[Viewpoint] Industry Leaders Join QA on New Advisory Board

It was great to see so many familiar faces and forge just as many new relationships at the 2008 Food Safety & Security Summit in Washington, D.C., in March. I found the event to be particularly gratifying this year as it signified a milestone in QA’s growth. In our five years of publication service to the food and beverage processing industry, we have steadily grown from a quarterly to a bi-monthly publication; from an introductory mailing list to more than 23,000 subscribers — plus a well-surfed Web site and recently introduced E-newsletters; and from comments of “Who? QA? Are you new?” to “QA! Yes, I read it. Kathy (or Bill or Chris or whomever the attendee is standing with), you should sign up for this magazine, it’s a good one.”

While we are enjoying this increased recognition, we are not content to accept it as good enough. Rather, just as our articles’ experts so often advise for your quality assurance programs, our goal is continuous improvement and continuous growth. Thus we have taken another step in that direction this year and established the QA Advisory Board. We sought key industry leaders and experts from various sectors of the industry, requested their participation in an advisement capacity and are thrilled to announce our new board members.

Our first board event was a dinner during the Summit for those who were able to attend, along with key industry personnel from a variety of backgrounds. It was great to see the conversation flow among these various sectors of the industry during dinner. The post-dinner discussion on industry trends and recommendations for QA was very enlightening, and will certainly lead to continued improvement of both the magazine and our Web site.

While many of the trends that were noted did not come as a surprise, it was very interesting to see that these trends are being recognized by, and having impact across, many industry sectors. Some of the key areas noted were the growing focus on supply chain management for food safety, defense and logistics; an increase in standardization, not only in regulatory areas but across processes of the domestic industry and global trading; a movement toward sustainability, seen by some to be of greater longevity than the potentially short-term organic trend; and a significant increase in regulations coming at a pace that is difficult for much of the industry to follow — all of which is creating a greater need for training, as well as more complex training programs.

We are looking forward to continuing and building the relationships with and among our board members, and doing our part to assist in the training process through the provision of well-researched articles, expert sourcing and best-practice sharing. With their input, QA will be even better equipped to deliver the essential information industry professionals deserve. We thank you for your continued readership and invite your comments on any facet of our publication.

QA Advisory Board

• Peter Bodnaruk, director of microbiology, Ecolab, St. Paul, Minn.
• Roger Brauninger, senior laboratory services officer, A2LA, Frederick, Md.
• Jim Campbell, research entomologist, USDA-ARS/KSU, Manhattan, Kan.
• Kim Kemp, division manager for product safety, Nestle Purina, St. Louis, Mo.
• Bobby Love, global quality control manager, Phillips Foods, Baltimore, Md.
• Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder, Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), Fairfax, Va.
• Deni Naumann, president, Copesan Services, Menomonee Falls, Wis.

The author is Staff Editor of QA magazine.