to keep E.coli at bay.  The ever-popular  safefood Turkey Calculator, since its launch in 2012, has helped over 454,000 people cook their turkeys safely. 

Over the years our food safety campaigns were also supported by ancillary printed, audio-visual and online resources available on our website.  Campaigns were promoted at a various consumer events across the island such as the Balmoral Show in Belfast and the National Ploughing Championships.  

Since its inception, safefood has established itself as a source of practical advice and training in food allergen control for both consumers and food supply chain personnel across the island. Between 2007 and 2009, we carried out a comprehensive training course in food allergen management for upwards of 500 EHOs and 170 third level catering lecturers. This was followed by a series of food allergen management workshops for early childhood providers in 2015 and 2016. Most recently, we organised a series of masterclasses in food allergen control for catering and hospitality students at various institutes throughout the island, and these courses have been complemented by no less than 10 conferences on the subject of food allergens, as well as six focused research projects and surveys, and a whole array of printed, audio-visual and online resources. 

Our landmark research programme helps address knowledge gaps, informs policy and contributes to our award-winning campaigns. Since 2000,  we have commissioned over 130 research projects covering various food related topics including microbiological and chemical risks and hazards, consumer behaviour, climate change, food defence, food allergy and intolerance issues amongst others. safefood has supported over 580 researchers who have published  safefood-funded research in a wide range of scientific journals. Comprehensive research reports were produced for each project and are available on
our website.

Since its launch in 2005, the food safety programme ‘safefood for life’, certified by the Environmental Health Association of Ireland has been completed by over 36,500 transition year and leaving certificate applied students. 

We’ve always been committed to working in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders across the island to tackle the public health challenges we all face. By sharing knowledge, we’ve built better links between professionals and created new networks. Our Knowledge Network is a community of professionals working in food businesses, environmental health, regulatory agencies, public health, food testing laboratories, research and education with over 3,200 members. Over the last three years alone, over 100 Knowledge Network events have been held across the island of Ireland with almost 4,000 participants.  

In 2016, the safefood Knowledge Network initiated a pilot programme of small food safety workshops for food SMEs in partnership with Teagasc. This pilot was well received following which the programme was refined and a larger number of workshops held across the island in 2017, 2018 and 2019 with an accompanying significant number of food SMEs participating. In total, over 900 people attended industry-focused food hygiene-type events.  A number of training resources including videos and courses have been developed which not alone builds on similar type events but enhances remote accessibility for members to enhance their skills and expand their range of expertise. We will expand our range of online resources for SMEs in the coming years, to support the face-to-face workshops and to cater for those who are unable to attend events in person.

safefood has a remit to promote scientific co-operation and linkages between laboratories and we’ve invested significant resources e.g. developing a reporting system for HSE and Belfast City Hospital food-testing laboratories for rapid access to laboratory results – in addition to sharing knowledge and experience on methodologies of testing and surveillance of food, as well as establishing and promoting IT solutions for official control laboratories. Over the past three years almost 500 laboratory personnel attended these events. Training covered key areas including quality, validation and an enhanced capability to generate paper-less reporting for the analysis of food samples. Other events assisted in capacity-building for laboratories e.g. a workshop on molecular testing methods, as well as a conference on whole genome sequencing.

Our early adoption of social and digital media has enabled us to look at food issues in new ways. From creating education tools to stimulate young minds, we continue to innovate in the conversations we have. Our social media campaigns like ‘Don’t wash raw chicken’ and particularly ‘Burger Fever’, which raised awareness of the risks of eating undercooked burgers was hugely successful; results clearly indicated that the campaign had wide reach and engagement among the target audience and had success in changing individuals’ knowledge, attitudes
and behaviours. 

In those 20 years, our work has always reflected the lives that people lead and our efforts to support them.

For more information go to safefood.eu.

The safefood Knowledge Network moves into an exciting new phase, complete with a group of experts to guide the way.

In all areas of the food industry, food safety is the key element that underpins food production, ensuring that consumer expectations and the highest levels of public health protection are met.

