Food Safety Enhancement

1. How does this program relate to the mission of the College, and who does it serve?

This program addresses the safety of the food supply including pathogenic microorganisms, chemical additives, naturally occurring toxicants, and pesticide residues in foods that are processed, prepared and merchandised.  Approaches include developing rapid methods for detecting pathogenic organisms and toxicants in foods, studying environmental conditions that influence the growth and survival of pathogenic organisms in foods, developing food processing and food preparation practices to minimize the risks of foodborne illness, and educating students, food processors, food retailers, the food service industry, and consumers about strategies for preventing foodborne illness.
Foodborne illness in the United States is a major cause of personal distress, preventable death and avoidable economic burden.  An estimated 6.5 to 33 million people become ill from pathogenic microorganisms in food resulting in an estimated 10,000 needless deaths every year at an annual cost estimated to be between $7.7 and $23 billion (US FDA Food Code).  For many victims, foodborne illness results only in discomfort or lost time from work.  For some, especially pre-school-age children, older adults in health care facilities and those with impaired immune systems, foodborne illness is much more serious and may be life threatening.
The safety of foods is of critical concern to U.S. consumers.  Several highly publicized foodborne illness outbreaks involving microorganisms such as E. coli 0157:H7, Salmonella, Shigella, Cyclospora  and Hepatitis A virus, have focused consumer attention on the safety of the food supply.  Today, food safety is a top priority nationally, in Congress, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and in New York State, CALS and the Institute of Food Science.  New seafood HazardAnalysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulations, promulgated by FDA and the USDA Meat and Poultry HACCP/Pathogen reduction regulations, have continued to highlight the importance of food safety to the American public.
A safe food supply requires the integration and application of knowledge of the fields of food science, microbiology, toxicology, nutrition, entomology, pesticide management, communication, and agricultural economics.  In keeping with the CALS mission “to discover, integrate, disseminate and apply knowledge about food systems and nutrition as a basis for sustainable improvement in the lives of people throughout New York State, the nation, and the world,” the Food Safety Enhancement program at Cornell draws on the strengths of individuals in diverse fields to provide leadership in research, teaching and outreach activities in this area.

The objectives of the food safety program area are to:

• [1] Conduct both basic and applied research, teaching and extension programs in  microbial food safety.

• [2] Maintain a strong chemical food safety program including pesticides and other  man-made chemical contaminants, and naturally occurring toxicants such as  glycoalkaloids in some vegetables and mycotoxins in grains.

• [3] Interpret, integrate and disseminate research results through proactive  extension/outreach programs and activities to the food industry, government  agencies and consumers.

• [4] Educate students in food safety related careers in the food industry, academia and  government.

Constituencies Served by this Program Area
 

Internal	External
Departments and units: Animal Science, ARME, Communication, DNS, Education, Fruit andVegetable Science, ICET, Integrated Pest Management, Pesticide Management Education, and Plant Breeding	Farmers,  Ingredient suppliers, Food processors, Food retailers, Food equipment manufacturers, Food service operations
Colleges: Hotel School, College of Human Ecology, College of Veterinary Medicine	Government agencies, Food trade organizations, Scientific societies, Consumer groups, Consumers, Peers from other institutions and Journalists
County Cooperative Extension personnel:  Agriculture, Home Economics, 4-H agents and volunteers	Government agencies, Food trade organizations, Scientific societies, Consumer groups, Consumers, Peers from other institutions and Journalists
Undergraduate students   Graduate students   Alumni

 
 

Specific examples of external constituencies include the US FDA, USDA, EPA, NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets, the NYS Health Department, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Food Processors Association, dairy and food processors, the Food Marketing Institute, NYS Food Merchants Association, pest control operators, National Restaurant Association, the Institute of Food Technologists, International Association of Milk, Food and Environmental Sanitarians (IAMFES), NYS Association of Milk and Food Sanitarians, NYS Cheese Manufacturers Association, television, radio, newspaper and magazine journalists, and many other organizations.

Major program contributions are being made by Dr. Batt in Recombinant DNA Technology, Dr. Boor in Dairy Microbiology, Dr. Durst in Bioanalytical Chemistry, Dr. Gravani in HACCP and general microbiology, Dr. Worobo in Antimicrobial Bacteriocins, and Ms. Scott in Extension Food Safety.

