Mcfarling Food | Info

With PMA’s 2010 Fresh Summit International Convention & Exposition coming up in a couple months in Orlando, Florida, here on Field to Fork we’ll be taking a periodic look in the coming weeks at some of the topics that’ll be addressed during the event.

First up is food safety. This year’s Fresh Summit will feature the latest on food safety provided in a variety of settings, to help answer questions and deliver business solutions. A Food Safety Solutions Center will be prominently located on the show floor in booth 201 at the Orange County Convention Center. Designed as a one-stop interactive destination, the center will provide educational exhibits, live demonstrations and videos related to food safety technology in the areas of packaging, traceability, processing equipment, product testing, water purification, and more.

On the educational agenda, food safety is woven throughout the workshops. Industry and PMA experts will be on hand to lead in facilitated Q&A sessions to explore business solutions in sessions on the topics of product testing; successfully navigating food safety audits; your role in traceability; and how the CPS is working for you.

For a complete listing of the event’s education program, visit the Fresh Summit Web site and look at the schedule. If you’re planning to come to Orlando in October, remember that the deadline to register online and save is September 17. The last day to register in advance is October 1.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Food Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Physics professors John S. Conway and Steven Carlip have been elected fellows of the American Physical Society, an honor bestowed on fewer than 15 percent of the society’s 40,000 members. The society cited Carlip for his contributions to black hole physics and to the study of gravity in the dimensions of space and time. Conway was recognized for outstanding contributions in the search for a sub-atomic particle known as the Higgs boson and his work using high-energy particle accelerators.

John Werner, professor in the UC Davis Health System Eye Center, has received the Lighthouse International Pisart Vision Award, a major U.S. prize honoring people who have made an extraordinary contribution to the prevention, cure or treatment of severe vision impairment or blindness. The award was established in 1981 and includes a prize of $35,000 and a glass sculpture created by a blind individual.

Professor emeritus Carole Meredith has been named to the 2009 Vintners Hall of Fame by the Culinary Institute of America. Meredith and her research group in the Department of Viticulture and Enology used DNA typing methods to discover the origins of several wine varieties, including Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Zinfandel.

Jessie Ann Owens, professor of music and dean of the UC Davis Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, has been elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Owens is the 58th member to be elected to the prestigious society in its 74-year history. In announcing her election, the society heralded Owens as “a leading scholar of Renaissance music” who has made outstanding contributions to musicology, the scholarly study of music.

Assistant Professor Mary Cadenasso in the Department of Plant Sciences has landed a $575,000 award from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program. The program is one of the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards, given in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.

Professor emeritus Timothy O’Brien of the School of Veterinary Medicine was recently honored for significantly impacting the development and training of equine veterinarians. The Distinguished Educator Award was presented to O’Brien by the American Association of Equine Practitioners during the organization’s annual meeting in San Diego. O’Brien, a veterinary radiologist, specialized in characterizing bone and joint problems of horses and spent much of his career at UC Davis. He has trained approximately 120 large-animal and equine surgery residents.

Deanne Meyer, Cooperative Extension specialist in livestock waste management, has been named the Western Dairy Business 2009 Outstanding Dairy Industry Educator/Researcher. Meyer was honored at the World Ag Expo, the world’s largest annual agricultural exposition, held recently in Tulare, Calif.

Carl Winter, a Cooperative Extension food toxicologist and director of the UC Davis FoodSafe Program in the Department of Food Science and Technology, received the 2009 Food Safety Leadership Award for Education and Training from NSF, a national food safety certification company. Winter, widely known for producing, distributing and performing musical parodies with a food safety theme, is being recognized for making a “real and lasting impact on the foodservice industry.” The award was presented April 27 during the Food Safety Summit in Washington, D.C.

Tonya Fancher, an assistant professor of internal medicine and associate program director for the department’s residency training program, has been selected as the first recipient of the Putnam Scholars Program, sponsored by the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare. The $9,000 Putnam Scholarship will help support an educational program Fancher is developing to teach medical residents the importance of understanding a patient's culture to build a trusting relationship.

The Genetics Society of America has awarded its prestigious Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal to John Roth, distinguished professor of microbiology. Roth, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an expert in bacterial genetics, genetic regulation and evolution, joined UC Davis in 2002. In writing about Roth’s lifetime of achievements, the society noted in the March issue of its journal Genetics that, “the field of genetics has been strongly influenced by the work of John Roth and his laboratory.”

