DEERFIELD, IL / ACCESSWIRE / May 18, 2018 / The 20th Annual Food Safety Summit, held last week in Rosemont, IL attracted more than 2300 participants, with 1600 registered attendees, a virtual audience of more than 700 food safety professionals, and 185 exhibiting companies. During the four-day event, held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, food safety professionals participated in interactive sessions focused on food safety in the supply chain. The event kicked off on Monday, May 7th with six successful certification programs including Preventive Control for Human Food, Foreign Supplier Verification, Professional Food Safety Auditor Training, Seafood HACCP, HACCP Training, and Certified in Comprehensive Food Safety.
"Since 1998 the Food Safety Summit has gathered tens of thousands of growers, processors, suppliers, retailers, distributors, regulators and academicians to discuss, educate and share ideas, and this 20th Anniversary was no different, in fact it was a terrific, interactive, and informative meeting," said Scott Wolters, Director for the Food Safety Summit. "We thank our Educational Advisory Board, our exhibitors, attendees, speakers, and press who came out to support this industry leading event which addressed critical food safety issues and helped us to celebrate."
On Tuesday, May 8, Craig Henry, Ph.D. from Intro moderated a session with leaders from the CDC, United Egg Producers, Wegmans Supermarkets, Kreher Family Farm, and Food Industry Counsel where experts discussed lessons learned from recent food safety case studies. The audience was engaged with the speakers and able to have open, honest and lively conversations. The focus of the supply chain was also the topic of four afternoon workshops focused on departmental cooperation, traceability, effectively managing food safety and global regulatory systems.
The Welcome Reception held on the expo hall floor, sponsored by Nexcor Technologies, offered attendees an opportunity to network with 185 vendors who showcased specialty products and services designed to help food safety professionals do their job more effectively and efficiently. The NEW Community Cafes were a highlight on the show floor where attendees had the chance to meet with the subject matter experts from the speaker faculty, for more in-depth conversations about topics focused on the supply chain. This new section received a very positive response from the attendees and were sponsored by CERTUS, Grainger, Purell, and Kestrel Management.
On Wednesday morning our Keynote Presenter, Carletta Ooton, VP, Health, Safety, Sustainability, Security and Compliance for Amazon talked about Amazon's Approach to Innovation and What It Means for Food Safety in front of a packed audience of professionals who were intrigued by Amazon's innovation and a glimpse into the future of food safety within one of the largest companies in the world. The Keynote Presentation was broadcast live from the event to a virtual audience of more than 700 industry professionals and is available on-demand on the event website at this link.
Prior to the keynote Carey Allen, director of supply chain food safety certification for NSF International, presented Hal King, founder and CEO of Public Health Innovations LLC, with the 2018 NSF Food Safety Leadership Award.
On Wednesday night hundreds of attendees enjoyed live music, food and drink at the 20th year networking reception, sponsored by EtQ, Kleanz, Meritech, PSSI, Purell, Q Laboratories, QWerks, DetectorAudits.com, Rentokil Steritech, Sparta Systems, TandD, Universal Pure and Wyze Temp.
On Thursday morning, during the 7th Annual Town Hall AFDO's Steve Mandernach, CDC's Dr. Robert Tauxe, USDA's Paul Keicker, and FDA's Stephen Ostroff discussed how the agencies are working together on food safety initiatives and the impact of whole genome sequencing of pathogens as a game changer for disease detectives. The Town Hall was moderated by Gary Ades, President of G&L Consulting and Chairman of the Summit's Educational Advisory Board.
Preceding the Town Hall, the 2018 Sani Awards were presented. The Leadership in Food Safety Award was given to Matt Barone, Kearny High School; The Exceptional Food Safety Education and/or Training Program Implementation Award was given to April Rivas, A Training Company; and the Outstanding Food Safety Program Innovation Award was given to Robert Clayton and Michael Cox, Lombardi Family Concepts, and was accepted on their behalf by Dan Marsh
On the trade show floor, 185 exhibiting companies including Gold Sponsor Alchemy, Silver Sponsor Eurofins and Bronze Sponsor Sani Professional met with attendees to showcase their new products and services. Two full days of presentations from exhibitors were offered in the Solutions Stage Theaters, as a chance for attendees to hear from subject matter experts about the newest solutions and technologies in food safety and security. Solutions Stage presentations were given by Meritech, LUBRIPLATE Lubricants Company, ClorDiSys, Traqtion, METTLER TOLDEO, Arts Way Scientific, Hollison, LLC, Universal Pure, Intralytix, Crystal Diagnostics, Global ID Group, Sani Professional, Siemens PLM, ReposiTrak, TraceGains, SGS, ACO Polymer Products, Inc., and Merieux NutriSciences.
Plans are already being made for the 21st Anniversary of the Food Safety Summit which will again be held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL from Monday, May 6 through Thursday, May 9, 2019. For more information, on sponsorship or exhibiting opportunities contact Kim Hansen at hansenk@bnpmedia.com. For 2019 event information and updates visit www.foodsafetysummit.com and for year-round food safety news, updates and insights covering all food-processing segments visit www.foodsafetystrategies.com. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
SOURCE: Food Safety Summit
