IFSH-Led Alliance Receives Award from International Food Safety Organization
The Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance (FSPCA) at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) has been selected to receive the 2023 Food Safety Award from the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP).
Established in 2011, the FSPCA is an internationally recognized and trusted source for training programs and outreach for the prevention-oriented standards of the United States Food Safety
Modernization Act.
“FSPCA has trained more than 3,000 lead instructors from 78 countries who are now using the FSPCA curricula to train industry personnel on food safety preventive controls principles and practices,” says Jason Wan, associate director of the IFSH and Illinois Tech professor of food science. “More than 171,000 food safety personnel from 131 countries have been trained using the FSPCA standardized and core curricula who are now assisting the industry in producing safe food all over the world.”
IFSH is the lead management organization operating the FSPCA, with the International Food Protection Training Institute and the Association of Food and Drug Officials as partners.
Since its founding, FSPCA’s accomplishments include initiating, developing, completing, and successfully implementing the standardized training curricula on Preventive Controls for Human Food (PCHF) and Preventive Controls for Animal Food (PCAF) that are recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the only standardized training curricula for human and animal food. It has also developed a comprehensive set of policies and procedures to ensure consistently high quality for the delivery of lead instructors courses and participants courses and hosted its annual conference—since 2017—with attendants from 21 countries. In addition, FSPCA has conducted hundreds of PCHF, PCAF, Foreign Supplier Verification, and Intentional Adulteration Vulnerability Assessment lead instructors courses.
“The jury was impressed with the organization’s preeminence in and contributions to the field of food safety, and feels it is a worthy recipient of this prestigious award,” IAFP Executive Director Lisa K. Hovey said in a statement announcing the award.
“IFSH is honored to receive this prestigious award from IAFP acknowledging FSPCA. This would not have been possible without the dedication and commitment by all partners working towards safe food for all,” says IFSH Executive Director Brian Schaneberg.
The award, sponsored by the Consumer Brands Association, comes with a $2,000 honorarium and a plaque, and will be presented publicly at the IAFP annual meeting’s awards banquet on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Toronto.
Photo: The Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance management and executive advisory board members are pictured, front row (from left): Steven Mandernach, Tania Martinez, Kathy Gombas (chair), Jason Wan (FSPCA director), Claudia Coles, Katherine Simon, and Martin Bucknavage. Back row (from left): Dawn Johnson, David Fairfield, Jerry Wojtala, Juan Silva, Brian Schaneberg, Jennifer Thomas, and Chris Lincecum. Not pictured: Amy Philpott, Modestar Liyokho, and Douglas Stearn.
