The International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) last night presented its annual awards during its 2014 Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. Sodexo Inc. received the prestigious Black Pearl Award and four men were named IAFP Fellows.

This year's IAFP Fellows are:

• Francis (Frank) Busta, director emeritus of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense based at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, MN.
• Jeffrey Farber, director of the Bureau of Microbial Hazards, Food Directorate, in the Health Products and Food Branch of Health Canada, Ottawa.
• Fred Reimers, retired food safety/quality consultant and owner of Creative FoodSafe Solutions in Schertz, TX.
• Ronald Schmidt, professor emeritus of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL.

Other key IAFP awardees included:

• John Sofos, who served nearly 18 years as the scientific editor of the Journal of Food Protection, received the President's Lifetime Achievement Award;
• Russell Flowers, who recently retired from Silliker Laboratories and Merieux NutriSciences, received an Honorary Life Membership Award;
• Fred Weber, principal of Weber Scientific, also received an Honorary Life Membership Award.