Since it was established in 1999, the Food Safety Promotion Board (safefood) has promoted the awareness and knowledge of food safety all across the island.

To facilitate this, the original Knowledge Network (KN) programme was launched in 2011. Its aim was to encourage collaboration and facilitate greater knowledge sharing by those involved in all parts of the food supply chain. 

The Network keep members up to date on food safety issues and trends, and also encourages shared learnings and discussion of emerging food safety risks and potential solutions. Members can avail of events, briefings, workshops, newsletters and the website (http://www.safefoodkn.eu), and have access to new resources, videos and webinars.

In 2016 safefood assembled a group of experts from industry, research and public health. It helped to guide the Knowledge Network activities and advised on topics such as training and supports, new services for members and insights around food safety risks.

To date the Knowledge Network has been a huge success (see panel) and in 2019 it steps into a new era, building on the achievements of the 2016-2019 programme. The new programme will cover a wide variety of food safety areas as well as broader topics which may impact on food safety, such as trade and economic issues, climate change and sustainability.

The key objectives for the 2019-2022 Knowledge network programme are:

1 To raise awareness and provide opportunities for the sharing and learning of best practice food safety knowledge on the island of Ireland

2 To further develop multi-disciplinary and cross-jurisdictional working relationships between food safety professionals operating across food production, academia and other public bodies-based sectors

3 To provide an accessible source of expertise for safefood with a view to exploring existing concerns, identifying emerging issues in food safety and enhancing our in-house evidence base.

4 To promote cooperation, collaboration and synergies between professionals in the food safety arena throughout the island of Ireland.

The Expert Group is an important part of achieving these aims. It provides a broad range of professional services to help further develop the Knowledge Network and its activities. safefood has gathered together a diverse panel of experts in areas including food microbiology, food trade, environmental health and food hypersensitivity, to share their knowledge and passion for food safety. With an ambitious Knowledge Network plan laid out from now until 2022, the aim is to help make the whole food industry better – and safer - for all.

Meet The Knowledge Network Expert Group

Ms Jenny Morris - Chair

Jenny Morris is an independent food safety consultant with considerable experience of working in both the public and private sectors. Her particular expertise is in working with small catering businesses, applying her knowledge from working as an environmental health officer, trained chef and manager of a small catering business.

Professor Chris Elliott  

Chris is Professor of Food Safety and founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast. He has published more than 400 peer review articles and his main research interests are in the development of innovative techniques to provide early warning of threats across complex food supply systems.

Dr Rachael Singleton

Rachael Singleton has 12 years’ policy and legislation experience. She is a Behavioural Scientist in the Northern Ireland Public Sector Innovation Lab. Here, she tackles difficult to resolve policy and societal issues by bringing innovative thinking from a behavioural science perspective.

Mr Michael Bell

Michael has over thirty-four years’ experience in food. He started his career in the bakery industry in Northern Ireland and Malta. He has a primary honours Degree in Food Science and is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology (FIFST). Michael is currently Vice President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology.

Mr Stephane Durand

Stephane Durand has been working for the agri-food industry in the UK for the last 24 years and has been working for 10 years for Moy Park. Recently, he led a successful bid with QUB for the EIT Food KIC, a large pan-European Competence Centre for the development of entrepreneurs and start-ups, young graduates, new innovations in the area of food and agriculture.

Dr Kieran Jordan

Dr. Kieran Jordan worked in the microbial food safety at the Food Safety Department at Teagasc, Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork. Although now retired, he has a continued interest in bridging the knowledge gap in microbiology between research and the food industry. He has been involved in the safefood Knowledge Networks since 2011.

Dr Hazel Gowland

Hazel is an expert patient advocate, researcher and trainer for Allergy Action and is a visiting fellow of the University of Southampton School of Medicine. Hazel has had severe allergies to nuts and peanuts since early childhood and established Allergy Action, a research and training consultancy in 2000. In 2018 she was awarded a PhD for a thesis on food allergy.