2. What are the indicators that this program is productive, of high quality, and is  meeting the needs of the groups it seeds to serve?

This program area is nationally unique in the integration of both classic and molecular microbiology techniques permeating our teaching, research and extension activities.  Additionally, we maintain a significant expertise in HACCP methods and their application to various food systems.  We also have a very strong program in chemical food safety with faculty in leadership roles both nationally and internationally.  In chemical food safety alone, we have over 20 full time staff supported by competitive grants and answering the needs of the Northeast region and behond.  (See Analytical Labs, Appendix E).

During the program planning process, 26 faculty and staff members representing 6.9FTEs indicated support for this program  area.  These Cornell faculty and staff members hold leadership positions in many organizations, associations, industry advisory panels and professional societies.

Teaching
The faculty working in the area of Food Safety Enhancement offer a broad selection of high-quality courses for undergraduate  and graduate  students.

• Nine courses including 18 credit hours of study are directly targeted to this subject  area.

• Four courses attract students from within and outside the field of food science, and  enrollments in most of our courses are high.

• Graduate Students in the area of Food Safety are a part of the Graduate Field of Food  Science and Technology, the largest field in the area of Biological Sciences.

• Cross listing and resource courses are also found in the Division of Nutritional  Sciences with more than four courses for a total of 12 credit hours that address food,  diet, health, and safety issues.  Ten courses in toxicology, veterinary medicine and  plant pathology, totaling 25 credits, discuss food safety issues.
 
 

Research

• Cornell research activities in this program area are of high caliber and well recognized.

• Over the past 5 years external funding of Cornell projects in this area has amounted  to approximately 6.8 million dollars.
 
• Grant sources have included reputable and highly competitive programs.    (USDA, NEDFRC, Natl. Dairy Board, NDRPB, NSF, and the Eastern AI Coop.)
 
• Industrial funding of projects has also been very successful in this area.    (Suntory, Inc., NY Apple Research Association, Mobil Oil, NYS Sweet Corn,    NYSEG, NYS Milk Promotion Order, NYS Cheese Manufacturers Association,    Unilever, TetraPak, Kraft, International Paper, Proctor & Gamble, General    Mills, Wanger, Idetek, duPont, Wyeth, Applied Biosystems, Paracelsian,    Tetronix, Innovative Biotech, Inc., and MediSense as well as numerous other sources).
 
• Over the previous five years literally hundreds of referred articles have been  published by our scientists working in the area of Food Safety Enhancement

Extension

The faculty in this program area develop, implement and participate in a number of extension/outreach activities supporting all of the programs on the Institute of Food Science.
 
• Food Safety Outreach programs have been specifically targeted to the food retail  industry.  With more than 2,500 participants in 1996 alone, it illustrates one of the  college’s most successful outreach efforts.
 
• Food processors were offered strong programs in safe food processing techniques  (Better Process Control School), HACCP and Quality Management topics.   Attendance at these workshops in 1996 amounted to over 300 industry participants.
 
• Food Service Personnel were presented with a Safe Food Preparation Practices  workshop in several extension seminars and forums throughout the state.
 
• Requests from over 800 CornellCooperative Extension agents, food industry  constituents, and consumers are handled by Extension food scientists each year.
 
• Updates for New York State Agriculture and Markets, Food and Dairy Inspectors  were conducted in 1996 and over 165 regulatory personnel participated in the 2 1/2  day programs.

With the development of a food safety outreach center, we plan to regionalize our focus, prevent duplication, and act as a clearing house for important developments.

Seminars and brown bag lunch meetings are used to continue discussion and integrate this diversity of programs and projects associated with food safety.

The chemical food safety program at Cornell is the pre-eminent program in the Northeast, and rivals any national effort.  With a focus on pesticide residuals and their detection, as well as natural toxicants, this program stands as a landmark effort to enhance the safety of our food supply.

3. What are the limitations on this program, how could it be strengthened?

Food safety means different things to different people.  We are a resource for other groups in the College, such as Food Systems for Improved Health, with faculty participating jointly in both programs.

There are many challenges to maintaining excellence in the food safety enhancement program area.
Current limitations are:

• Continually growing interest in food and increased requests for information from all  constituent groups are putting a strain on the system.
 
• Numerous faculty and staff retirements.  It is difficult to maintain quality  programming with reduced human resources.
 
• Uncertainty of faculty and staff rehires.
 
