22nd ISGA Convention
August 21 – 24, 2012 in Vancouver British Columbia – Canada
Speaker Biographies

Below are the biographies of some of those who will be speaking at the convention. We will be adding to our speaker list over the next few weeks. If you would like to know when new information about the the schedule, speakers and tours is available, send email to icomserve@aol.com with the subject, “ISGA Convention.”

List of Speakers

Kevin Allen – Assistant Professor of Food Microbiology,
Department of Food, Nutrition & Health, UBC
A molecular food microbiologist who was received in Dr. ManselGriffiths laboratory at the University of Guelph. Before and between graduate degrees, he spent time working as a food microbiologist in both industry and government. Following completion of his doctorate, he went to industry where he served as a Research Manager overseeing the development of several animal-based food safety vaccines. During his professional training, hehas worked extensively with Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and various Salmonella entericaserovars, exploring different ways to utilize molecular and traditional techniques to improve my knowledge of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and pathogen stress response physiology.

Since coming to UBC (Jan 2010), his laboratory has focused on Listeriamonocytogenes, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157 and non-O157 STEC, Vibrioparahaemolyticus, and the detection of pathogenic bacteria in various foods. In addition, we have utilized traditional and molecular approaches to characterize AMR in enterococci originating from food and many of the aforementioned pathogens. Current and future work focuses on expanding our knowledge of how foodborne pathogens are affected by sub-lethal stressors, what the long- and short-term effects are, and whether virulence is impacted by these events. These approaches will be used to identify genes of previously unknown function.

Candice Appleby – Executive Director, Small Scale Food Processor Association
The association’s goal is to be Canada’s leading supporter for small enterprises in the food processing industry by providing leadership, education, marketing, networking and advocacy to foster success in a competitive global market.

Colleen Dane – Communications Manager, BC Salmon Farmers Association
With a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Communications, Colleen started her career in newsrooms in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, as a reporter and photographer for six years. Two and half years ago, she made the switch over to public/media relations and communications, helping to share information and messages from the farmers of BC’s largest agricultural export – farmraised salmon. Her work includes media relations, event promotion, website and social media management, ongoing print updates, strategic planning, government relations and crisis communications. Honesty, transparency, accountability are all important values for Colleen – and the association she represents.

Margaret Daskis – President, Fresh Ideas
Margaret is a graduate of the University of British Columbia Food Science department. She has worked in the food industry for the past 25 years, serving as Director of Technical Services for a variety of small, medium and large scale food processors.Her background includes product development, quality control, quality assurance and process improvement in: snack foods, ready-to-eat retorted meals, poultry processing, salad dressings, ingredient processing and condiments, specialty grain processing, packaging and transportation systems, gel-ice production, ISO / HACCP / QMP / GMP implementation and auditing.

Pascal Delaquis – Research Scientist, Food Microbiology, Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre
Areas of Expertise:
Ecology and antimicrobial resistance of foodborne pathogens
Ecology and microbiological quality of foodborne pathogens in vegetable products
Natural antimicrobials from plants and their use in food preservation

Dr. Stephanie Green – Curator and Geneticist, USDA/ARS
Stephanie Greene has been working in the USDA National Plant Germplasm System since 1992. Since 1994, she has been the germplasm curator for the U.S. alfalfa and clover collections, which contain over 15,000 accessions, representing wild species, land races, obsolete and current cultivars and genetic stocks. In addition to collecting seed in locations such as Russian, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, she regenerates over 250 accessions each year in Prosser, WA. Seed from the collection is distributed worldwide. Dr. Greene also chairs the Crop Germplasm Committee (CGC) for alfalfa and serves as an ex officio on the Clover and Special Purpose Legumes CG C. She holds a Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science from the University of Idaho, and a Ph D from Kansas State University.

Jonathan Hoff – Sales, Inline Plastics
Jonathan Hoff has been in the packaging industry for 15 years. His positions included territory manager, associate new product development manager and regional manager. He is currently national accounts manager. His last 8 years have been with Inline Plastics which is a leading manufacturer of innovative, high quality, PET packaging for the foodservice industry.

Inline Plastics manufactures a complete line of food packaging plastic containers for use with bakery, fresh cut fruit, deli, produce and a variety of other industries. Their unique line of tamper resistant, tamper evident, and leak resistant containers come with a tear strip lock. Their plastic packaging combines the best elements of innovation, clarity, breadth of line, value and quality. They excel at developing customized food packaging based on their customer’s specific needs.

They also offer our own proprietary line of wash-down automated equipment to load, close, and label our containers. Inline’s automation equipment is developed and built in-house, and can be customized to provide solutions for customers whether they are high volume food processors or small back room operations. From container filling and locking to labeling, Inline Plastics provides automation solutions that will help you reduce labor costs while also increasing product throughput and operating efficiencies.