Mr Eddie O Neill

Eddie O’Neill has a great deal of expertise primarily associated with artisan/speciality food. Based in Moorepark in Cork he is part of a team that works in the ‘Food Industry Development Dept’ which is located at the Ashtown Research centre in Dublin. Eddie has also been involved in the development of a range of award winning food products.

Ms Irene Collins

Irene has more than forty years’ experience in the catering and retail sectors and is currently the managing director of Excellence Ireland Quality Association (EIQA). Irene is also interested in the environment and sustainability and is currently a non-executive director of ELVES (producer compliance scheme for end of life vehicles operating in Ireland).

Mr Declan Ferguson

Declan studied Food Science in Queens University Belfast and spent over 10 years’ in London working for Marks & Spencer as a Technologist. In 2010, Declan moved to the Technical and Development teams in Tesco Ireland & Northern Ireland. A role at Genesis Crafty in Magherafelt followed and in 2014, Declan joined Finnebrogue Artisan where there is a consistent drive to ensure the best products in the market place.

The Knowledge Network Expert Group

Back row left to right: Dr Hazel Gowland, Dr Kieran Jordan, Mr Stephane Durand, Prof Chris Elliott, Mr Eddie O Neill, Mr Declan Ferguson and Mr Michael Bell

Front row left to right: Ms Irene Collins, Dr Rachael Singleton, Ms Jenny Morris - Chair

Threats to our food supply are more predictable than we think. Governments and businesses need to adopt a more defensive mindset, argues journalist Nick Hughes.

You don’t have to go far back in history to a time when the supply of food was synonymous with national defence. During the Second World War, the Irish government introduced a number of controls under the Emergency Powers Order. This included a number of measures to increase agricultural production and thereby ensuring self-sufficiency in food. Similarly, Britons were famously urged to ‘dig for victory’ during after German U-boats targeted shipping routes for food imports.But as the developed world rebuilt following the end of the war food gradually became cheap and abundant, and as it did so the narrative around food’s role in protecting a nation shifted subtly away from notions of defence towards security, expressed through the presence of cheap food, full shelves and access to global markets.

Yet the relationship between food and defence has never really fractured. Although the threat of a third global conflict has diminished, new threats in the shape of terrorism and the destabilising effect of natural disasters offer reasons to adopt a defensive mindset where a nation’s food supply is concerned. The UK Ministry of Defence is known to take extremely seriously the defence and security implications of food price spikes due to climate change and water scarcity.  There is an obvious increase in the overlap between defence and public health in the narrative.

Dr Amy Kircher is director of the US Food Protection and Defence Institute (FPDI) and as such, has the link between food and defence running through the DNA of her role.

The FPDI is a Department of Homeland Security Centre of Excellence which sits within the University of Minnesota. Its aim is to reduce food system disruption by reducing the potential for contamination at any point along the food supply chain and addressing potential threats to the food system that could lead to catastrophic damage to public health or the economy.

It’s important to acknowledge at this juncture that there is no internationally agreed definition of food defence. While in the US, food defence encompasses issues around integrity, safety and consumer protection, in Europe these same issues tend to fall under the catch-all of food security (another term whose definition is not readily agreed).

But beyond the nuances of specific definitions, wider questions emerge: to what extent is the need to protect our food supply from contamination and adulteration central to concepts of food security and could the global food community do more to prevent such incidences from occurring?

Responses to cases of deliberate contamination tend to be reactive to the situation at hand rather than proactive in taking all possible steps to prevent the situation occurring.

Kircher warns that this approach is not future proof and urges that food disruptions be seen not as unpreventable shocks but as predictable surprises. To illustrate the point, she cites the example of Nigeria in 2014 which was facing a devastating Ebola outbreak at the same time as the militant organisation Boko Haram was causing political instability in another part of the country. Cocoa (a key export commodity) was impacted by these events  “This was a predictable surprise, says Kircher.”

