Food Protection Trends - November/December 2024 - 460

JOHN H. SILLIKER LECTURE
The Future of Food Safety: Future Shock?
ROBERT E. BRACKETT, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President and Dean
Institute for Environmental Health Academy
Herndon, Virginia
In reflecting upon Dr. John Silliker's life and contribution to food
safety, I began thinking about my own beginning in food microbiology
and how much things have changed over the decades. However,
I also remember thinking that the discoveries in food safety and
microbiology were moving so fast, that I was worried that by the time
I graduated, all the " good stuff " would have been discovered. It is this
aspect, change, and its impact on food safety that I will address. So,
my question is, will future technological and societal changes advance
food safety - or could they retard it? Let's first talk a little bit about the
concept of rapid change, and how it has and will affect our daily lives,
and in particular, food safety.
Change is not new. We have been observing and living with increasingly
rapid change, for at least the past 50 years. Over the years,
change has eliminated whole industries, while at the same time
ushering in brand new industries. For example, typewriters were
replaced by word processors and computers, and streaming videos
have replaced video recorders.
One major change we have observed over the past few decades
involves people - that is social change. One of the most obvious and
impactful social change that has emerged is that of social media. For
good or for bad, social media has had a major influence on people,
business, and information. Platforms like LinkedIn have enabled
professionals to not only hold conversations and discussions with
colleagues but " follow " their activities, careers, and job changes.
Social media can provide us with a level of connection and access
to information never before seen. Consequently, it could also be very
helpful to food safety in several ways, such as outbreak tracking
and informing consumers. However, the ease with which we can
communicate broadly can also be used to disseminate misinformation,
disinformation, and downright lies about food safety as well.
In addition to social media, other changes affect our lives and culture.
For example, entertainment has become a major change agent. In
the last century, entertainment primarily consisted of listening to the
radio or vinyl records played on " record players " until televisions were
ushered in for consumers to watch. The latter was limited to airing
only live content on only three channels. Consequently, the public was
exposed to a relatively limited range of expression in entertainment,
opinions, and opportunities for debate. Compare that to today - only
half a century later - in which we have literally hundreds of channels
from which to choose, information and opinions coming from every
direction, and access to breaking news, scientific discoveries,
and expert advice. As a result, entertainment has become a major
influence on our culture. So, what does this have to do with food
safety? It could have a direct impact on what foods people choose,
prepare, and consume, and what they demand from the food and
460 Food Protection Trends November/December
agricultural industries. We are now preparing and eating foods that our
grandparents never heard of and may have new food safety risks.
Probably the most recognized changes that have happened in society
are discoveries and advancements in science and technology. This
includes both fundamental discoveries as well as the practical
applications that we see and use in our everyday life. Most obvious
is the digital data that is the " language " of this new technology. The
advent of the internet has been a profound change that has linked
our electronic devices ranging from mobile phones to programmable
refrigerators. Likewise, connectivity has quickly evolved from requiring
connections by wires and cables to sending data through the air via
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth®
. The result? More information comes to us at
ever-increasing speeds.
Another important area of rapid change that has impacted food safety
is the advancements in analytical and testing platforms. Over the
past few decades, we have seen steady improvements in laboratory
technology, including deployment of robots and automation to take
the place of human handling. Paper records are being replaced by
automated tracking and tracing for traceability, and organs on a chip
are advancing our understanding of toxicology. All of these are having
a direct impact on food safety, at least on the detection/identification
side of food safety.
The previous comments were focused on the application of new
science and technology. But what about rapid changes in science and
technology that may be less obvious to the average person? One very
good example of how technology has progressed since the 1960s
and 1970s is computer technologies. For example, consider the IBM
System/370 mainframe computer, introduced in 1970. It had from 64
KB up to 16 MB of memory and took up the space of a small room.
Compare that to the average smartphone today, which fits in one's
pocket and has from 6 GB to 1 TB of memory. This massive change in
computing power occurred in less than 20 years.
This incredible and rapid increase in computing power is often
attributed to a concept known as Moore's Law, which suggests that
the number of transistors on a chip, and therefore computing power,
doubles every two years. If true, we could yet see an increase in
computer power that dwarfs what we have seen in the past decade.
So, what does this mean? Noted computer scientist Ray Kurzweil
predicted that this acceleration in computer power would, by the year
2029, allow computers to attain " technological singularity. " What is
technological singularity? It is the hypothetical point in time when
technological growth reaches the level of human intellect and becomes
uncontrollable and irreversible. Some argue that we are already in the
midst of a major evolutionary transition that merges digital technology,
biology, and knowledge transfer.
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