AMIF’s Food Safety Initiative: Progress and Possibilities
This fall, the American Meat Institute Foundation (AMIF) released a timely summary of its five-year Food Safety Initiative research and educational outreach program. In its report, “Progress and Possibilities,” AMIF details the accomplishments and ongoing efforts of industry and academia to enhance meat and poultry safety, including the funding of intensive research, applied technology and consumer education in the areas of E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef, Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products, sodium nitrite safety, and more. Many of these research findings have been translated into applicable food safety strategies and technologies used in meat and poultry plants throughout the nation.
AMIF is a non-profit research, education and information foundation established and funded by AMI to study the ways the meat and poultry industry can produce better, safer products and operate more efficiently (www.amif.org).
Food Safety Magazine spent some time with Randall Huffman, Ph.D., AMIF Vice President of Scientific Affairs, and AMIF Research Advisory Committee members—Phil Minerich, Ph.D., Hormel Foods; Martin Weidmann, Ph.D., Cornell University; Dean Danilson, Tyson Foods; Margaret Hardin, Ph.D., Boar’s Head Provision Co.; and Collette Schultz Kayser, Premium Standard Farms—to find out more about the Foundation’s success so far in addressing current food safety challenges and its next steps in addressing emerging industry issues.
Randall Huffman, Ph.D. is Vice President of Scientific Affairs for the American Meat Institute Foundation (AMIF). He joined AMI in January 2000. Huffman manages the AMI Foundation’s food safety research agenda, assists members in improving food safety and quality and serves as the liaison between AMI and various scientific organizations. Prior to joining AMIF, Huffman was director of technical services for three years at Koch Industries, Inc., in Wichita, KS, where he had responsibilities for product development and food safety with the Koch Beef Co. Earlier in his career, he served as vice president of technical services at Fairbank Farms in Ashville, N.Y.
Phillip L. Minerich, Ph.D., is Vice President, Research and Development with Hormel Foods, where he oversees product development, regulatory compliance and food safety. Minerich, who succeeded Dr. Forrest D. Dryden upon his retirement, has been with the multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer-branded food and meat products for 29 years, most recently in the position of director, product and process development and packaging with the research and development division of Hormel Foods. Minerich’s expertise includes food technology, packaging and the development and application of food safety intervention technologies and systems.
Margaret Hardin, Ph.D., is Director of Quality Assurance and Food Safety with Boar’s Head Provisions Co., the nationally known ready-to-eat meat and cheese processor serving the delicatessen and retail markets. Previously, Hardin held positions as Director of Food Safety at Smithfield Packing Co., Sara Lee Foods and the National Pork Producers Council, and as a research scientist and HACCP instructor with the National Food Processors Association in Washington, DC. Her efforts have been directed in areas of food safety, research, HACCP, and sanitation to protect the public health and assure the microbiological quality and safety of food.
Dr. Martin Wiedmann, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Food Science, Cornell University, is a world-recognized scholar, researcher and expert on critical food safety issues affecting the dairy/animal industry. Wiedmann addresses farm-to-fork food safety issues with a diverse educational background in animal science, food science, and veterinary medicine. His program applies modern molecular technologies to address many microbiological challenges important to the meat, poultry, seafood and dairy industries. His work with Listeria monocytogenes is internationally recognized and has significantly contributed to improving our understanding of the transmission of this organism along the food chain.
Dean Danilson, Ph.D., is Vice President, Quality Assurance & Food Safety with Tyson Foods, the largest provider of beef, pork and chicken products worldwide. He is responsible for the Tyson Foods “Retail” Meat & Poultry Quality Assurance & Food Safety programs, which apply to over 50 slaughter, fabrication and further processing facilities, and for developing, implementing and sustaining QA/QC, HACCP/SSOP & GMP/SOP programs that involve food safety, product quality and product specifications. He also oversees the Product R&D & Meat Engineering for IBP Fresh Meat division, managing new product development and process improvement applications. During his 20-year career, Danielson has also has worked for the Granada Beef Co. and as an assistant professor at Auburn University.