A more recent example can be found in the 2017 scandal in which millions of eggs were pulled from supermarket shelves in more than a dozen European countries after it was discovered that some had been contaminated with the potentially harmful insecticide fipronil. This was an example of an event that could have been predicted given the competitive pressures in food supply chains that were leading to intensification and a drive to reduce costs.

One potential explanation for the current state of passivity is that the scale of the threat of food adulteration is underappreciated. Fien Minnens, a Phd Student at Ghent University, presented research showing that the majority of food industry stakeholders believe industry actors underestimate the frequency of occurrence of food integrity issues.

There is also a doubt as to whether classical tools for surveillance and risk assessment, such as audit, sampling, lab screening and confirmation, are fit for purpose in the modern food economy. “It is a very inefficient system,” said Professor Michel Nielen, principal scientist at RIKILT Wageningen University & Research. “It’s not completely effective and cannot prevent scandals. We need to think of a different way.”

So what is the solution? One obvious first step is for those with a stake in the integrity of food supply chains to become much better at joining the dots that can point towards vulnerabilities. Kircher noted that there are multiple indicators of a heightened risk of supply chain disruption, ranging from extreme weather events and shifts in supply and demand to population trends and human behaviour. “We need to ask if the conditions are such that we can intervene before any consumer eats that product,” she said. “We should be able to connect every natural disaster that affects our globe and know exactly what might be adulterated as a result of it.”

Kircher’s team at the FPDI has developed FIDES (Focused Integration of Data for Early Signals), a web application designed to fuse multiple streams of data to predict, monitor, and identify food system disruptions and adverse food events.

By using artificial intelligence, FIDES is able to identify and predict where risks might exist with information displayed in the form of an online dashboard where users can browse, search and layer both dynamic and reference data sets related to global disasters, animal health alerts, import refusals and many other sources of publicly available data.

“Failure in one place will create a ripple throughout the entire globe,” said Kircher. “Understanding how those ripples work is critical to helping people overcome these challenges.”

As valuable as their efforts are, Kircher and her cohorts cannot build a complete picture of food system threats in isolation. The success of FIDES and other such horizon scanning tools (Fera Science, for instance, has developed an early prototype of a dashboard of the latest early warnings for a range of commodities using a traffic light system) is in the cooperation of the private sector in supplementing the public data that is already available. “We must work with food companies to share data in a way that protects their proprietary needs but also allows us to integrate data that truly traces food from farm to fork,” said Kircher.

Within the EU, national governments and their agencies collaborate via forums such as the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), the European Food Fraud Network and EFSA’s Emerging Risks Exchange Network. However, industry engagement with such networks can be patchy.

Attempts have been made to create ‘safe spaces’ for food businesses to contribute to the overall intelligence picture. In the UK, the Food Intelligence and Authenticity Network (FIIN) was set up following a recommendation by the Elliott Review, commissioned by the UK government following the horsemeat scandal. Four years later, Ron McNaughton, head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit at Food Standards Scotland, reported that FIIN is working well in Scotland where anonymised, aggregated industry data is being shared with the regulator. But reaching this point had been hard, said McNaughton, who stressed the importance of building trust between the authorities and businesses.

FiiN is being looked upon with envy in many countries, according to Professor Chris Elliott, director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University, Belfast, who has previously spoken of the need for a “fortress mentality” to combatting food fraud. In a recent article for The Grocer magazine, Elliott wrote: “I see the time when [FIIN] will be a multinational food industry network that will be doing a huge amount to keep the bad guys out across Europe.”

FIIN and FIDES are examples of the kind of proactive approach to defending food supply chains that Kircher, Elliott and others are advocating. They won’t, nor are they intended to, win wars, but they can help protect supply chains from individuals or groups bent on committing deliberate adulteration for reasons of terrorism, sabotage or simply their own financial gain.

More broadly, they should be viewed as part of the return to a mindset where notions of safety, integrity and even defence, are once again seen as intrinsic elements of a secure food system.