• Funding for extension associates involved in food safety outreach activities.
 
• Increasing workloads in all areas (teaching, advising, research and  extension/outreach, committees, etc.)
 
• Greater competition from peer institutions for students and financial resources in  food safety research and extension/outreach grants.
 
• Decreased financial support.
 
• Need for improved coordination of Cornell resources in food safety.
This program could be strengthened by:
 
• New professorial hires in food microbiology and toxicology as well as additional  staff support for extension/outreach efforts directed to Cooperative Extension  agents and other New York State constituents.
 
• Solicitation of non-traditional sources of funding.
 
• Continued improvement in the coordination of teaching, research and  extension/outreach programs and activities throughout the university.

4. What is the vision for the future?  What is needed to accomplish this vision?

Our vision for the future is to enhance the safety of raw and processed foods, thereby improving not only the economic competitiveness of the NYS and US food processing industries, but ultimately the lives of people throughout the state, the nation, and the world.  We, in food science, will draw upon Cornell’s existing strengths across many disciplines to build a food systems approach to food safety, from pre-harvest animal-based food safety programs (in collatoration with the college of Veterinary Medicine and the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory), to consumer/household food safety programs (with the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the School of Hotel Administration).  This program will be developed under the leadership of a broadly based Cornell Center for Food Safety.  Our long-term goal is to establish Cornell University as the Northeast Food Safety Center for Foodborne Disease Surveillance.  This vision is consistent with the new White House policy on infectious diseases as described in The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) News 62:450-451. 1996.

Our food safety research/outreach/teaching program will focus on addressing the looming food safety challenges of the 21st century, which will include an increased population of elderly and immunocompromised people with greater susceptibility to foodborne diseases.  We will explore the potential impact of new and emerging foodborne pathogens for these specific segments of the population.  Our program will emphasize disease prevention through comprehensive approaches such as development and implementation of HACCP programs throughout the food system (including food production, processing and retailing, and food service, as well as with consumers).

These goals will be pursued through the following specific objectives:
 

Teaching:

We plan to provide the most comprehensive graduate and undergraduate food safety training programs in the United States.  We will:
 
• Aggressively recruit the highest quality undergraduate and graduate students into  the food safety program area.
 
• In collaboration with the College of Veterinary Medicine, fund graduate and  postgraduate programs through high volume, long-term training grants from  agencies committed to reducing the incidence of foodborne and infectious diseases,  including NIH, USDA, CDC, and internationally-based agencies such as WHO.
 
• Expand undergraduate opportunities for food safety research and outreach  experiences.
 
• Increase undergraduate summer internship opportunities within the food industry.
 
• Utilize distance learning technology to further expose students to externally-based  internationally recognized experts in food safety.
 
• Develop interdisciplinary courses with food safety collaborators in the College of  Veterinary Medicine, the Division of Nutritional sciences, the School of Hotel  Administration, and others.
 

Research:

Through combined approaches of basic and applied research, we will increase our understanding of fundamental food safety issues in complementary subject areas, focusing on microbial and chemical food safety.  For example, in food microbiology, we will examine the physiology of emerging foodborne pathogens and infectious agents to allow an understanding of environmental factors affecting microbial survival, growth, and pathogenesis, as well as develop novel strategies for rapid pathogen detection and enumeration.  Integration of this information will allow development of strategies for reduction and elimination of bacterial foodborne hazards at key points throughout the food system.

Our approach for enhanced research funding will include the following:
 

• Pursuit of new partnerships with biotechnology companies and the food industry in  development of projects of mutual benefit.
 
• Development of interdisciplinary research teams to facilitate comprehensive  problem-solving approaches.  This strong investigator base and their outstanding  research programs will attract highly competitive funding from agencies such as  NSF and NIH

Extension/Outreach:

We plan to take advantage of our regional leadership role in food safety Cooperative Extension programming in the Northeastern US to establish an interdisciplinary center for excellence -- the Cornell University Food Safety Outreach Center.  The goals of this center are to: efficiently communicate cutting-edge research findings from the food safety research program area to relevant audiences; coordinate outreach efforts to eliminate redundancies; and provide rapid, outstanding information transfer to and feedback from clientele.  Ultimately, improved communications between University personnel, the food industry, regulatory agencies and consumers will contribute to enhanced development of each element of this comprehensive food safety program.