IUFoST -JAPAN  Food Safety and Security Symposium

September 2009 saw the opportunity for the IUFoST leadership to reaffirm and renew our long relationship with IUFoST founding member, Japan with the IUFoST-Japan Food Safety and Security Symposium, meetings with Japan industry and research institutes, with our colleagues in IUFoST Japan and with hands-on training in Cup-of-Noodle making.

From left: IUFoST Japan President,  Tomohiko Mori, Academy Fellow  Katsuyoshi Nishinari and Academy Founding Fellow and former IUFoST Governing Council member, Kyoden Yasumoto

The first paper of the symposium was given by Prof Seiichi Homma, the immediate past Commissioner of the Food Safety Commission, in the Cabinet Office of the Japanese government. He reminded us of Japan's high dependency on imported food, some 60% of its needs. Pressure was therefore on government both on food security, and on food safety, as improved methods of analysis lowered detection levels of pesticide residues and contaminants. Then Prof Takanori Mine, Director of Food Safety Research for ILSI Japan highlighted how Japanese consumers now needed to be kept better informed following the loss of confidence in the wake of the recycled milk scandal in Japan in 2000. Prof Toshio Shimizu explained the safety evaluation procedures for Functional foods, since their first recognition by Japan as FOSHU in 1991. Geoffrey Campbell-Platt gave a presentation on IUFoST's Global Role in Food Safety and Security. This stressed IUFoST's key strategic areas of food safety, illustrated by our recent expert panel meeting with the Chinese government in Beijing, and as stakeholders in WHO's Foodborne Disease Epidemiology Reference Group, FERG; food security, explaining our recent involvement with FAO and the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into food security; with our third key area of education, with distance learning, and the recent publication of our IUFoST textbook 'Food Science and Technology'. Pingfan Rao discussed the Chinese approach to improving food security for its very large and increasing population, while Chinese consumers are demanding improvement in food safety. Korea, like Japan, explained Cherl-Ho Lee, is a major importer of its staple cereal foods, and was therefore particularly vulnerable to recent world food shortages, and consequent price rises. By contrast, as Rickey Yada discussed, Canada was well able to meet its own basic food needs, and is a major world exporter of cereals, but it is not immune from food safety worries, as its' recent Listeria in cooked meats outbreak demonstrated. The following lively discussion confirmed again that more issues unite than divide our modern, global world, and that IUFoST has a major role to play in bringing together the best global scientific expertise to help resolve these challenges.

While in Japan, the IUFoST leadership was not just allowed to talk about knowledge and theories; we were to be put to the test of making our own chicken noodles and pot noodles on our visit to the Nisshin Foods Ramen Noodle Museum in Osaka

From left rear: Cherl-Ho Lee and Mrs. Lee, Tomihiko Mori: Right from rear: Geoffrey Campbell-Platt, Rickey Yada and Pingfan Rao

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