Collette Schultz Kaster is Vice President of Food Safety and Technical Services at Premium Standard Farms, one of the largest vertically integrated providers of pork products in the U.S., producing consistent, high-quality pork products for the retail, wholesale, foodservice, further processor and export markets. She is responsible for food safety, regulatory affairs, quality assurance, product development and pre- and post-harvest research.
Food SafetyMagazine: In the past five years, AMIF’s Food Safety Initiative (FSI) has focused a great deal on supporting research on methods and technologies for reducing and ultimately eliminating E. coli O157:H7 on fresh beef products and Listeria monocytogenes on RTE products. In your opinion, what are some of the key research findings in these two challenge areas and have any of these findings been translated into practical applications that advance food safety best practices in meat and poultry operations?
Dr. Randall Huffman, AMIF: In terms of reducing and eliminating E. coli O157:H7, some of the pre-harvest research has yielded promising results that may assist in reducing the pathogen at its source. The cattle feeding industry has expressed a willingness to adopt technologies that are proven effective. The research challenge is to validate the effectiveness of some of these promising techniques. One method that has received significant study and some commercial acceptance is the use of direct-fed microbials that have been shown in controlled studies to reduce the prevalence of cattle testing positive for E. coli O157 at slaughter. Studies that seek ways to reduce E. coli O157 in drinking water and prevent transmission from animal to animal through common water sources appear promising in the lab setting, but must be field tested to determine practicality. AMIF has also funded research to improve our understanding of optimal pathogen sampling protocols and validated laboratory methods for E. coli O157 testing. AMIF, in cooperation with the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, also funded proof-of-concept research that demonstrates that very low-dose, low-penetration electron beam treatment can effectively and dramatically reduce pathogens on the carcass surface.
In terms of Listeria monocytogenes control, the University of Georgia’s research into using competitive exclusion organisms in the drain to out-compete Listeria in this critical environmental niche looks very promising, and a major commercial sanitation supplier has expressed interest in taking this technology from the laboratory into a real-world setting. AMIF has also focused a significant amount of research funds at almost a dozen separate institutions to study a wide variety of compounds that may either destroy Listeria or prevent Listeria growth during shelf life. Several of these ingredients, such as a combination of lactate and diacetate have gained wide industry adoption in cured RTE meat products.
Dr. Phil Minerich, Hormel Foods: The AMIF research has provided industry with several excellent research initiatives providing sound guidance on several technologies for controlling or eliminating Listeria monocytogenes in the processing environment and reducing the risk of post-lethality contamination for RTE products. I believe industry has benefited from key AMIF-funded studies evaluating new food safety interventions and technologies evaluating the effectiveness and commercial application for different antimicrobial agents, high pressure pasteurization and hot water pasteurization.
Dr. Martin Wiedmann, Cornell University: Broadly speaking, I think that the major importance of AMIF’s Food Safety Initiative is its involvement in funding studies of treatments that have been thought to be efficient or are viewed as potentially efficient and in doing so, puts sound science behind what anecdotally is thought to be true. In other words, the research is helping industry to identify which of these approaches that we think or hope are effective can actually be proved to have a positive impact on reducing E. coli contamination or preventing and reducing L. monocytogenes growth. In this way, industry has the chance to take strategies or technologies which AMIF projects have shown really work well and translate them into action.
I think AMIF’s involvement in supporting research in the E. coli O157:H7 area has resulted in providing a scientific basis for the use of direct fed and antimicrobial probiotics, which has been very important to industry. Similarly, AMIF-funded research in the area of L. monocytogenes has been very helpful to meat and poultry processors, by characterizing the effects of lactate, diacetate and other antimicrobials and defining the best combinations of antimicrobials to effectively prevent L. monocytogenes growth.
Dr. Dean Danilson, Tyson Foods: The AMIF has funded and facilitated hundreds of projects directly impacting and contributing to improved food safety efforts of the industry. Research in the areas of E. coli O157:H7 pre-harvest and processing systems and the Listeria work that AMIF has shepherded, facilitated and funded, and even to some degree captured, cooperative funding from other sources in joint or matching funds—all lead to an end purpose of getting information to the industry that they need on the technical side of the food safety area.