Food - the final frontier: 47th Annual AIFST National Convention

What: 47th AIFST Convention When: 22-25 June 2014 Where: Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre Registration: www.aifst.asn.au/registration.htm

The annual AIFST National Convention is the premier food technology conference in Australia for industry, research and government organisations, locally and overseas. This year the 47th Annual Convention will be co-located with foodpro 2014.

An outstanding array of local and international speakers will share some of the latest innovations in food science and technology with convention delegates.

This year’s convention theme is ‘Food - The Final Frontier: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century’. Befitting this theme, the convention program includes such ‘hot topics’ as:

• Processing efficiency and effectiveness
• Diet, health and performance - what are the choices
• Food reformulation to meet the demands of the 21st-century consumer
• Traceability - how, when and why
• Allergen risk management and developments
• Food chemistry matters
• Food safety - contaminants, pathogens and regulations
• Supply chain economics - the bottom line
• Cereal science - issues for the food industry
• Sustainability for the 21st century

The convention also gives delegates a great opportunity to network with colleagues and friends from all sectors of the Australasian food and allied industries. The 2014 convention includes a half-day devoted to young and developing scientists.

A highlight of the convention this year will be the ‘Food Leaders Roundtable Forum’ during which the topic ‘From Mining Boom to Food Boom - A Reality?’ will be debated. Emma Alberici from ABC Television will moderate the discussion and Q&As from the audience.

A number of social functions also form part of the convention program, including a ‘Star Trek’-themed Gala Convention Dinner.

Some of the speakers to look out for

Alisa Camplin-Warner OAM

Skills, tips and tools you can use in your life, team and workforce

Alisa Camplin-Warner is an Olympic champion aerial skier who won gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. It was the second skiing medal ever won by Australia, and the first won by an Australian woman. She also won the bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics.

She was awarded an Order of Australia medal in 2007.

Alisa worked as an executive with IBM for 16 years, as well as doing promotional and charity work. She joined the board of the Collingwood Football Club in December 2009.

Alisa is requested as a public speaker by multibillion-dollar companies and small organisations alike. Eloquent, passionate and always professional, Camplin is both entertaining and motivating.

Rob McConnel

From mining boom to food boom - a reality?

Rob McConnel is the National Industry Leader of Agribusiness for Deloitte Australia and is a member of Deloitte's Global Food Value Chain Centre of Excellence.

As well as strong family ties to the agricultural sector, Rob has a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics and previously worked with the National Australia Bank and the Queensland Industry Development Corporation (now Suncorp Metway) across Northern New South Wales, and Central and Western Queensland.

Rob has over 17 years’ experience, which has included a two-year secondment with Deloitte’s London-based Private Equity Transaction Services team. Rob has advised a number of international private equity, corporate clients and sovereign wealth funds in their investments within the Australian Agribusiness sector as well as advising domestic operators with respect to capital raisings.

Rob regularly produces thought leadership on the Australian Agribusiness sector and has been interviewed by a number of media outlets with respect to industry views. Most recently, Rob was a co-author on Deloitte's third instalment of its Building the Lucky Country series, ‘Positioning for Prosperity? Catching the next wave.’

Greg Tanner

Ultra low gluten barley

Dr Greg Tanner is using protein purification techniques to help modify the properties of plants.

Dr Tanner currently leads CSIRO Plant Industry’s Low Gluten Cereals project. Greg’s expertise is in plant biotechnology and biochemistry, using protein purification techniques to help modify the properties of plants. He is interested in transferring the results of world-class research to primary producers. He graduated with a PhD in Plant Biochemistry from the University of Sydney in 1983 and has been at CSIRO Plant Industry for the last 28 years.

David Tanner

The impact of PSA on the New Zealand kiwifruit industry

David Tanner joined Zespri in February 2007 in a role responsible for management and development of quality and technical functions. With the onset of the bacterial disease Psa, a decision was made in July 2011 for David to focus on the challenge of leading the Psa R&D program for Zespri and Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH). In September 2012, backed by a strong response to the Psa incursion, and with a well-developed Psa R&D strategy imbedded, David’s role expanded to that of General Manager - Science & Innovation. Prior to joining Zespri, David spent 13 years managing and conducting commercially focused research and development, in both New Zealand and Australia.