Jinyi Qi, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, has been selected to receive the Early Achievement Award from the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. The selection committee cited Qi for his contributions to computational nuclear medical imaging, particularly his work on statistically based, three-dimensional image reconstruction. Qi, who has been at UC Davis since 2004, is also a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Siobhán Brady is the recipient of this year’s American Society of Plant Biologists’ Early Career Award with an accompanying $2,000 monetary prize. The award recognizes “exceptionally creative, independent contributions by a member of the society.” Brady, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Biology and the Genome Center, focuses on understanding how a network of transcriptional interactions regulates gene expression and tissue development and function in plants. The Early Career Award comes with a bonus: If Brady chooses to accept it at the society’s annual ceremony in Hawaii in July, she will also receive $1,000 to defray travel costs.

Professor Jorge Dubcovsky, Department of Plant Sciences, has been named the 2009 recipient of the American Society of Plant Biologists' Dennis R. Hoagland award “For outstanding plant research in support of agriculture.” The society is a professional organization devoted to the advancement of plant sciences.

R. Paul Singh, a distinguished professor of food engineering and an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State University in East Lansing. The award is presented annually to alumni who have obtained the highest level of professional accomplishment. Singh joined the UC Davis faculty in 1975 and holds a joint appointment in the departments of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and Food Science and Technology.

Kazuo Yamazaki, a professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, has received the Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The medal — which recognizes significant published research leading to a better understanding of factors involved in improving manufacturing processes — was awarded to Yamazaki for his body of research and development.

Marie Burns, associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science and a member of the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, is the 2009 recipient of the Cogan Award. Bestowed by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the award recognizes a researcher 40 years old or younger who has made contributions to research in ophthalmology or visual science that are directly related to disorders of the human eye or visual system, and who shows substantial promise for future research.

Nathan Kuppermann, a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine, has been awarded the Miller-Sarkin Mentoring Award by the Academic Pediatric Association. The award was presented earlier this month during the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Baltimore.

    Elections seen as test of Iraq's stability as US role diminishes.

    Baghdad - Iraqis streamed past police cordons and barbed wire as they went to the polls on Saturday to vote for the first time in four years. The elections are widely seen as a test of Iraq's stability as the U.S. role here diminishes.

    As the polls closed Saturday evening, there were no reports of anyone being injured or killed for political reasons. At polling stations across Iraq, people voted calmly, with many bringing their families to participate in only the second elections since the collapse of former president Saddam Hussein's government. Voter turnout in many areas was lower than expected, according to early reports.

    "I am so happy," declared Raad al-Shimari, 30, in Baghdad's Kadhamiyah neighborhood, flashing his forefinger, which had been dipped in purple ink to indicate he had just voted. "I chose the person that will represent me."

    The all-important provincial elections are viewed as a key indicator of whether the nation can build upon fragile security gains and address imbalances in power that still plague many areas. More than 14,000 candidates are running for 440 seats to lead councils that are the equivalent of state legislatures in the United States.

    The elections are unfolding in all of Iraq's provinces except three in the autonomous Kurdish region and the province that includes the disputed city of Kirkuk, where ethnic groups were unable to reach a power-sharing agreement paving the way for elections.

    The voting at 7,000 polling stations opened shortly after dawn following a heavy security clampdown launched on Friday. Those security measures included closing Iraq's borders and airspace coupled with bans on vehicle traffic and the deployment of thousands of security personnel around polling stations. Officials extended the voting by one hour to accommodate last minute crowds.

    In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, three mortar shells landed near polling stations, said police. There were no injuries. At least five candidates have been killed in the run-up to the elections, but overall violence has been less than what was expected by U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials.

    The only serious incident of violence occurred in Baghdad's Sadr City enclave when a scuffle between an Iraqi journalist and an Iraqi solider at a polling center led the soldier to accidentally fire his gun, killing a bystander. The incident was under investigation and the soldier is in custody, said Gen. Khalid Aydin, the chief of the security committee of Iraq's Electoral Commission.

    Unlike the provincial and parliamentary elections in 2005, today's vote follows nearly a year of a fragile calm, as violence levels have declined significantly in many areas of the nation. A cease-fire by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the rise of a Sunni movement that turned against the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, and a surge in U.S. troops in 2007 has contributed to the security improvements.

    In Baghdad's Karrada enclave, voters trickled into a polling station at a girls school, as Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops patrolled the streets.

    "I came early because I feel this election is very important to reward the officials that worked for Iraq's unity and reject sectarianism," said Ghania Aboud Jasim, 60, after she voted. "I am here trying to change the situation of my country."

