The institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) is a word-class food research center, which is part of the Illinois Institute of Technology (ITT).  It has a staff of 70 scientists, micro-biologists, chemists, virologists, and nutrition scientists who work with scientists from government, academia and the food industry in state-of-the-art facilities to study, among other things, the behavior of pathogens in real-world food processing conditions with the aim of developing fact based food safety technologies.

ISGA members attend the annual IFSH meetings. ISGA is a member of this group, a consortium of FDA, scientists from ITT, and people working in the food industry.

We are always impressed with the quality and breadth of the presentations.  Also, we and those from the scientific and regulatory communities have an opportunity to exchange experiences relating to sprout safety.  Viewing sprout safety issues from different perspectives helps in the development of better solutions.

The first morning of the meeting there is a gathering of the IFSH sponsored Sprout Safety Task Force,  a sub-group of IFSH dedicated specifically to research on behalf of the sprout industry.

Past presentations have included Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) as it applies to the sprout industry, an evaluation of commercial test kits for the detection of salmonella in Alfalfa Sprout spent irrigation water, risk analysis,  seed safety and treatment.

Learn more about the Sprout Safety Alliance on their website https://www.iit.edu/ssa

Click here to view prior year presentations.