John Pitt

Food mycology in Australia - history, methodology and mycotoxin research

At his retirement, John Pitt was a Chief Research Scientist with CSIRO Division of Food Research and he continues to work as an Honorary Research Fellow. His research interests lie in the fungi which spoil foods and produce mycotoxins. His best known work, written with his colleague Dr Ailsa Hocking, is ‘Fungi and Food Spoilage’, the leading text on foodborne fungi, now in its 3rd edition. He is currently a member of FERG, the WHO Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group. He was a member of ICMSF, the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods, for 15 years and has worked on various aspects of food safety with JECFA, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, and IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Australian Society for Microbiology, the Mycological Society of America and the British Mycological Society. He has written or jointly edited 20 books on fungi and food safety and has been an author on 200 research papers.

Ailsa Hocking

Food mycology and its impact on the food industry

Dr Ailsa Hocking has been working in food mycology since 1974, establishing an international reputation for her work in the areas of fungal food spoilage and mycotoxins in foods. Her research interests include mycotoxins and physiology and ecology of food spoilage fungi (effects of water activity, temperature, modified atmospheres; high-pressure processing; preservative resistance; heat resistance); development of improved media and methods for detecting and enumerating fungi in foods; stability of intermediate moisture foods and preserved foods; hurdle technology for control of fungal food spoilage. Ailsa has an extensive publications record with over 150 published papers, book chapters and books. She has lectured extensively and has been an invited speaker at many Australian and international conferences. She is the co-author of the definite text ‘Fungi and Food Spoilage’ (AIFST Bruce Chandler Book Prize, 2010) and editor-in-chief of the 6th edition of ‘Foodborne Microorganisms of Public Health Significance’. She is currently Mycology Editor for the International Journal of Food Microbiology. Ailsa received the AIFST Award of Merit in 2009.

Ailsa retired from CSIRO in December 2008 and is now an Honorary Research Fellow at CSIRO Food, Animal and Health Sciences, North Ryde.

Nai Tran-Dinh

Mycology and mycotoxins in the Asia-Pacific region - future trends

Nai Tran-Dinh joined CSIRO in 2002 as a postdoctoral fellow and is currently a team leader with interests in microbial and molecular ecology, particularly involving mycotoxigenic moulds. He has worked on and led projects investigating the physiology, ecology, taxonomy, biochemistry, mycotoxigenic potential and understanding relationships between strains of fungi from the agriculturally important fungal genera of Aspergillus, Fusarium and Alternaria. He has worked extensively in the area of Aspergillus flavus/parasiticus infection and aflatoxin contamination in peanuts and other crops. This work has included investigating infection cycles, fungal population surveys from crops and soils, mycotoxin production, biological control of aflatoxin contamination and differentiation and phylogeny of strains using molecular markers.

Reinhard Boysen

Probing the interactions of health-beneficial natural products with biomimetic polymers using mass spectrometry

Reinhard Boysen has a PhD (Dr. rer. nat) from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, where he specialised in analytical biochemistry. He held a research position in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Monash University and in the last 5 years worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Green Chemistry/School of Chemistry in various fields of analytical chemistry that impact on the green chemical and environmental sciences. He collaborated successfully in interdisciplinary and international teams, enabling him to expand his core competencies into areas of practical significance, eg, industrial purification technologies, compound analysis and new functional polymers. Reinhard Boysen has made significant research contributions and discoveries in fundamental and applied sciences documented in his 65 scientific publications, 19 book chapters and 5 patent applications.