ABOUT NICK HUGHES

Nick Hughes is a freelance journalist specialising in food and environmental affairs. He has had articles published in titled including The Times, The Grocer and The Ecologist and is Associate Editor of Footprint magazine.

safefood has launched the latest phase of its Rufus handwashing programme which aims to help make learning good handwashing habits fun, and help to keep E.coli at bay. Programme materials includes a new Rufus storybook which uses fun illustrations and rhyme to teach children how and when to wash their hands, particularly after using the toilet; after playing (inside and outside), playing with pets and before eating. safefood is working in partnership with Early Childhood Ireland and Early Years NI to distribute over 4,400 Rufus handwashing packs to crèches, playgroups and pre-schools across the island of Ireland. For more information, visit safefood.eu/handwashing.

safefood’s 2019 series of workshops ‘Food safety: Helping you to get it right’ for small and medium-sized food businesses are currently underway. The workshops carried out in association with Teagasc provide practical advice and cover areas such as: 

• Food Allergens In A Nutshell
• Food Labelling: What You Need To Know
• The Role of Packaging In Food Safety
• Food Hygiene Essentials: A Clean Regime
• Controlling Food-Poisoning Bacteria

Workshops are free but places are limited and allocated on a first come, first served basis. To register to attend, please visit www.safefood.eu/events

17th September 2019 - Sligo                

18th September 2019 - Ballinasloe   

For more information please email: knevents@safefood.eu

Congratulations to the winner of our last competition, Annette D'arcy, Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital, Dublin 2.

The answer to the previous crossword was BISCUIT.

safefood is delighted to offer one lucky crossword winner a luxury hamper of gourmet food from Arcadia Delicatessen in Belfast.

Simply find the hidden word in the crossword, made up from the letters highlighted, and send the answer to knowledgenetwork@safefood.eu before 18th October 2019. This competition is open to Knowledge Network Members on the island of Ireland only.

ACROSS

1   Small edible crustaceans (7)
5   Saturated solution of sugar boiled to prevent fermentation (5)
8   In the US, the eggplant (9)
9   Tasty mixture or liquid into which bite-sized foods are immersed (3)
10   Meatballs from south Asia (5)
12   Mashed potato-topped minced beef pie (7)
13   Sweet white wine from the Bordeaux region (6)
14   Small bits or morsels of food (6)
17   In France the croque-monsieur (7)
19   Gripping and lifting instrument used in kitchens to extract awkward items from pots, pans, etc (5)
21   Boiled, fried, poached, scrambled, etc, etc... (3)
22   Small sausage in a narrow casing (9) 24 Kitchen waste used to feed farm animals (5)
25   French white wine of the German border valleys(7)

DOWN

1   Cut of meat (beef or lamb) from the lower part of the leg (5)
2   Cut of meat (pork or beef) on the bone (3) 3 Sweet dark wine from Sicily (7)
4   Turning on-and-off device on electric food appliances (6)
5   Slowly cook food to obtain the optimum amount of juices (5)
6   Variant of the fish from Pacific waters known as sockeye (3,6)
7   Chillies, capsicum and condiments (7)
11   Italian word for cheese (9)
13   Angostura, for one (7)
15   Fixed portions of food that are allotted, especially in times of scarcity (7)
16   Chardonnay would fit this description of a (dry) white wine (6)
18   Tortillas rolled to cup around a filling (5)
20   Italian white wine from the Venice area (5)
23   French word for garlic (3)

Offering reassurance to both the public and the food industry, The Q Mark is an indicator of hygiene and food safety standards, says Irene Collins, MD of Excellence Ireland Quality Association.

In a rapidly changing food industry and an ever-expanding global market, a benchmark of both safety and quality is not just helpful, it’s essential. The Excellence Ireland Quality Association (EIQA) has been at the forefront of this mission for fifty years and the association’s Q Mark logo is widely recognised as a representation of quality and excellence.

