National Center shows food industry how to prevent terrorism
CHICAGO, January 11, 2002-Is your food as safe as it can be? The question used to have more to do with bacteria and freshness than with contamination, tampering and bio-terrorism. After September 11, food safety has expanded to include security. As a result, Illinois Institute of Technology has developed the first major security training program for food companies.
"Security and Risk Management in the Food Industry" is co-sponsored by IIT's National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST) and Illinois Center for Food Safety and Technology (ICFST). Stressing practical methods for securing food plants, this is the first course of its kind in the U.S. In addition, ICFST is offering on-site security audits.
Seminar speakers include experts in food processing, security and public health. The goal of the seminar is to "raise the bar" for terrorists who may want to target the food supply, says Dr. Charles Sizer, director of NCFST. "Participants come away from the seminar knowing how to identify and correct their vulnerabilities," Sizer says. The seminars serve companies that lack in-house security expertise.
"Everybody's looking for people to help them with this, especially smaller companies that don't have as many internal resources," said one industry participant at the first seminar on January 8.
Several other seminars are planned through March at locations around Illinois. Over 30 percent of companies in the U.S. food industry are located in or near Chicago. NCFST has already been contacted by several organizations outside of Illinois requesting the program.
NCFST is the one place where scientists from industry, government and academia collaborate to improve the safety of the food supply. Besides academic host Illinois Institute of Technology, the consortium consists of over 70 companies, the Food and Drug Administration, IIT Research Institute and the University of Illinois.
ICFST is a state-funded consortium improving the economic vitality of Illinois food companies by minimizing food safety risk and helping provide a skilled and adaptive work force.
Illinois Institute of Technology is a private, Ph.D.-granting university with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, design and law. IIT is the home of Armour College of Engineering and Science, the College of Architecture, Institute of Psychology, Center for Law and Financial Markets, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Stuart Graduate School of Business, and the Institute of Design.
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