Meat and Poultry Safety and Quality Professional Development Group
Mission Statement: To provide a forum to discuss items of interest to the safe production of meat and poultry products and to develop program topics and symposia for presentation at the IAFP Annual Meetings.
Meeting Information
Virtual: TBD
In Person: IAFP 2025
July 27, 2025, Huntington Convention Center, Cleveland, Ohio
How to Join
Involvement in committees and professional development groups (PDGs) offers Members the opportunity to share a wealth of knowledge and expertise. Members of committees and PDGs are the architects of the Association structure. They plan, develop and institute many of the Association's projects, including workshops, publications and educational sessions. Technical challenges facing the food safety industry are discussed, examined and debated. Members may volunteer to serve on any number of committees or PDGs that plan and implement activities to meet the Association's mission.
Membership on a PDG is voluntary (not by appointment) and may vary from year to year.
IAFP Members can manage their PDG involvement by logging in to the IAFP Web site. At the Member Dashboard, click “Edit Profile.” Your profile has two tabs: Contact Info and Professional Info. Select the Professional Info tab and update the PDGs you would like to participate in. We highly recommend that you contact the PDG chairperson for each group to let them know you have joined their PDG.
Non-members can contact Dina Siedenburg, dsiedenburg@foodprotection.org, for more information.
The PDG recommends approval of Dr. Alexandra Calle as Vice Chair of the Meat and Poultry PDG.
Board Response: Approved.
2022 Board Response to Recommendations
The PDG membership recommends the PDG leadership initiate a position description and seeks nominees for a PDG Secretary.
Board Response: PDGs may establish a secretary position, if desired.
2021 Board Response to Recommendations
1. Recommend approval of Dr. Melvin Carter as Vice Chair of the Meat and Poultry PDG.
Board Response: Agree.
2020 Board Response to Recommendations
None
2019 Board Response to Recommendations
Approve Matt Taylor as Vice Chair.
Board Response: Agree.
2018 Board Response to Recommendations
None.
2017 Board Response to Recommendations
Recommend that Wendy White, Golden State Foods, be recognized as Vice Chair.
Board Response: Agree.
Recommend that the PDG Chair be notified, in addition to the organizer, for education programs not accepted by the Program Committee. This will ensure that topics of interest could be developed for future webinar educational programming.
Board Response: Chairs and Vice Chairs are encouraged to follow up with the submitters of session proposals to determine whether the submission was accepted or not.
Recommend IAFP offer pre-paid ticket lunch on Sunday with PDG meetings to facilitate PDG attendance in afternoon sessions.
Board Response: Providing lunch and charging to PDG members is cost prohibitive. Lunch at convention centers would exceed
$30 per person.
2016 Board Response to Recommendations
None
2015 Board Response to Recommendations
None.
2014 Board Response to Recommendations
Recommend that the Board approve the nomination of Betsy Booren as Meat and Poultry Safety and Quality PDG Vice Chair to begin at IAFP 2015.
Board Response: Approved.
Recommend that the Board consider shortening of PDG times to 2 hour slots and staggering the PDGs so that members can attend multiple PDG sessions. With the new PDG chair/vice chair meeting to collaborate on topics the group felt this should enhance and shorten discussions within the PDG allowing the time to be shorter and therefore facilitating participation at multiple PDGs.
Board Response: PDGs may request the amount of time for their meeting that they feel best serves their PDG Members. They also set their own agenda and may choose to have presentations, reports and discussions.
Modernizing the Ways of Traditional Smoking: Application of Liquid and Dry Smoke in Meat, Poultry and Pet FoodsSep 30, 2024
Organized by: IAFP's Meat and Poultry Quality and Safety PDG and Animal and Pet Food Safety PDG
Smoking of poultry, fish and red meat has been increasing in popularity. Liquid smoke is obtained by condensing wood smoke from combustion of hardwood. While traditional smoking of foods like meat produces harmful heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, manufacturers purify liquid smoke via filtration resulting in a safe and natural food additive with antimicrobial, antioxidant, and flavor characteristics. The first presentation will discuss the background of liquid smoke as well as regulations pertaining to its commercial application in meat and poultry products. The next presentation will explore the role of designer smokes and multifunctional smoke systems for antimicrobial and antioxidant properties in food applications. The final presentation will cover some additional applications of liquid smoke in the mitigation of mold and mites in pet foods.
Learning Objectives: -Learn about potential application of liquid smoke to meat and pet food products in preventing and inhibiting the growth and survival of foodborne pathogens and enhance overall food safety and shelf life. -Learn about multifaceted role of liquid smoke as an all-in-one additive to enhance food safety, sensory properties, and promote health with intrinsic antioxidants. -Learn about the dominance of liquid smoke over traditional smoking based on in its diverse applications, product uniformity, reproducibility in favorable sensory qualities, and in the fusion of environmental consciousness with effective functional properties. -Learn about liquid composition; carboxylic acids, carbonyls, and phenolic compounds, which act synergistically to impede microbial growth.
