Seafood Safety and Quality Professional Development Group
Mission Statement: To provide a forum to discuss items of interest to the safe production of seafood 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.
1. Recommend the Board notify/update PDG Chairperson/s with the date and time of webinars when sponsored by the respective PDG.
Board Response: Board Response: The staff will make certain that the PDG Chair is notified.
2. Recommend to the Board to update the app to possibly have a zoom feature.
Board Response: Board Response: Currently, this is not available.
2023 Board Response to Recommendations
Approve Jacquelina Woods and Evelyn Watts as Chair and Vice Chair, respectively.
Board Response: Approved.
Recommend the Board avoid scheduling student events during the 1 p.m. PDGs to ensure appropriate dissemination of information and record keeping or provide a volunteer. For example, provide a student scan badges upon entry into PDG and provide a student to give the student PDG updates.
Board Response: To accommodate all the PDGs and to allow students to be involved in all student-related activities, IAFP staff will make alternative arrangements for badge scanning.
2022 Board Response to Recommendations
Recommend the Board schedule PDG meetings so that PDGs likely to be of interest to the same attendees are at different times. For example, there is much overlap in interest between the Virus & Parasite PDG and both the Seafood Safety & Quality and Produce Safety PDGs.
Board Response: This will be taken into consideration when scheduling PDG meetings at IAFP 2023.
Recommend the Board encourage the Program Committee to avoid scheduling symposia/sessions for specific topics (e.g., seafood) at the same time as when the poster presenters for the same topic are required to be available.
Board Response: This will be shared with the Program Committee for their consideration when scheduling sessions for IAFP 2023.
2021 Board Response to Recommendations
1. Recommend approval of Jacquelina Woods as Vice Chair for the Seafood Safety and Quality PDG.
Board Response: Agree.
2. Recommend the Board provide a mechanism to include calendar reminders with meeting/webinar announcements.
Board Response: You are encouraged to use IAFP Connect to make these announcements. Webinars do include a calendar reminder after signing up for the webinar.
2020 Board Response to Recommendations
Recommend the Board approve Jessica Jones as Vice Chair of the PDG.
Board Response: Agree.
2019 Board Response to Recommendations
We recommend Jessica Jones as Vice Chair-Elect.
2018 Board Response to Recommendations
Approve Kevin Edwards as incoming Vice Chairperson for
2019.
Board Response: Agree.
2016 Board Response to Recommendations
Approve Foivos Genigiorgis as incoming Vice Chair-
person to begin serving at IAFP 2017.
Board Response: Agree
2015 Board Response to Recommendations
Approve Forest Reichel as PDG Vice-Chair.
Board Response: Agree.
Webcasts available to nonmembers.
Board Response: Webinars are available to IAFP Members as a member benefit and serve as an incentive to those who are not members to become an IAFP Member. Membership rates are kept extraordinarily low so that it is possible for any interested individuals to be an IAFP Member.
One free webinar per year with membership renewal.
Board Response: The current systems would not allow for this to happen. IAFP keeps the Webinar fee extremely low so that anyone can participate.
Webinars
Impact of Water Use and Reuse in Food Production and Processing on Food Safety at the Consumer Phase: Focus on the Fish and Fishery Products SectorFeb 27, 2024
Organized by: IAFP's Water Safety and Quality PDG; International Food Protection Issues PDG ; Seafood Safety and Quality PDG
Clean water is essential to maintain the safety and quality of fish and fishery products. Product safety can be affected by physical, chemical and microbiological hazards introduced through water (re)use during production, handling and processing. Hazards and hazardous events need to be continuously monitored and may require targeted interventions to reduce consumer risks to acceptable levels.
The background to this webinar is the work of Codex Alimentarius on risk management guidance for water (re)use in the production, handling and processing of food commodities. Codex asked the FAO/WHO Joint Expert Meeting in Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA) advice on this. JEMRA established a science- and risk-based framework on fit-for-purpose water (re)use as input to the Codex work.
JEMRA experts will discuss the principles of this framework and case studies demonstrating how practical pre- and post-harvest interventions can mitigate product safety risks to consumers in the case of fish and fishery products.
Learning Objectives:
The participants will learn about the following aspects of water (re)use in the fish and fishery products sector: The efforts of JEMRA and Codex to develop a risk- and science-based framework to manage the safe use and reuse of water in the production, handling and processing of fish and fishery products by following a "fit-for-purpose" approach. The microbiological hazards potentially associated with water (re)use in production, handling and processing, and interventions that may help mitigate food safety risks at the consumer stage. Case-studies from the JEMRA report that illustrate practical examples of current water (re)use in the fish and fishery products sector in different parts of the world.
Don’t be Shellfish! Use Next Generation Sequencing to Improve Seafood Safety and QualityJun 27, 2023
Organized by: IAFP's Seafood Safety and Quality
Seafood safety and quality research primarily focuses on two areas: the presence of pathogens and spoilage. Spoilage is traditionally evaluated using microbiological, chemical, and/or sensory analyses of products. Pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites, are commonly detected with molecular methods, including real-time PCR and Sanger sequencing. However, as next-generation sequencing (NGS) approaches such as metagenomics and whole genome sequencing (WGS) are more readily available, their use can provide a broader perspective on seafood safety and quality compared with classic molecular techniques. While WGS and metagenomic tools are frequently applied to other food commodities, the application of these powerful tools towards seafood safety, quality, and outbreak investigations is not as widespread. Key questions remain about NGS and seafood research. Focusing on seafood safety and quality, this webinar will delve into metagenomics and WGS as tools for a better understanding of pathogens and spoilage organisms, and their associated public health risks.
Learning Objectives:
-Explore recent advancements of NGS tools in seafood safety and quality research and application of these tools to seafood spoilage with an emphasis of comparison to traditional methods. -Apply metagenomics to bacterial and viral analyses of seafood safety. -Discuss lessons learned in overcoming the challenges of seafood matrices to generate impactful NGS data for practical applications.
Foteini Parlapani, PresenterUniversity of Thessaly
Sabrina Mace, PresenterIfremer
Christopher Grim, PresenterU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Soizick Le Guyader, PresenterIfremer
Marlee Mims, Presenter & ModeratorU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Rachel Rodriguez, ModeratorU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
A Changing Environment: Impacts on Seafood SafetyOct 16, 2020
The constantly changing environment impacts food safety in many ways, particularly seafood safety and the seafood industry. Documented changes of the ocean's temperatures, pH, and salinity impact the marine and estuarine environments from which we harvest our seafood. In addition to these global trends, storm activity has increased the freshwater influx to certain estuarine areas (e.g, the United States Gulf Coast) in recent years. While some of these changes may be transient, they have the potential to impact the resident bacteria and phytoplankton populations and species, which can affect human health. For example: pathogenic Vibrio species generally favor warm environments, so their areas of residence and levels may shift with changing water temperatures; and phytoplankton species, some responsible for toxic blooms, have the potential to increase in areas where freshwater influxes bring a heavier nutrient load. These environmental changes may be impacting seafood safety, both due to emerging hazards and geographic expansion of known hazards. This presents a challenge for the seafood industry as well as public health risk managers. This session will provide examples of the impacts of the changing environment on seafood safety and include a perspective from industry.
