Food Protection Trends - September/October 2019 - 364

COMMENTARY
FROM YOUR PRESIDENT

Kalmia Kniel

IAFP 2019, the Association's
Annual Meeting is already completed.
By the numbers, this year's meeting
was no less than outstanding and
included more than 3,800 attendees,
and with opportunities to attend
71 symposia and 22 roundtables.
This year's meeting also included
occasions to meet with 187 exhibitors
and view nearly one thousand
posters. We owe a special thank you to the incredible IAFP Staff
and Program Committee for making this such a memorable
Annual Meeting. IAFP members direct the meeting content,
and the organic thought processes often originate and flourish
within the 27 Professional Development Groups (PDGs)
that meet at the Annual Meeting, and several continue those
discussions through conference calls, on the new IAFP Connect
platform, and in webinars throughout the year. Symposia topics
this year included something for everyone from essentials like
environmental monitoring, pathogen challenges, and allergens
to more visionary themes like cultured meat, the microbiome,
and robotics. And maybe you recall seeing something new on
the exhibit show floor; a new IAFP booth exhibiting the Journal
of Food Protection. An innovative infographic details the global
reach in authorship and readership of our flagship journal. The
infographic also displays the historical perspective in journal
covers, depicting the original cover of the Journal of Milk
Technology in 1937 through the current cover in 2019.
Perhaps you spent a few moments in between attending
PDG meetings or symposia experiencing Louisville, enjoying
scrumptious regional cuisine, visiting the Victorian Homes,
Riverboats, or even Churchill Downs. For many, the Annual
Meeting includes experiencing previously unexplored areas

FROM YOUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
It happened again - we had record
attendance at IAFP's Annual Meeting
in Louisville! This year, 3,819 food
safety professionals attended from
around the world; 600 of whom
came from outside of the USA.
Although this is great to achieve record
attendance, there is still a concern
about our International attendees. The
percentage of International attendees
is at the same level as in 2018 when we saw 11.6% of our
attendees come from countries outside of the United States. This
year, 52 countries were represented which was similar to 2018 in
Salt Lake City. As a comparison, typically we have seen 15% or
more attend from outside of the USA from about 65 countries.
It seems that travel restrictions and Visa requirements have had
an effect on our International attendance growth.
That aside, we were really pleased with the meeting content
and the new, Kentucky International Convention Center in
Louisville. As Kali pointed out in her column, so many people
pitch in to make the IAFP Annual Meeting a great success year
after year. Those included are session organizers, convenors and
speakers; our exhibitors and sponsors; the active Professional
Development Groups (PDGs) who drive the program content;
and the ever-energetic Student PDG! Everyone working together

364

Food Protection Trends September/October

of the country with family and friends. While the meeting
location may change, no matter what city we travel to, the
shared passion for food safety and preventing foodborne illness
remains constant. Like many attendees at the IAFP Annual
Meeting, my passion for food safety began studying food
microbiology. Perhaps some of you recall making note cards
for food microbiology classes or lab write-ups; maybe you have
visions of memorizing the names of yeasts or bacteria that didn't
seem to make sense at that time. I have Drs. Cameron Hackney,
Merle Pierson, and Susan Sumner to thank for instilling in me
the seeds of passion for food microbiology. What becomes
clear at the IAFP Annual Meeting is that the appreciation
of these scientific principles is extremely complex; from
microbiological criteria of water to toxins in seafood to global
production systems. And none of these issues can be studied
in isolation. We all know the buzzwords, like translational and
multidisciplinary studies, but at an IAFP Annual Meeting these
words become a reality through various presentations and the
collaborations of active committees and PDGs come insightful
symposia and inspiring roundtables.
An incredible part of our IAFP culture is the balance between
Academia, Government, and Industry. When I was handed
the gavel at the end of July, it was the time for an academic to
serve as IAFP President. For many people, September is a time
for back-to-school shopping and evaluation of the year ahead.
It is the start of a new Academic Year, which for me means
editing a syllabus and redesigning new lectures for my favorite
course, Foodborne Diseases: Investigating Outbreaks. I plan to
incorporate much of what I learned from the IAFP meeting in
Louisville. I hope you will also implement and reflect on much
of what you took away from Louisville over the next several
months, including time to embrace Play in learning as we heard
from Dr. Chamberlin's Ivan Parkin lecture!

David W. Tharp
is what makes the meeting invigorating for all involved. Thank
you for your part in this grand achievement.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank the IAFP team
members. Surely, you can imagine the amount of time and effort
applied in preparing for the IAFP Annual Meeting. Currently, we
are operating with the same number of people in our office as we
did in the mid-'90s. Comparing this year with 3,800+ attendees
to the mid-'90s when we had less than 1,000 attendees; you can
see the workload we have all taken on is huge. Back in the 1990s,
we had 50 or so exhibitors; this year, 187 exhibitors took up
275 exhibit spaces. For program size, we were conducting
3 to 5 concurrent sessions in the '90s compared to 11 this year -
plus there were more than 750 poster presentations in 2019.
But our work leading up to an Annual Meeting is just to put
all the details of scheduling and coordination of the meeting
in place. Then, there is the actual meeting where our full team
is present making sure that all goes well. It is a week away from
family and friends for the IAFP team. I appreciate the sacrifices
they all make to be on-site for each Annual Meeting. It helps that
the food safety community is a family in and of itself and that we,
the IAFP team, feel a part of the family too!
We hope everyone enjoyed IAFP 2019 in Louisville and
you are already marking the dates of August 2-5, 2020 on your
calendar for IAFP 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. We will plan to see
you there!
Food Protection Trends - September/October 2019

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