Philip Marriott

Innovative assessment tools for accurate assignment of food flavours

Philip Marriott obtained his BSc (Hons) and PhD degrees from LaTrobe University, then took up a postdoc at University of Bristol. He joined the School of Chemistry, Monash University, Australia, in 2010, from RMIT University, Australia, having previously been an academic at the National University of Singapore for 5 years. He has been active in high-resolution separations many years. He leads a successful research program in comprehensive two-dimensional GC and multidimensional GC. He has been credited with a number of innovations in developing technologies associated with GC×GC and MDGC, ranging from concepts of retention indices and the modulation ratio in GC×GC, detector technologies applied to GC×GC and MDGC, use of preparative capillary MDGC methods, a new hybrid GC×GC-MDGC method, and the first applications of fast quadrupole MS with GC×GC. Applications include pesticides, aroma compounds, herbs and spices, perfumes and essential oils, fatty acids, wine and other beverages, coffee, petrochemicals and drugs. He has published about 300 research papers and book chapters.

Topic areas

The convention will be divided into four streams so attendees can customise their programs to best meet their individual needs and interests. The topic areas covered will include:

• Agrifood sector innovation - latest developments in horticulture, seafood, pork and functional foods
• Cereal science - issues for the food industry
• Contaminants abound - what the regulations tell us
• Dairy in human health and nutrition
• Delivering the goods - supply chain economics
• Diet, health and performance - what are the choices?
• Food chemistry matters
• Food mycology symposium. The food industry - under the microscope
• Food reformulation for the 21st century
• Food sustainability in the 21st century
• Interesting bugs
• Let's eat! - implications of feeding large numbers in various locations
• Listeria - what you need to know
• Processing efficiency and effectiveness - the bottom line
• Tour of MCEC kitchen
• Traceability symposium - how, when, why
• Travel broadens your mind: virtual cook’s tour of allergen risk management and developments

Workshops

A number of workshops round out the busy convention program and as an added bonus all of the workshops are accredited within the AIFST Continuing Professional Development (CPD) initiative. Make sure you register to attend.

Good manufacturing practice 101

Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) is a widely used term in the food industry, but are all manufacturers really on the same page when it comes to defining the concept of GMP? The key objective of this workshop will be to establish a common understanding of what GMP is as well discuss the current challenges businesses are facing with increasing governance surrounding GMP. This workshop gives participants the opportunity to be out of their normal day-to-day role and be in a creative and practical environment where they will participate in bringing to life the key principles of GMP and how businesses can achieve success quicker, smarter and, most importantly, through people interacting with each other.

Health claims and scientific substantiation

The new Health Claims Standard 1.2.7 was gazetted in January 2013. Provisions in this standard include pre-approved health claims and an option for self-substantiation of general level health claims. This workshop will help you to understand the requirements for self-substantiation. It will cover what is expected to be included in a dossier to substantiate a health claim and what other factors you may need to be aware of when preparing one. Hands-on exercises and expert feedback will help to ensure participants gain a depth of understanding of the issues involved in preparing a dossier to substantiate general level health claims.

Mastering the PIF AFGC product information form

Save on the time spent completing the form and learn how to use it more efficiently. The session will cover: responsibilities as a supplier or recipient of the PIF, tips and tricks that simplify use, navigating with ease and understanding the in-built relationships, common pitfalls, how to effectively complete the form, techniques for reviewing and validating the content to improve the quality and accuracy of the information supplied. Making the most of the PIF User Guide includes ‘hands-on’ activities to provide detailed understanding of this form and its use.

Foreign objects: are they only your problem?

This workshop will give attendees the opportunity to examine the whole supply chain and see how others are reducing foreign object contamination incidents. Best practice strategies for prevention and detection will be demonstrated and the latest equipment will be available for viewing.

About the AIFST

The Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology is a national association representing individuals from all sectors of the Australian food and allied industries, giving members exposure to all aspects of the agrifood sector.

The institute was founded in 1967 and is a member of the International Union of Food Science and Technology Organisations (IUFoST). It is managed by a national council and supported by state branch committees which are democratically elected from and by members on an annual basis. AIFST also hosts a variety of local and national special interest groups.

AIFST has a strong reputation for facilitating food learning, networking and communication regardless of company size, industry segment or professional qualification. It aims to maximise the professional standing and opportunity for all its members.

For details on how to join the association or to register to attend its convention, please visit https://www.aifst.asn.au