Managing Meat Shelf Life and Spoilage to Ensure Food SecurityOct 24, 2023
Organized by: Meat and Poultry Safety and Quality PDG
The estimated economic impact due to the food waste and spoilage amounts to a loss of a third of all the food produced. No matter how this data is sliced, microbial spoilage has been implicated to a large portion of this loss. According to one estimate, a quarter of all food supply is lost to the microbial activity alone. This is partially because food safety is a huge emphasis and limitation of technology for testing. However, technology has evolved to include faster more sophisticated tools for diagnosis and prevention in the arena of food spoilage. With proper research, dedication and focus reducing food waste due to spoilage could be improved. This discussion is proposed to stimulate provocative forward thinking on new designs and processes to reduce spoilage and food loss. The key panelist will include a combination of production industry, alliance groups such as NAMI, NCC, academia and retail to discuss the overall impact of food spoilage waste and the changes needed to implement for the future of food security.
Learning Objectives: The key objective is to discuss measures to reduce waste through addressing food spoilage which support growth in food security. This is a huge financial and growing concern in industry and retail members. The key panelist would be a combination of production industry, alliance groups such as NAMI, Academia and retail to discuss the overall impact of food spoilage waste on future supply. The topics would fall under the following categories: Safety and Microbial Quality of Foods (Dairy, Meat and Poultry, Seafood, Produce, Water) and General-applied Food Safety Microbiology (for example, advances in sanitation, laboratory methods, quality assurance, food safety systems), at a minimum.
Modeling Salmonella Growth and Inactivation for Small and Very Small Processors with Limited DataSep 11, 2023
Organized by: The Meat and Poultry Quality and Safety PDG and the Microbial Modeling and Risk Analysis PDG
Predictive microbial models are a cost effective tool to assist small and very small meat plants as they strive to meet regulatory guidelines or handle process deviations. The data collected by these small operations may be incomplete and/or of low quality yet still be helpful in informing food safety decisions. This webinar will discuss the types of data limitations commonly occurring in these operations as well as techniques to address imperfect, missing and otherwise incomplete datasets that still result in robust decision making. Advise for industry members, extension specialists and/or researchers who assist small and very small meat industry members will be provided by speakers.
Learning Objectives: •Understand the fundamentals of predictive microbial modeling for Salmonella in meat processing establishments •Learn several types of data limitations commonly encountered when working with small and very small meat plants. •Learn several ways of overcoming these data limitations while still making good quality science-based decisions.
Don Schaffner, Presenter - Rutgers University James Dickson, Presenter - Iowa State University Dennis Seman, Moderator - DL Seman Consulting, LLC
Exploring Non-Invasive Instruments to Assess the Microbiological Quality and Authenticity of Meat and Meat ProductsNov 30, 2021
Currently, meat protection relies heavily on regulatory inspection and sampling regimes. In this context, a wide range of chemical, microbiological and immunological analyses have been proposed as means of evaluating various meat protection issues (i.e. quality, safety, and integrity) pertinent to both raw/processed materials and end products. Nonetheless, the currently applied analytical techniques are invasive, laborious, and usually provide retrospective information limiting their applicability in or online. Hence, it has been acknowledged that new approaches should be designed and implemented if competent management of food protection issues is to be ensured. The ultimate goal of such a concept is the development of a modern food quality and safety management system which, by being based on prevention rather than inspection, will allow for the efficient control of food-related issues throughout the food supply chain. The utilization of rapid, non-invasive methods, capable of providing automated monitoring of meat processes and identified critical parameters, is expected to be of vital importance in this framework.
George-John Nychas, PresenterAgricultural University of Athens, Greece
Panos Skandamis, ModeratorAgricultural University of Athens, Greece
Practical Applications of Microbial Modeling Webinar Series: Part III of IIIMay 22, 2018
Sponsored by Microbial Modelling and Risk Analysis and Meat and Poultry Safety and Quality PDGs
Applications of microbial modeling and risk assessment are critically important to the food industry. This is part III in a webinar series that aims for a deeper-dive into practical considerations in applying modeling tools to inform decisions. Structured around specific food matrices (such as meat and poultry, multi-component foods, and fresh produce), the webinars will focus on examples that may be of practical applications in day-to-day problem-solving.
Practical Applications of Microbial Modeling Webinar Series: Part II of IIIMar 5, 2018
Applications of microbial modeling and risk assessment are critically important to the food industry. This is part II in a webinar series that aims for a deeper-dive into practical considerations in applying modeling tools to inform decisions. Structured around specific food matrices (such as meat and poultry, multi-component foods, and fresh produce), the webinars will focus on examples that may be of practical applications in day-to-day problem-solving.
Sponsored by Q Laboratories and IAFP Microbial Modelling and Risk Analysis and Meat and Poultry Safety and Quality Professional Development Groups
Betsy BoorenSenior Policy Advisor, Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC
Peter Taormina, ModeratorPresident, Etna Consulting Group
Practical Applications of Microbial Modeling Webinar Series: Part I of IIINov 29, 2017
Applications of microbial modeling and risk assessment are critically important to the food industry. This webinar series aims for a deeper-dive into practical considerations in applying modeling tools to inform decisions. Structured around specific food matrices (such as meat and poultry, multi-component foods, and fresh produce), the webinars will focus on examples that may be of practical applications in day-to-day problem-solving.