A trained chef, with over 30 years’ experience in the catering industry across supervisory, management, and senior executive roles, Irene Collins has seen the food industry from all sides. She took on the role of Managing Director of Excellence Ireland Quality Association in 2008 having been a customer of the association’s for 18 years. Her role involves sharing knowledge, best practice and ‘what works’ with customers on the different Q Mark programmes. “I love the daily interaction with companies who know that excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what they have to offer and knowing that the audits, assessments and certification services that we provide helps them to achieve their objectives,” she says. 

As Irene explains, the Excellence Ireland Quality Association is the proud guardian of the Q Mark. Originally launched in 1978 Q Mark certification has become a byword for reliability and quality for the public. “When a consumer sees the Q Mark logo on a product or service they know that the business owner has quality standards and the customer at the heart of everything that the business does,” Irene explains.

The purpose of the Q Mark for Hygiene & Food Safety standard is to accelerate the growth of customer trust in food safety. “Our aim is to put quality and excellence at the heart of every company’s way of doing things,” Irene says, adding. “The Q Mark suite of standards promotes continuous improvement and the involvement of all employees in accomplishing a company’s goals.”

The EIQA’s variety of Q Mark programmes encompass areas such as Hygiene & Food Safety, Quality Management Systems, Leisure Centres, Nursing Homes, and ABLE – The Q Mark for Accessibility. The Q Mark is awarded to companies following an independent audit in compliance with what’s known as the Q Mark technical standard. “The audit is suitable for companies operating in food business including retail, distribution, catering, hotels and food manufacturing sectors,” Irene explains. “Every company audited has voluntarily opened up its premises, processes and procedures to a robust audit completed by a highly proficient and experienced food safety professional.” It is an intensive process, with auditors looking at things like the commitment of the management team to food safety; evidence that the food safety management system is working as intended; how companies plan and review their own performance, and the standard of the structure and services. “The auditor completes a comprehensive report, which clearly shows companies what they are doing really well (categories include recognising excellence, innovation, and creativity in food safety management systems), identifies any ‘areas for improvement’ and the auditor makes a recommendation,” Irene reveals. “The recommendation is then presented to the certification committee at the end of each calendar quarter. Once this process is completed satisfactorily the Q Mark certificate is sent out to successful companies.”

It is no small feat to receive the Q Mark and to acknowledge this success and level of commitment to quality and safety there is an annual Q Mark awards ceremony. “There is a universal desire for recognition. Not only do companies want to do well, they want to be seen to do well and the Q Mark Awards provides that opportunity and recognition,” Irene says. “The awards are an opportunity for companies who are committed to high standards of food safety to tell both their customers and their peer group from a national stage that food safety management is at the heart of their business. It’s a healthy competitive process for the ‘best of the best’ representing food business operators across the industry.”

This pursuit of excellence has the knock on effect of improving standards all across the industry. As Irene points out, “It is widely acknowledged that high standards of operational hygiene and a commitment to food safety accelerates consumers’ perceptions of food safety and grows customer trust. If a company is fully compliant with the requirements of the Q Mark for Hygiene and Food Safety programme they are operating above the requirements of Food Safety legislation and regulations.”

This year sees the EIQA celebrate half a century of excellence and September’s Q Mark awards celebrate this significant milestone along with the hard work and dedication of the food industry across the island of Ireland. It is also a platform to highlight the importance of good practices across the whole food community. “Reporting Q Mark customers’ success at the Q Mark awards in local, regional and national media often sparks the much needed conversation about food safety,” Irene says. “The reality is that food safety is too big a responsibility for any one person. We are all responsible. The food safety chain is a rather long one, and no matter what part of the food chain you are involved in, you have a responsibility for food safety.”

For more information on the Excellence Ireland Quality Association go to https://eiqa.ie/

ABOUT IRENE COLLINS

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the central belt of Scotland, deep in the coal mining traditions during the Maggie Thatcher years.

I’ve been known to say…

“If you can read…you can cook! And if you can cook, have a thermometer, and know the danger zone… you can cook safely!”

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I’m often involved in charity fundraising activities but what I’m really passionate about is wood turning

New approaches for protecting our favourite foods.

