Scientific Sessions: Sunday Morning Highlights
Sunrise Sessions
Nanoscale science for food: A primer
Session 6, Sunday, 7:30–8:30 a.m.
Room: S502ab
Track: Emerging Technologies & Ingredient Innovations
Nanoscale science, engineering and technology is rapidly advancing and demonstrating great potential for applications in the food industry. This symposium will describe the fundamental concepts of science, engineering, and technology at the nanoscale level and discuss the potential impacts, both positive and negative. The focus will be on recent developments in application in the food and ingredient industry and their benefits to the consumer. Furthermore, the symposium will give a perspective of the potential risks and challenges facing nanoscale research.
How to obtain and manage AFRI competitive grants
Session 7, Sunday, 7:30–8:30 a.m.
Room: S501cd
Track: Food Engineering
The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) competitive grant programs of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), formerly CSREES, of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture are of high relevance to the food science and nutrition community, especially the Improving Food Quality and Value, Bioactive Food Components for Optimal Health, and Food Safety programs. NIFA national program leaders will provide overviews on the peer review process, attributes of a winning proposal and tips for post-award management. An introduction to the AFRI and the perspectives of a panel manger and a recent grantee will also be featured.
Case studies: Risk assessment for food allergens
Session 8, Sunday, 7:30–8:30 a.m.
Room: S503ab
Track: Food Safety & Defense
Food allergies have emerged in recent years as a serious public health concern for the food industry. The food industry must increasingly perform risk assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of allergen control programs and to drive appropriate labeling decisions. In this interactive session, attendees will participate in the decision-making processes for risk assessment surrounding real-world case studies. Attendees will be expected to have a fundamental knowledge of food allergies and allergen detection methodologies. Participants will learn the benefits of quantitative information and how to apply it as part of the risk assessment process.
The role of water in food quality
Session 9, Sunday, 7:30–8:30 a.m.
Room: S501ab
This session will highlight the importance of a complete moisture analysis consisting of both water activity and moisture content. Definitions for water activity and moisture content will be established with a particular focus on their differences and how they are related through the moisture sorption isotherm. Methods for measuring water activity and moisture content as well as techniques for obtaining accurate measurements will be highlighted. The relationship between water, specifically water activity, moisture content, and moisture sorption isotherms, and food quality will be described in detail.
General Session
Creating positive environments for technology innovation: What works and what doesn’t?
Session 13, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S503ab
Track: Emerging Technologies & Ingredient Innovations
Driving and commercializing emerging technologies requires innovation, discovery, advancement of underlying sciences, and then focused application refinement for commercial benefit. Effective resource management and coordination between institutions is as critical a success factor as creating and managing internal environments where results can successfully and continually be teased forward. Connecting the links between basic research, funding and support sources with commercial entities is a path for success. Speakers from these segments will discuss issues, concerns, and success based models. Come hear leaders of academic research, government agencies, and the food industry discuss what is working in context of their recent success in areas of advanced processing technologies and nanoscience.
An essential market update for product development in today’s challenging economic environment
Session 14, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S401cd
Track: Product Development
The underlying foundation of new product development includes the following: 1) identifying customer needs, and 2) maintaining competitive in the market. This product development kick-off session will provide the latest information from experts on both of these topics. This not-to-be-missed market update will have a special focus on how customers are adapting to today’s recession and how they are re-prioritizing their needs and wants. It will also profile new product introductions and how they have adapted to the recent economic environment.
New Products & Technologies
New ingredient technologies
Session 16, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S403ab
Track: Emerging Technologies & Ingredient Innovations
Topics include:
• Commercialization of microalgae food ingredients
• Functional native flours for clean-label, gluten-free baked products
• Sweet chicory fiber (Frutalose SF75) as an alternative sweetener
• GENU BETA: A different type of pectin for a different application
Panel Discussion
“Clean” food labeling & “sustainability” benefit claims: What do consumers want? What are the legal requirements? What if compliance is not enough?
Session 24, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S505ab
Track: Public Policy, Food Laws & Regulations
What is clean labeling? How do consumer trends impact product labeling? This session will identify what consumers look for on product labels, including statements such as “all natural,” “organic,” “no antibiotics,” “no GMO ingredients,” “free range” and “locally grown.” How do consumer expectations concerning food formulations and agricultural practices influence legal and regulatory requirements for labeling food products? This session will outline legal and regulatory requirements around product labeling and ingredient statements. This session will review the diverse set of legal and regulatory requirements that apply to clean food labeling and related sustainability claims and will identify regulatory guidelines and “rules of thumb” for ensuring compliance.
