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Organised by Food Safety SIG
Sales of plant-based products have been growing immensely in recent years, driven by consumer needs and expectations on a number of agendas including animal welfare, health and environmental reasons. As more and more businesses look to capitalise on this growing trend, we are seeing a great diversity of products entering the market giving vegan and plant-based consumers a great choice. One group of consumers who are looking to take advantage of this increased choice are the “Free-From” consumers who exclude milk and egg from their diet due to allergy issues. This presents considerable additional risk. During this webinar we will explore some of the key areas of risk and some of the controls that can be implemented to effectively and safely manage vegan products. We will also deep dive into hygiene and how effective cleaning can be used to provide appropriate segregation from non-vegan materials.
What participants will learn about:
- Types of plant-based products
- The vegan market
- Segregation management
- Cleaning to a vegan standard
- What does a good validation exercise look like?
Target audience: IFST members and non-members, Technical Managers, Quality Managers and Technologists from either retail, foodservice or manufacturing
Chair: Sarah Howarth, Food Safety Consultant
Sarah is a food industry professional with more than 30 years’ experience in technical Retail and Food Manufacturing roles. Her experience spans across the UK and Europe working for a range of food businesses. Prior to establishing Howarth Food Safety Ltd, Sarah was Head of Cargill Europe Grains and Oilseeds Product Assurance Team based in Rotterdam. Her consultancy focuses on food safety certification, labelling compliance and training
Speaker: Ben Dodridge, Head of Technical – Tesco Central Europe
Ben has worked in both manufacturing with Bakkavor and in retail with Tesco. Ben’s career has covered technical roles in product areas including Chilled Convenience, Frozen, Impulse, Bakery, Dairy and Beers, Wines & Spirits. During his most recent role looking after Prepared Foods at Tesco, Ben oversaw the launch of the Wicked Kitchen and Plant Chef vegan brands at Tesco and was heavily involved in writing the Tesco policy on managing these products. He now leads the technical function in Tesco Central Europe.
Speaker: Peter Littleton, UK Technical Director – Christeyns Hygiene
Peter is UK Technical Director for the family owned multi-national hygiene solution company Christeyns Food Hygiene which supplies many household brands in Europe, South America and the UK. During his career Peter has worked as a hygiene, technical and production manager as well as Senior Food Safety Officer for an environmental health department. He is a leading figure in the allergen community regularly advises both producers and NGO’s on the application of cleaning as a control measure for this significant health risk.
Peter is also involved in many organisations supporting the industry including the IFST, SoFHT, Campden BRI and is vice-chair of the board of trustees of Anaphylaxis UK (formerly the Anaphylaxis Campaign).
Live Q&A: Sarah Howarth, Ben Dodridge and Peter Littleton.