The potato blight (Phytophthora infestans) that caused the Great Irish Famine of the mid-nineteenth century, continues to be the primary disease affecting potatoes. In the UK, potato farmers spend £55m a year on average trying to keep blight at bay, while in the Republic of Ireland, it is estimated that €5 million is spent annually on fungicides to mitigate the impacts of the disease, and this corresponds to between 15 and 20 fungicide applications per season. According to the Sainsbury Laboratory, global crop losses from late blight are £3.5 billion annually. And that is just one particular pathogen. 

An estimated 10-16% of global harvest (or US$220 billion worth) is lost to plant pests every year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This includes huge losses in some of the world’s key commodities. A report by members of the International Society for Plant Pathology, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution in March this year, painted a picture of the potential devastation in five crops that together make up about half the global human calorie intake: wheat losses of 10-28%; rice losses of 25-41%; maize losses of 20-41%; potato losses of 8-21%; and soybean losses of 11-32%. In all, there were 137 pathogens and pests eating away at these crops. “We are losing a significant amount of food on a global scale to pests and diseases at a time when we must increase food production to feed a growing population,” said Neil McRoberts, associate professor at the University of California and co-author of the paper. 

Let’s not forget, these crops are not just food for the rich – they are the livelihoods for millions of people.

Take coffee. In 2012-13, coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) spread quickly through the highlands of Central America, affecting more than 50% of the crop. Some Guatemalan producers lost up to 85% of their crop, with total losses in the region of US$500m and nearly 350,000 labourers put out of work, according to a report commissioned by Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand in 2016. 

More recently, in Italy, 100,000 jobs have reportedly been lost in the olive oil supply chain as the country battles adverse weather and Xylella fastidiosa, which the European Commission has called “one of the most dangerous plant bacteria worldwide”. As National Geographic reported last year: “There is no known cure. Once the bacteria infiltrate a host, the plant stays infected until it dies.” As do the producers’ businesses.

The Italian farmers’ association, Coldiretti, warned the government in May that this could be an “irreversible trend if no action is taken”. As the trees withered on the farms, production of olive oil fell by around 50% (to 185,000 tonnes). Producers took to the streets wearing orange vests (gilet arancioni), having tired of national and regional policy “that did not seriously face the Xylella catastrophe” and the adverse weather, according to those interviewed by the Financial Times.  

Indeed, start to look at the impact of plant diseases on our food commodities and there are myriad alarm bells ringing loud and clear. But is anyone listening? “As humans we are transfixed by diseases like malaria, HIV and TB, but we don’t think about diseases to crops,” explains Sarah Gurr, professor of molecular plant pathology and chair in food security at the University of Exeter. “It’s about time we did.” Professor Gurr has been banging this drum for a number of years (and has just received funding from the Canadian charitable organisation, CIFAR, to keep doing so). In 2012, for example, she co-authored a paper published in Nature that warned: “If severe epidemics in all five crops [rice, wheat, maize, potatoes and soybean] were to occur simultaneously, this would leave food sufficient for only 39% of the world’s population.” The probability of that happening is very low, the authors admitted. Nevertheless, even low-level persistent disease leads to losses that, if mitigated, would be sufficient to feed “8.5% of the seven billion humans alive in 2011”. 

Since then, the warnings have become increasingly stark. “To avoid a global collapse in our ability to control fungal infections and to avoid critical failures in medicine and food security, we must improve our stewardship of extant chemicals, promote new antifungal discovery, and leverage emerging technologies for alternative solutions,” noted Matthew Fisher et al in their paper for Science in May 2018. 

So, how did we get here? Intensive farming practices, cultivation of relatively few crops species and overuse of existing chemicals, certainly haven’t helped. Monocultures have in some cases “vastly increased” the susceptibility of harvests to pathogens. As Professor Gurr suggests, in some cases supply is totally reliant on a very narrow genetic resource; which is just daft”. 

