Andrew Pointon - Scientific Risk Management Panel Participation - Food Safety Program

Summary

Background
The Meat & Livestock Australia food safety program plan is aligned with the Meat Industry Strategic Plan.
This plan identifies that food safety influences Market compliance directly through regulations, and indirectly via community concern, both domestically and internationally.
Consequently, MLA has recognised the need to focus the research plan around these issues, so that the Australian red meat industry continues to be "ahead of the play" rather than just "reacting and responding" to food safety concerns.
The primary role of SAFEMEAT is to oversee and promote sound management systems to deliver safe and hygienic product to the market place. SAFEMEAT outlines eight key programs listed in its business plan, and MLA develops an integrated research and development program plan.
The most significant part of the MLA plan, has been the microbiological food safety program, which has required high investment, and will continue to do so. Furthermore, community concern and regulatory issues surrounding pathogens and microbial contamination of meat are important and influential in Market compliance.
A scientific risk management panel has been formed to identify significant hazards - arising in the literature, from MLA projects, or in the news etc - assess the risks in scientific terms and ensure that knowledge gaps in the understanding and management of the hazard in the Australian red meat industry are filled in an appropriate manner.
There is interaction between the scientific risk management panel and the developers of a process risk model. The model attempts to place data from MLA projects and the literature into a risk context which can be used as a research tool to better understand risks and identify areas requiring further investigation.
The work of the risk management panel is considered to be an advisory group which will assist MLA in ensuring the wider research and development program responds to the known and anticipated requirements of the customer, and that priority will be placed on the knowledge gaps for which customer requirements are known, or most anticipated. The advisory group will also address the need for implementation and adoption of the outcomes from projects conducted in the research program.
Objectives
The Scientific Risk Management panel:evaluates scientific data contained in reports from MLA projects and other scientific literatureidentifies issues based on evaluation of scientific data, and recommend priority "knowledge gaps" to be filledadvises on required baseline studiesreviews and update risk profiles; recommend complete risk assessments if requiredreviews the process risk model and make suggestions for improving the modeloverview and evaluate output from research projects relating to selected risks, and advise on contextualisation of these outputs in risk management options and process risk model
The panel
The panel participants are chosen because of their extensive experience and eminence in the area of food safety for red meat. The group is comprised of some of Australia's leading scientists in this area.
Meetings
About three meetings are held each year.
Panel members contribute to the panel by presentations, deliberations, advice, occasional correspondence out of session and through specific tasks that will be agreed through panel meetings or with the chair.