    In the southern holy city of Najaf, where Shiite parties are in a fierce struggle for power, the morning turnout was below expectations, said election officials. In other parts of Iraq, officials also reported low turnout in the first hours.

    Hassan al-Kurdi, 28, came out to vote because he was fed up with Iraq's ruling Islamist parties. "Clerics and religious people have not succeeded in leading the province," said Kurdi after he stepped out of a polling station in Najaf. "I hope this election will bring in secular people in the provincial council of Najaf, who can introduce progress and make development."

    In Anbar province, Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents are competing for power against established Sunni politicians. In 2005, most Sunnis boycotted the elections, creating imbalances on the provincial councils as Shiites and Kurds grabbed a disproportionate share of power. Sunni parties are expected to gain local power also in volatile Diyala province as well as in northern areas where they comprise a majority of the population.

    In Fallujah, Anbar's second largest city, voter turnout was high, said election officials. Women were arriving to polling stations to cast votes, unprecedented in a conservative tribal society where women are not allowed to mingle freely with men. Many wore customary veils; female volunteers searched each woman for weapons and bombs. Female suicide bombers have committed numerous attacks in Iraq during the past year.

    "I came to vote because I want to see women representing women of Fallujah and Anbar and to prove through my participation that women are here and will play an important role," said Iman Karkaz, a college professor in Fallujah and women's activist. "For sure this election will bring changes. The more women who take part in the election, the more likely this change will happen."

    In the southern port city of Basra, women entered polling stations wearing colorful clothes, including skirts and boots that a year ago would have prompted Islamic fundamentalist to brand their attire as un-Islamic.

    In some polling stations, voters couldn't cast ballots because they could not find their names on voter registration lists. To verify voter eligibility, Iraq still uses a complex Hussein-era system that revolves around national food rations lists. To vote, residents must find the name of their ration agent and then find themselves on the agent's list of families. If their name is missing, they are not allowed to vote.

    There was mass confusion at the main voting center in Baghdad's Zayouna neighborhood. Dozens of voters were upset after they did not find their names on the list.

    "I wandered all over four voting centers and each one tells me to go into another one," said Fahim Abdul Rahman Jassim, 63. "During the last elections I participated. So what is the change now? It means there is something I don't know."

    "There is 100 percent forgery in these elections," he added angrily.

    In the town of Khanaqin, in Diyala province, several thousand Kurds who were barred from casting votes launched a protest march in the provincial capital of Baqubah Saturday, demanding the right to vote.

    Hussein's regime had forcefully removed them from Khanaqin and resettled them in Sunni areas. The Kurds had returned to their orginal homes in Khanaqin. But their food ration cards had been moved only last December, making them ineligible to vote, said election officials.

--------    

    Special correspondents K.I. Ibrahim, Qais Mizher and Dalya Hassan in Baghdad and special correspondents in Najaf, Fallujah and other parts of Iraq contributed to this report.

All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.

Support Truthout's work with a $10/month tax-deductible donation today! The mullahs’ rule in Iran, under the velayat-faqih, has guaranteed its survival in the past three decades through severe suppression of the Iranian people, the export of terrorism and fundamentalism to Iraq and other Islamic countries of the region. Due to the cultural and Shiite religious characteristics of Iraq’s society, and the presence of numerous Shiite holy shrines in this country, political developments and the recent election results, meaning which coalition will form the future government in Iraq, has strategic values for the Iranian regime The defeat of the Iranian-backed parties in Iraq’s elections literally poses grave threat to the very existence of the Iranian regime. The Iranian regime, using its past experience, initiated wide range tactics to change the Iraqi parliamentary results in favor of parties bowing to its policies. Part of this plan started with eliminating and assassinating nationalist figures and movements that stood against the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq. In this trend, the Iranian regime continued its malevolent campaign by successively graduating fraud, coming from three decades of experience in Iran.

This recent article about food waste in the United States, and the energy it represents, offers reminder that this is an area worthy of focus for event professionals and their suppliers. Indeed, a recent session at the MPI WEC conference offered practical actions to reduce carbon emissions related to events.

Reducing food waste is by no means a new concept. Yet, many industry professionals who have interest in saving money while reducing the environmental impact of their events employ only a minimum of tactics to reduce food waste.

Every event is different and it’s difficult to identify a single list which applies to all. Still, we try. Here’s a hardly-exhaustive list of tactics planners might consider when creating an event which offers food and beverage:

The supplier: Caterer success has much to do with how effectively they eliminate waste. Established processes and team trainings can help. Effective purchasing and storage and rotation can all reduce food spoilage or breakage. Menu design, as well, can influence rates of waste. There are some software solutions that have proven helpful in some cases, such as LeanPath. Planners should ask prospective suppliers about their practices and how their practices can support the no waste agenda.