Take the banana. The “world’s most important fruit”, as the FAO calls it, is in the top 10 staple foods globally and represents 270g of every kilo of fruit bought in the UK (Kantar, 2017). However, only one variety of banana – Cavendish – is traded internationally (hundreds of varieties are grown for domestic consumption). This leaves the whole market perennially threatened by Panama Disease, its very own Sword of Damocles.

Panama Disease is caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense. To date, four races of this pathogen have been described which attack different banana cultivars. Growers have already shifted once to cultivars resistant to race 1. But now they’re facing a new strain – race 4 – which attacks Cavendish clones (as well as other banana varieties) and has been moving westward since 2010. There are no alternative tradable varieties available and no existing chemical disease controls, so if this race reaches Latin America and the Caribbean, supply to the US and EU will collapse, with significant impacts on the Irish and UK diets and on producers in the developing world. 

For the past three years, the £1.2m BananEx project (aka ‘Securing the future of the UK’s favourite fruit’) has been looking at building resilience in the supply chain, whilst scientists in the UK, Israel, Ecuador and Australia are all racing to deliver a genetically modified Cavendish banana that is resistant to Panama disease. “Even if you are able to tweak a Cavendish clone to be disease resistant there is nothing stopping the fungi from potentially evolving to beat it again,” Dr Dan Bebber, who leads the BananEx project at the University of Exeter, told The Guardian last year. 

Given the threat to global food supplies (not to mention national economies) from plant disease, it is little surprise to see both gene editing and genetic modification bubbling up to the surface. Traditional breeding programmes work at a snail’s pace compared to superfast gene editing techniques in particular. At the same time, fungicide use is being restricted and those agrochemicals that are still in use are becoming increasingly redundant as resistant strains are evolving every three to four years. “Readers might not want to hear it, but GM is the best approach,” says Professor Gurr.

But it’s not the only approach, she adds: We also need to be far less reliant on high yield harvests derived from vast monocultures of monogenetically disease resistant crops, such as robusta and Arabica for coffee. We need more research into the potential of ancient varieties and let’s eat more seasonally because demand for things like strawberries at Christmas accelerates the emergence of diseases.”

Indeed, the globalisation of our food systems has brought us variety and choice, but carting food all over the world can result in plant diseases hitching a ride. An ability to survive independently outside of their host, as a free-living saprophyte or spores in the environment, has allowed fungi to pop up in unexpected places. More than half of all emerging diseases of plants are thought to be spread by introduction. The second most important factor is weather.

The changing climate appears to be turbo-charging the spread of fungi in particular. The banana once again provides a case in point. Climate change has produced favourable temperatures for spore germination and growth of the fungus Pseudocercospora fijiensis, which causes Black Sigatoka disease and can reduce the fruit in infected banana plants by up to 80%, according to research by Dr Bebber published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in May. There is also evidence that plant pathogenic fungi and oomycetes are moving polewards – at a speed of 8km a year, according to a 2013 study in Nature Climate Change. Coffee crops are under threat, for example, as leaf rust moves to the mountainous regions in Columbia where previously it was too cool for the fungus to survive.

Still, it’s early days in understanding the complex interactions between climate change and crop pests and pathogens. “Despite significant impacts on food security, nutrition and livelihoods, data on the scale, scope and trends of the problem are sparse and outdated,” says Cambria Finegold, global director for digital development at CABI, which in June received a US$200,000 grant from the Grand Challenges programme – an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – to measure and estimate the global burden of crop pests and diseases. The data could be invaluable, helping to predict which regions might be susceptible to emerging diseases and diverting them to resistant or different crops. However, the need for further resources is clear. As Professor Gurr says: “These diseases are moving fast and we need to protect our crops.”

ABOUT DAVID BURROWS

David Burrows is a freelance writer specialising in sustainability within the food chain. A graduate in agricultural sciences, he researches and writes features and reports for publications including Just-Food.com, FoodNavigator.com, FoodserviceFootprint.com, Poultry Business, Pig World, The Grocer, and Transform.