Food Protection Trends - November 2010 - 704

duction with respect to human health and environmental health needs to be broadened. Kazuko Fukushima, Food Safety, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland, pointed out that the need for risk-benefit assessment is increasing. There are different ways to conduct risk-benefit assessments, such as qualitative, semi-qualitative, and qualitative. The development of internationally applicable risk benefit assessment methodology is needed. In the step-wise approach, the chemical residues of the most common disinfection practices are identified, their dietary exposure and potential health risks are estimated, and efficiency of treatment is evaluated. The outcome is classified into four categories. Several disinfectants fall into the second category, in which no health concerns are identified but benefits are identified. Disinfectant treatments are not recommended in poor hygiene conditions. Dr. Benard Bottex from the Scientific Committee and Advisory Forum Unit, European Food Safety Authority EFSA, Parma, Italy, presented results of EFSA work in “Development of an Approach for the Fisk Benefit Analysis of Foods and Food Components.” There is a stepwise (3 steps) approach for risk-benefit analysis that EFSA developed and uses to assess risks and benefits of various food and food components, such as selenium. Riskbenefit analysis is very complex at each step, and the major stress is on problem formulation and iterative dialogue after each step between risk-benefit assessors and managers. Dr. Bottex also recommended further work to develop metrics to measure positive effects on health and well-being, to perform risk-benefit analysis for common diseases, and to promote harmonization and recognition of the assessment. Dr. Stephane Vidry from ILSI Europe, Brussels, Belgium, introduced a project called Benefit Risk Analysis of Foods (BRAFO) in the speech “Risk Benefit Analysis: Results of the ILSI-BRAFO Case Studies.” The detailed approach of BRAFO consists of a pre-assessment and problem formulation step, followed by activities divided into four main tiers. The policy of fortification of bread with folic acid was used to illustrate how to perform a risk-benefit analysis using BRAFO. Issues to consider are scope and objective of risk-benefit analysis, problem formulation, harmonization in communication, integration of many disciplines in the analysis, consideration of methodology, limitations of the methods and future applications.

cleaning. Freund concluded her talk by emphasizing the importance of new roasting equipment being designed to enable wet cleaning and allow the separation of raw and processed product, and she pointed out that roasting should occur close to packaging to reduce the chance of recontamination. Linda J. Harris (University of California-Davis) began with listing some recent nut recalls, noting that the most common is a result of Salmonella. She noted that few prevalence studies have been done on Salmonella contamination of nuts, and those that had been done typically used small sample sizes or did not present the sample size. The need for more information regarding levels of contamination was stressed. Low prevalence, long-term survival of Salmonella in products, and heatresistance characteristics are the challenges that nuts industry are currently facing. Dojin Ryu (Texas Women’s University) discussed mycotoxins in relation to nuts. He began by describing the common fungi found in nuts. Two mycotoxins were then focused on: aflatoxins and ochratoxins. Issues of concern include: stability of toxins during procesing, regulation and international trade, low amounts of toxins and the heterogeneous distribution of mycotoxins. The symposium concluded with the presentation of Tim Birmingham, Almond Board of California, who focused on the Voluntary Aflatoxin Sampling Plan that is used for almonds shipped to the European Union. This plan is a means of reducing the number of rejected lots by the European Union, by testing the lot before it leaves the United States. He also talked about effectiveness of electronic and hand sorting for aflatoxin removal and pointed out that sorting technologies can remove more than 95 percent of aflatoxin in a given lot, using new tools that have been developed to predict lot concent-ration.

TECHNICAL SESSIONS
T1 — Applied Laboratory and Novel Laboratory Methods Eb Chiarini and Yen Te Liao
Peter Rossmanith, from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, opened the symposium by discussing the value of aspects of systems theory in the analysis of molecular-biological based detection methods and the qualification of food related to cutting-edge sampling and analyzing technology, such as real-time PCR. Additionally, he stated that systems theory provides scientists the direction to have better screening systems and provide safer food to people worldwide. Peixuan Zhu, from Creatv MicroTech, Inc., gave an overview of the sensitive and rapid detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in food and water. He explained how “Signalyte” is superior to “Florescent Plate Reader,” with more sensitivity, specificity and speed. In addition, he mentioned that the wavelength used in this system ranges from 350 nm to 800 nm, which is associated with low interference. Adrian Parton from MATRIx Microscience Inc. presented a methodology capable to detecting Listeria spp. contamination in pooled food and environmental swabs within 24 hours, using Pathatrix automated re-circulating

S37 — Issues in the Production and Manufacture of Nuts and Nut-containing Products: Nuts to You Rachel McEgan and Di Li
This symposium was a well-rounded discussion covering four areas of food safety for nuts and nutcontaining products. The four speakers covered sanitation, bacterial contamination, mycotoxins, and regulatory issues. The first speaker, Matilda Freund, Kraft Foods Global, discussed sanitation practices, focusing on nut roasting equipment. Her talk began with the fact that in the past, the heat step in nut processing was thought of as only a quality step, not a safety step. She continued by discussing sanitation issues caused by the older roasting equipment that had not been designed for wet

704 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS | NOVEMBER 2010

Food Protection Trends - November 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - November 2010