ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre presented their latest research at the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) European Symposium on Food Safety in Nantes, France, 24th- 26th April 2019. Professor David Lloyd, Technical Director Helen Taylor, Research Fellow Dr Ellen Evans and ZERO2FIVE PhD candidate Emma Samuel all attended and contributed to the symposium.
As Vice-Chairperson of the European Symposium organising committee, Helen Taylor, co-convened the opening session and convened a symposium session on food safety culture.
ZERO2FIVE had eight posters displayed at the symposium detailing recent research projects relating to the food safety awareness of trainee dieticians, industry interventions to improve traceability, consumer food safety in Lebanon, observation of hand hygiene in the food industry, inclusion of food safety in children’s cooking classes and food safety culture in industry. A great deal of interest in ZERO2FIVE’s research was expressed from international academics, industry representatives and government officials. These posters can be viewed here: https://www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/health/zero2five/research/Pages/conference-contributions.aspx
A key theme that arose from the conference was the importance of food safety culture in the food industry and the benefits to businesses. Other highlights included the increased use and accuracy of whole genome sequencing to improve future monitoring and detection of foodborne outbreaks and the greater use of observational research methods in consumer focused food safety research.
During the conference, critical meetings and discussions were also held to facilitate international collaborative projects in Sweden and USA, and to plan future publications. Officers of the United Kingdom Association for Food Protection (an Affiliate of the IAFP), held a meeting to plan the UKAFP 2019 conference, attendees included Ellen Evans (President), Prof Carol Wallace (Secretary), Helen Taylor (Past President), Prof David Lloyd (Delegate) and Prof John Holah (Delegate).
