Welcome to the IAFP Food Fraud Prevention Professional Development Group (PDG). The monthly web meetings start on Friday, March 8, 2024, at 9 am USA Eastern Time. Log in to your International Association for Food Prevention (IAFP) account to access the information and web link.
IAFP Member Access to the Food Fraud Prevention PDG – the web link is on the PDG home page:
- Use your IAFP ID and password to log in to:
- Or link directly to the PDG:
Before getting into the content, I’d like to first state my thanks for the encouragement and expertise of our Interim Co-Chair, Katie Zammit (Cargill). Also, I’d like to recognize the previous work of Vice-Chair Steve Gendel. Prior to that, the leadership was from Karen Everstine (Decernis/ Food Chain ID) and Clare Menenez (formerly of McCormick Spices).
From the IAFP Connect/ PDG Web Page – Announcement of Monthly Web Meetings:
Dear IAFP Food Fraud Prevention PDG Colleagues,
Welcome (back)! I have been working with Katie Zammit (Cargill) regarding ideas for our PDG. We found that just getting together to talk really helped move things along.
I have created a monthly PDG web meeting. The first one is on March 8 – we are targeting the second Friday of each month at 9 am (later, we can adjust for other time zones of engaged colleagues).
Agenda:
- Restart our discussion about this group.
- Set topics for future meetings.
I set a meeting for July just before the IAFP Annual Meeting and for August and September after – hopefully, this will create some momentum.
Thoughts?
Thanks, JWS.
For reference from a previous PDG post:
Food Fraud PDG Survey – PRELIMINARY RESULTS
We will review and present the survey results gathered over the last few years. This information will be a starting point to discuss our next group actions.
Preliminary results from the survey:
- Survey Membership (the survey was shared publicly and not just in IAFP or the PDG): 60% are members of the PDG, and 40% are not members of the PDG. Also, 26% consider themselves “active.” We have a great cross-section of participants.
- Level of Activity: 57% of the respondents said the FF PDG should be “More active” (10% said “A lot more active”) — none said “Less active” or that “It should end/ close.” A key now will be defining our role within the IAFP’s current scope (or finding ways to expand that scope).
- Types of Activity: 92% recommended providing a library of resources and hosting webinars and additional meetings. This is a great insight, and we can now start identifying the specifics. An association and PDG are great filters, especially for primary education on emerging topics such as food fraud prevention.
- Types of Content – Detail: As for content areas, there was interest in understanding and implementing prevention best practices and then helping to define the most efficient countermeasures and control systems (including analytical tests for food authenticity).
- Types of Outreach Activities: The need for general outreach included for companies and academics but also regulators and law enforcement.
Takeaway Points
- Food fraud prevention is still a ‘hot topic’ but no longer ‘new.’
- Food fraud disruptions continue to expand, grow, and evolve – actually, inflation, supply chain disruptions, and changing consumer habits have probably led to food fraud being as concerning as ever.
- Take the time to work with other like-minded food fraud prevention thinkers by joining the IAPF Food Fraud Prevention Professional Development group – start by attending our meeting on Friday, March 8.