Steve Meyerowitz – ISGA Committee Chair of Marketing
Steve Meyerowitz was christened “Sproutman” in the 1970s in a feature article in Vegetarian Times because his New York City apartment was always filled with gardens of mini-vegetables. They were part of his lifetime fight against chronic allergies and asthma. After 20 years of disappointment with orthodox medicine, he became symptom-free through his use of diet, juices, and fasting. In 1980, he founded “The Sprout House”, a “no-cooking” school in New York City teaching the benefits of a living foods diet. Steve is a health crusader and author of 10 books including Power Juices Super Drinks, Wheatgrass Nature’s Finest Medicine, Juice Fasting and Detoxification, and Food Combining and Digestion. His most recent book is “The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier.” He has been featured on PBS, the Home Shopping Network, TV Food Network, and in Better Nutrition, Prevention, Organic Gardening and Flower & Garden Magazines. His sprouting inventions, such as the “Hemp Sprout Bag” are sold nationwide.

Barbara Sanderson – Jonathan’s Sprouts
Barbara began Jonathan’s Sprouts in 1976 with her husband, Bob. She founded New England Sprout Growers Assn. in 1983. NESGA won Federal State Marketing Improvement Grants three years in a row to create a marketing presence for sprouts in New England. She was a founding member of ISGA in 1989, founded originally to get a Federal Marketing Order for sprouts to promote the sale of sprouts in Canada and the USA. She served many years as Treasurer and also served as President of the ISGA. A member of the Sanitation committee since 1992: Barbara helped write the original ISGA Sanitary Guidelines in 1992 and updated with Dr. Rob Wick in 1996. She has stayed with the committee as it has changed its name to Technical Review Board and now the Sprout Safety Task Force. Barb has been chair of the Task Force Audit Sub-committee that has published the Copyrighted IFSH Sprout Safety Audit. She is presently on the working group of the Sprout Safety Alliance, funded by the FDA to create training materials for the sprout industry and offer training sessions. Barbara is committed to helping create a strong, healthy sprout industry to feed a population in need of inexpensive quality food.

Bob Sanderson – President, ISGA
Bob Sanderson is the President of ISGA and Jonathan’s Sprouts, Inc., which has been supplying fresh sprouts to New England and beyond since 1976.

From its beginning, Jonathan’s has made a commitment to sprout quality research and development. They have had a meticulous record keeping system to track quality sprouts back to the seed lot they came from, first for quality, then for organic certification and finally for safety. They also have a long-standing relationship with an independent lab that has been testing their product. They hired a student assistant for Dr. Robert Wick one summer to forward his work on sprout pathogens, and have performed many of the quality experiments in their Rochester, MA operation. This has made it simpler for Jonathan’s to meet and surpass the requirements for growing safe quality sprouts.

Bob has long felt that the unique properties of sprouts, and the ways in which they are grown, require novel approaches to assuring their safety, and has questioned whether lab results from sanitization treatments accurately reflect what is achieved in the production environment. For this reason, he has been committed to improve sampling and testing protocols, and working to make sure they are being uniformly applied. He has also promoted alternative interventions, such as competitive exclusion, that have shown some promising preliminary results.

Jonathan’s continues to be an innovative leader in the sprouting industry, committed to selling the highest quality, organically grown sprouts possible.

Dr. Keith Warriner – Department of Food Science, University of Guelph
Keith Warriner is an Associate Professor within the Department of Food Science at University of Guelph. Dr. Warriner received his BSc in Food Science from the University of Nottingham and PhD in Microbial Physiology from the University College of Wales Aberystwyth. He later went on to work on biosensors within the University of Manchester and subsequently returned to the University of Nottingham to become a Research Fellow in Food Microbiology. He joined the Faculty of the University of Guelph in 2002.

During the last fifteen years in the field of microbiology and food safety research, Dr. Warriner has published more than 100 papers, book chapters, patents, and conference abstracts. He has a broad research area encompassing development of decontamination technologies, biosensors for biohazard detection and more fundamental research on the interaction of human pathogens with plants.

Dr. Warriner’s group was one of the first to propose the idea that human pathogens could internalize within the tissue of growing plants thereby leading to reduced efficacy of post-harvest washes. Through experiments performed by Dr. Warriner’s research group it was subsequently found that internalization of human pathogens into undamaged tissue was negligible. This was subsequently confirmed recently by other researchers. Other notable research accomplishments was the development of a decontamination treatment for sanitizing seeds destined for sprout production and a further process based on Advance Oxidation for inactivating pathogens on fresh produce. Current research in the area is focused on developing biocontrol strategies based on using a combination of antagonistic bacteria and bacteriophage to reduce levels of human pathogens at the primary production stage.

Dr. Warriner is currently the Chair of the OGS Selection Committee, vice-chair of the University Biosafety Committee and sits on the OMAFRA Emergency Management review committee.