Agenda

Development of Risk-Based Meat Safety Assurance Systems (RB-MSAS)
Workshop on 15 May 2023, held in relation to SafePork 2023 in New Orleans, USA

Many resources are spent on ensuring meat safety – either during the preharvest phase, at harvest or during postharvest. The question is how this could be made in a more cost-effective way than seen at current. An international network called RIBMINS is working on this through the development of risk-based meat safety assurance systems (RB-MSAS) in Europe.

At the workshop, the basic principle of RB-MSAS will be presented. This will be divided into four areas: 1) MSAS definition and implementation, 2) farm risk categorization and pre-harvest strategies, 3) abattoir risk categorization and harvest strategies, and 4) risk-based meat inspection. Furthermore, case studies using new vision-based technologies will be presented.

Different representatives have been invited to provide feedback/critics about the feasibility of the whole concept while also giving a status for the modernisation of meat inspection including way of working with this issue in their country.

Draft agenda

9.00-9.05        Introduction to the workshop and the concept of RB-MSAS – Lis Alban (DK)
9.05-9.25        Farm risk categorization and pre-harvest strategies – Diana Meemken (DE)
9.25-9.45        Abattoir risk categorization and harvest strategies – Bojan Blagojevic (SR)
9.45-10.05        Risk-based meat inspection – Madalena Vieira-Pinto (PT)
10.05-10.25       New vision-based technologies – Andrea Capobianco Dondona (IT)
10.25-10.45       Meat inspection from a distance – Arja Helena Kautto (SE)
10.45-11.05       Ante-mortem inspection from a distance – Maybritt Kiel Poulsen (DK)
11.05-11.20       COFFEE BREAK
11.20-11.40       Views on RB-MSAS from USA – Andrew Bailey (US)
11.40-12.00       Views on RB-MSAS from Brazil – Elenita Ruttscheidt Albuquerque (BR)
12.00-12.20       Views on RB-MSAS from Denmark – Anne Klottrup (DK)
12.20-12.40     Views on RB-MSAS from low- and middle-income countries – Fred Unger / Delia Randolph (International Livestock Research Institute VN)
12.40-13.00       Views from a Food Business Operator’s point of view – Derk Oorburg (NL)
13.00-13.10      Summing up – Lis Alban

Organizers: Lis Alban, Bojan Blagojevic, Madalena Vieira-Pinto, Arja-Helena Kautto, Diana Meemken

Outreach: Based on the workshop, a paper will be written and published in the popular-scientific journal Fleischwirtschaft International (https://english.fleischwirtschaft.de/) with all presenters invited as coauthors.

For more information about RIBMINS, please see: https://ribmins.com/

WGS, NGS, and ’Omics: What are they and how can I use them?
Workshop on 15 May 2023, held in relation to SafePork 2023 in New Orleans, USA

Sequence data – including whole-genome, next-generation and ‘omics – are becoming more common within the food safety arena. These data can provide a lot of results, but what information do they contain; how can they be interpreted appropriately; and how can they be used within the context of food safety research and practice?

At this workshop, we will provide a high-level overview of the steps necessary to generate sequence data. We will then discuss the advantages and limitations of the resulting information, and how it can be applied to food safety questions. The workshop will focus primarily on whole-genome sequence (WGS) data, but we will include comparisons to ‘omics data, including microbiome and metagenomic data.

Participants can expect to achieve a basic understanding of how sequence data are generated; the different types of sequence data; what the data can and cannot answer; advantages and limitations of different types of sequence data; and how these data can be applied to food safety today and in the future.

Agenda

9.00-9.10        Introduction to the workshop – Noelle Noyes
9:10-9.50        Initiating a sequencing project: key ingredients, important considerations, and what to (not) expect – All Presenters
9.50-10.30      Overview of the WGS workflow, from the field to phylogenies – Noelle Noyes
10.30-10.50      How to interpret the outputs of WGS data – Noelle Noyes
10.50-11.20      Overview of ‘omics workflows and outputs, with comparison to WGS – Noelle Noyes
11.20-11.40      COFFEE BREAK
11.40-12.05      Applications of WGS and ‘omics data, perspectives from a food company – Aaron Asmus
12.05-12.30      Applications of WGS and ‘omics data, understanding pathogen behavior – Shawn Bearson
12.30-13.00      Open discussion and Q&A – ALL

Organizers: Noelle Noyes, Aaron Asmus, Shawn Bearson

Noelle Noyes is an Assistant Professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota (thenoyeslab.org). Her lab uses molecular and traditional epidemiological methods to improve our understanding of microbial ecology within protein production systems. Areas of focus include microbial ecology related to food safety, antimicrobial resistance and public health, pathogen behavior and animal health and performance. She specializes in molecular and bioinformatic methods development, and she is the co-founder of the MEGARes database and AMR++ bioinformatic pipeline (megares.meglab.org)

Margit Andreason, Danish Crown

Heather Fowler

Arja Helena Kautto

Alain LeRoux

Patrik Buholzer

Fred Unger

Delia Grace

Velma Kivali

Hai Hoang Tu Ngo