Symposia
Breakfast is more than timing: Research shows the importance of high-quality protein in the breakfast meal
Session 17, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S501ab
Track: Food, Health & Nutrition
Research indicates physiologic differences following consumption of a carbohydrate-rich versus a protein-rich breakfast. Offering high-quality protein foods and utilizing high-quality protein ingredients, particularly in breakfast foods, can help food manufacturers and product developers meet consumer demand and respond to emerging research that supports the health benefits of eating protein at breakfast. This session will explore up-to-date science as well as consumer trends and issues driving consumer food choices. Product developers will learn practical applications to meet consumer demand for protein-rich food products that provide functional benefits.
Nutrient bioavailability by design
Session 18, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S501cd
Track: Food, Health & Nutrition
The aim of this symposium is to introduce and discuss an emerging field of food science: the modulation of nutrient absorption for a targeted health benefit. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines bioavailability as “the rate and extent to which an ingredient is absorbed from the gut and becomes available to the site of action.” Different ways are available to design bioavalability for a targeted benefit—from modulation of food structure and composition to influence on gut microflora transformations to modulation of transport at gut level and others. During the symposium the concept of bioavailability by design will be explained and examples of modulation will be presented and discussed.
Bacteriophage-based interventions to improve food safety
Session 19, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: N426a
Track: Food Microbiology
This symposium will give the audience a current and novel perspective on the crucial regulatory and human safety issues facing the use of bacteriophages for use in foods and food processing facilities. The use of bacteriophages in food processing facilities, on ready-to-eat meats, and produce commodities will also be discussed, and improvements in these areas will be addressed. Recent research findings concerning the use of bacteriophages on ready-to-eat meat products and produce commodities will be presented to give audience members a snapshot of recent research developments. The safety of products containing bacteriophages and their overall and specific impact on segments of the food industry will be addressed. Overall, research findings and analysis of regulatory and safety issues will provide audience members with an update on the current status of the use of bacteriophages in the food industry.
Process validation methodology to obtain a successful FDA LACF filing utilizing pressure assisted thermal sterilization
Session 21, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S504ab
Track: Food Processing & Packaging
Over the past decade, high-pressure processing (HPP) has become commercially viable, as it has been proven to retain the nutritional quality, taste, and texture while extending the shelf life and ensuring the microbial safety of food products. By using HPP as a “cold pasteurization” process, tens of millions of pounds of food products have been safely available on the international commercial market for more than a decade. In this session, the mechanics of designing the process validation procedure, the equipment qualification process, the design and data from the C. botulinum inoculated pack studies, and the data showing an improvement in product quality will be discussed by the leaders of the process validation team. Participants will be able to understand the strategy and study design needed to generate process validation data for a pressure-assisted thermal sterilization process to support a LACF filing with the FDA when the Fo value is unknown.
Applications of novel nanomaterials in solving food safety issues
Session 22, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S402ab
Track: Food Safety & Defense
This symposium will focus on the latest developments in nanomaterials and their current and potential applications in solving food safety issues. The main themes of this symposium include examples of novel nanomaterials—such as metallic or metallic oxide nanoparticles and nanosubstrates, quantum dots, and so on—and fabrication via bottom-up or top-down approaches. The recent progress and applications of using novel nanomaterials in solving food safety issues, including rapid detection of chemical contamination—such as melamine, pesticide, toxins, and so on—in food products will also be discussed. The detection, identification and control of important foodborne pathogens, such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella and so on, in foods also will be examined.
Using a risk based approach, performance criteria and defined food safety objectives to determine the “right” amount of lethality for your process
Session 23, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: N426b
Track: Food Safety & Defense
Pathogen-related recalls continue to occur in raw agricultural commodities as well as other products, such as low-water activity foods, which traditionally have not been considered to be high-risk. These issues have prompted commodity and industry groups to look for ways to mitigate the threat. This symposium will: 1) highlight the development and use of risk assessment models for the purpose of determining probability/risk for specific targeted lethality in a commodity; 2) describe how the findings of the risk assessment were used to develop an industry wide Salmonella mitigation program which can be used as a model for other industries in the future; 3) describe the concept and use of food safety objectives and performance criteria by regulatory authorities; and 4) explore the use of the term pasteurization in the context of thermal and nonthermal treatments, and novel language recently introduced into the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
21st century sensory: At the crossroads between consumer understanding and science
Session 25, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: S401ab
Track: Sensory Science
This session is designed to highlight the various analytical components of sensory sciences. The session will cover techniques to measure emotional responses to food attributes and their influences product design outcomes to analytical chemistry methods that work as additional tools to the product developer verify sensory testing outcomes.
Continuity and Change: Food Science & Technology past, present, future
Session 26, Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Room: N427ab
The Third International Congress of Food Science and Technology (“SOS/70”) was held in Washington in 1970. Since that time there have been dramatic changes in the focus of topics in our field, and even greater changes in the world around us. This session will attempt to review those changes and the challenges our field now faces.