Nottingham Trent University’s Pavilion Building on Clifton Campus was the venue for a well-attended breakfast meeting on food authenticity and traceability. This was the first Midlands Branch IFST’s experiment with a breakfast meeting and just over 40 people attended.
They were treated to three extremely interesting presentations along with networking opportunities before and after augmented by a “living wall of attendees” with all present invited to pin a business card up and the information circulated to all present. It gave opportunities for the attendees to ask for introductions and proved very popular. After a welcome from Mary O’Neill, Dean of Science and Technology, and Andy Kerridge, IFST Regional Chairman, the first presentation was given by Prof Ellen Billet on the subject of meat adulteration detection and the capabilities of the FARAS.
Darina Hall, Senior Technical & Quality Director for Asda was the keynote speaker and gave a thought-provoking presentation on the retailers’ perspective on food authenticity and introduced the block chain concept of monitoring food constituents from field to final product.
To conclude our fast-moving meeting Simon Hill the Regional Business Development Manager for the Food Sector at BSI Group gave an excellent introduction to new standards, the work of BSi and provoked a flurry of discussion around the implementation of blockchain.
The event closed with the networking and extended discussions for those who could stay, which proved to be the majority of attendees. The Midlands Branch thanks goes to Max Bardwell and his team of colleagues at NTU for hosting and sponsoring the meeting.