The venue: The type of venue selected may influence how effective is the support for food waste reduction. Hotels, because they serve many meals in many different outlets, can often re-allocate safe, un-served food completely. Ask. If the supplier advises that no waste is experienced, then this should inform the negotiation for how they’ll charge if the planner doesn’t meet the guaranteed number (savings opportunity). Exhibition halls often have no food and beverage service of their own and contract with local providers. They may have suggestions for who can perform best to help reduce food waste, so planners should ask.

The counts: Old news, perhaps but still a challenge. Many hotel venues require planners to commit to a number 72 hours in advance and then charge the planner that minimum, even if fewer people attend (see ‘venue’ above for the disconnect) Large events have benefitted from requiring delegates to indicate meals they’ll attend during the online registration process.

Donations: For the recent EWEC 2010 conference in Warsaw, planners worked hard to successfully overcome the barriers to donate food to the regional Food Bank. Concerns about food safety were mitigated with written agreements between parties and participation from Food Bank representatives whose equipment and on-site presence allowed them to immediately collect safe food product for same day distribution. Their efforts resulted in 2,900 meals being donated to a ready infrastructure in need, rather than discarding them as waste. Note: the Iceland volcano eruption caused attendance reductions and food count challenges the first few days of the conference, making the Food Bank initiative especially important in this case

Type of service: plated meals are more labor intensive and more costly but can mean less waste under most circumstances. Effectively monitored buffets can control waste but, in most cases, everything left on the table gets discarded. Bold suggestion: invite staff, volunteers and even visitors to grab a plate before the catering team clears the room. Box lunches are normally a big waste but sealed beverages, whole fruit and packaged snacks can all be re-used if not consumed, but only if they’re not left in a heap on top of the tables. Consider placing a separate receptacle for such re-usable items at the service location.

For planners that are looking for specific actions and practical steps to improve sustainable event performance, can the above actions be a place to start? Who knows? You might just help cool the planet.

What examples have you seen be effective? What are some solutions for different kinds of events?

Avoid contamination, keep your bathroom floors clean, and save on utility cost!

The Bobrick paper towel dispenser touchless design and style secures and releases your paper towel rolls without the need to contact the dispenser. The Bobrick dispenser releases and cuts the rolls size mechanically in a controlled manner. There really is no throw away involve at the time of the cutting of the paper towel. The Bobrick paper towel dispenser can do it all for you. You just rip the paper towel without a single finger touching the dispensing equipment and you got a fair length of paper towel enough for your need.

Pull and use

The Bobrick paper towel dispenser will make tissue or paper towel dispensing uncomplicated and comfortable for you. You do not need to have to change position, keep the dispenser, pull the paper towel, and guide the dispensing device tear the paper towel. Pull and use as many as you like . The Bobrick paper towel dispenser made the touchless technology for one time towel releasing at a zero waste cost while retaining people safer from contamination.

Bobrick products technology

The Bobrick company produces at least 750 goods for washroom amenities. Bobrick is a innovator in presenting durable and high quality bathroom products and solutions made from materials that stay longer. Bobrick delivers a paper towel dispenser that not onlysaves you expenses in waste but also presents your bathroom a professional ambience. The dispenser has a steel satin finish design complemented with a seamless beveled flange.

Make haste with no waste! Some people desire to seize a paper towel rapidly notably when they are in a hurry. Well, let them snap up and use it fast. You can take a rest thinking about of the waste you get from that haste-grabbing act. Hurry with no waste. That is theconcept of this touchless controlled dispensing machine. Preserve your flooring neat, help save cost from waste, and help save time from cleaning floors. Expect clean floor surfaces without scattered paper towels because the Bobrick paper towel dispenser comes with a waste receptacle bin directly below the dispenser.

Offer washroom service with a style

The Bobrick paper towel dispenser has a contemporary finish with sleek design that would blend any restroom theme. This touchless dispensing equipment provides a high-end understanding to people while creating a hygienic atmosphere. Paper towels continue to be dry, which helps get rid of contamination risks especially the food-borne illnesses. The role of the users’ hands intransmitting of diseases has been well founded. The Bobrick company’s mission to promote a healthy environment by supplying washroom facilities that get rid of cross-contamination possibility and transmission of harmful bacteria and illnesses has been included in the design of the dispensing unit.