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As Jesse told you, I’m from a time when - if you ate Chinese food, you were in a Chinese restaurant - and none of the food actually came from China.

A time before globalization of our food supply  - where one bug from a remote region of the world can spread everywhere overnight.

Before USDA, FSIS & the FDA were grossly under funded, to the point of  - inspecting less than 1% of our imported food supply. 

Long before we had to deal with the reality of bio terrorism and the possible consequences & certainly before “risk based” was a term used to describe our food protection system.  

When processed wasn’t a dirty word, and practically nobody ate organic - yet alone expected it.

Food Safety was the teaching of - washing your food & hands, cross contamination & temperature abuse – these were simple times. 

From the looks of this crowd – most of you can relate. It wasn’t that long ago.

As a director of marketing for a Company that is about to go global & change the food processing world, I see food safety from a different prospective than most and certainly different than I used to.

At a time when so many resources are being directed into improving consumer health, isn’t it is ironic that more and more people are getting sick & dying from what they eat because of ineffective food safety practices.  

Earlier this year, in a span of 8 days  there were major recalls of peanut butter, fresh cantaloupe, baby food, chicken strips and mushrooms – all because of contamination. Add to that the fact that  - the spinach industry will never be the same. Throw in mad cow, bird flu – and you get a pretty bleak picture.

A report published last month, by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals a 50 percent increase in E coli infections since 2004, and a monstrous 78 percent increase in vibrio.

Whole broilers bought in the US show that 83 per cent harbor campylobacter, salmonella or both according to Consumer Reports magazine – not to mentioned the biggest offender of global foodborne  illness – seafood or listeria, a bug that kills a high % of the time and that even freezing has little effect on.

The CDC estimates that 76 million Americans get sick and 5,000 die from foodborne hazards each year in the United States – can you even imagine what those figures must be worldwide?  In this country alone - that's 5,000 deaths too many.

If that doesn’t get your attention – how about this statiatic - 43% of your customers think about food safety every time they go out to eat“

The facts are - bacteria cause serious infections and substantial economic disruption in industrialized as well as developing countries. The incidence of infection and contamination is escalating worldwide because of increased travel, intensive farming techniques, the organic industry, increasing consumer preference for unprocessed or minimally processed foods with fewer additives, and the over-use of conventional antibiotics that has hastened the development of resistant bacterial strains.

Jobs, companies, certainly brands, even entire industries are all at steak – millions, make that hundreds of millions are at risk. And that’s just with you guys!

The nation's General Accounting Office in February 07 called on legislators to radically amend the food safety system, which it said is fragmented, ineffective and inefficient.

Years of under-funding and a lack of trained staff account for failures by the Food and Drug Administration in preventing contamination outbreaks, With over two million farmers, thirty thousand food manufacturers, five hundred thousand food service operations - add  too many imports with too few resources for too many years and you get an idea of the overwhelming need for effective food safety solution.

The challenge faced by the food industry today is to create consensus on a global basis for a minimum set of regulations that will both meet the food safety and security needs of all countries and be reasonably adopted by any food Company, no matter the size.

Admittedly that thought is a little optimistic as would be the call for the complete eradication of all contamination, but there is certainly room for much improvement.   

At this time, there is no “silver bullet” technology that will completely eliminate pathogens from our food supply. However, in the past several years, significant advances have been made, both in improving existing intervention tools and in developing novel microbial inactivation technologies. 

We at Global Food Technologies have created an environmentally friendly, completely organic & kosher “Clean Step” that virtually eliminates pathogens such as E coli, listeria, campylobacter, salmonella, & vibrio and dramatically extends the shelf life of seafood, poultry & meats – in case anyone in this room cares about Shelf Life!  

We do all this without affecting the taste, texture, color or nutritional value of the product. We will be introducing iPura next quarter with Chilean salmon, - by the end of 08 we will also be “Organic Clean Step” processing shrimp, catfish & poultry from Vietnam, Thailand, China & the U.S. The end product will be marketed as, iPura™, "The Highest Standard in Food Safety”. We are also introducing our second food safety brand next month iCe – an antimicrobial ice.  

The reason that the food safety future looks brighter than the recent past - is because of biotech companies like GFT that are rapidly inventing & developing new technologies & food safety solutions.  

Surveys show, including a recent comprehensive study from Michigan State University, that the overwhelming majority of American consumers are willing to pay a premium for safe food. That’s the real reason why many of our food safety problems are going to be solved – money! There is money in food safety & potential financial as well as physical disaster without it! 

The chefs in this room & the companies that you represent  - have the ability, the opportunity and indeed the responsibility to make a difference in the food safety & food service industries. How you attack the problems that I touched on will have a lasting effect on many lives.  

I appreciate Chef Sartain for inviting me to speak & giving me an opportunity to meet all of you. I would love to field any questions that you might have in the next few minutes – or anytime today for that matter.