Key Highlights
International Spice Conference 2023 (ISC 2023), the global spice business forum facilitating innovative partnerships to explore the latest development, challenges and innovations in the industry, will get underway at ITC Grand Chola from January 19-22, 2023. After three years of virtual meetings, AISEF is bringing the Spice Fraternity’s investors, entrepreneurs, think tanks, policymakers, researchers and […]
Stop by a Booth Reception
The organisers of Recent Advances in Food Analysis (RAFA) have released the final programme for this year’s event to be held in Prague from 6-9 September.
Fi Europe co-located with Hi Europe returns to France this year from 6-8 December. For the first time, the leading ingredients exhibition will take place at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles – occupying four halls with more than 1,200 exhibitors, ranging from leading ingredients suppliers through to highly specialized newcomers. The in-person show will be […]
The global pet food market value is forecasted to reach US$118.83 billion in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 5.4%, for the period spanning from 2021 to 2025. ResearchAndMarkets.com, 29/4/22
The 39th World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress was held in May at the Madinat Jumeirah Resort in Dubai. More than 1,100 industry professionals from 64 countries came together to discuss and debate the most pressing topics for the sector such as market development, sustainability, nutrition research, and the opportunities and threats that the nut and dried fruit industry currently faces.
World tree nut production in the 2022/2023 season is anticipated to reach 5.4 million metric tons (kernel basis, except pistachios in-shell), up 6% from the previous season, as discussed by industry leaders at the Congress round tables.
Although it is still early in the season to predict the crops’ final outcomes, the most substantial increases are projected for:
According to early estimates, world peanut production in 2022/23 is foreseen to amount to 47.8 million metric tons (in-shell basis).
Global dried fruit production has been forecast at 3.2 million metric tons, up 4% from 2021/22, as world volumes are expected to increase for:
Throughout the round tables, a common theme was that the industry in general is facing an oversupply that in turn has led to lower prices. It was agreed upon by industry leaders that the sector has to come together to promote consumption of nuts and dried fruits in efforts to rebalance the supply and demand. Shipping delays and increased freight costs also have strained the industry, however there remain many opportunities to grow. A significant opportunity for the industry to increase consumption is focused on potential high growth opportunities in markets such as India and China, and through a focus on innovation and e-commerce.
Sunny Verghese, the Co-Founder and Group CEO of Olam International gave a stimulating keynote speech touching on ways the industry can successfully and sustainably improve the food and agricultural system. Verghese also highlighted the growing challenges that the agricultural sector faces such as inflation. Meanwhile, Saket Modi, the Co-Founder and CEO of Safe Security provided insights into the importance of cybersecurity for firms and how they can better mitigate any potential cyber threats through cyber risk quantification in real-time.
A new round table, Matching Supply Chain to Production and Consumption Trends: Looking Into the Future, was introduced this year, led by INC Chairman, Michael Waring. The session took a deep look into one of the industry’s biggest challenges, how to rebalance supply and demand, and how the sector can take advantage of new trends to grow consumption in the coming years. Some of the biggest opportunities for growth mentioned by the panelists were the Indian market and the rapidly growing Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) market.
The Sustainability Seminar was headlined by Marta Moren Abat, the International Relations Coordinator for the Directorate General for Maritime and Fisheries at the European Commission. In her presentation, she discussed various measures that can be taken to improve water conservation such as water transfers, reuse, repricing, alternative plant selection, desalination, and efficient irrigation. Moreover, her speech touched on several possible roles that the nut and dried fruit industry could play in protecting water resources.
Goretti Guasch, INC Executive Director, gave a presentation on how to empower minds and stimulate consumption, highlighting the need for the industry to come together to tackle oversupply. Guasch touched on the INC’s latest trend research, which was a main driver in the decision to roll out a multiyear country-specific campaign to six key global markets. The campaign will be directed at Gen Z, which is poised to drive markets for the next decade.
The 2023 INC Congress is scheduled to take place in London, UK, from 22-24 May 2023.
The INC Awards, handed out annually as part of the INC Congress, are aimed at recognizing outstanding leaders and visionaries who contribute to the excellence of the nut and dried fruit industry.
In Dubai, the ‘Corporate Golden Nut Award’ was presented to ofi, and the ‘Excellence in Research’ to Prof. Jordi Salas-Salvadó. Furthermore, Dr. Karen Lapsley was recognized for her Outstanding Service to Research in Almonds with the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’. Chef Akmar Anuar was awarded ‘Excellency in Gastronomy’, and the ‘Innovation Award’ was presented to ofi for their Cashew Nut Oil Dipping Sauces & Dressings.
The INC is the international umbrella organization for the nut and dried fruit industry. Its members include more than 850 nut and dried fruit sector companies from over 80 countries. INC membership represents over 85% of the world’s commercial “farm gate” value of trade in nuts and dried fruits. The INC’s mission is to stimulate and facilitate sustainable growth in the global nut and dried fruit industry. It is the leading international organization on health, nutrition, statistics, food safety, and international standards and regulations regarding nuts and dried fruits.
www.nutfruit.org
This year’s Recent Advances in Food (RAFA 2021) event will be held virtually on 3-4 November.
The event organizers, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague (UCT Prague, Czech Republic) and Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR), part of Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands), said due to ongoing uncertainty with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been decided not to hold a live RAFA symposium.
“To keep the RAFA community together and invite newcomers to join us, we are organizing an online special event titled ‘RAFA Trends & Views’. Attending this event will be free of charge for all registered participants,” the organizers said.
“We are delighted to invite food scientists from academia and industry, representatives of national and international agencies, control authorities, governmental and commercial laboratories to attend RAFA 2021.”
Since the first edition launched in 2003, RAFA has grown to become a prestigious event attended by up to 900 participants from more than 60 countries worldwide.
In line with previous events, the RAFA 2021 symposium will provide an insight into contemporary trends in (BIO)ANALYTICAL STRATEGIES IN FOOD QUALITY AND SAFETY CONTROL and discuss CHALLENGES / NOVEL APPROACHES IN FOOD AND NATURAL PRODUCT ANALYSIS. The oral programme will be accompanied by a series of webinars offered by leading companies. These webinars will introduce participants to recent instrumentation and analytical strategies for advanced food quality, safety and authenticity control.
The programme will be composed of invited lectures presented by distinguished speakers who will open discussion on current trends and their visions. In addition, various satellite events, such as vendor webinars or focused workshops and seminars, will be also offered to participants. Networking and virtual meetings will be supported to enable sharing of views on presented topics.
Due to a limited format of this year RAFA, no proposals for oral and/or poster presentations can be accepted.
RAFA 2022 – the 10th anniversary of the event – will be organised as a live event in Prague, in November 2022.
Neal Dando, President Pittcon 2021
Food Engineering & Ingredients: Pittcon 2021 in March is being held virtually. How has this changed the way you organize the event? What are some of the main challenges you have faced in putting the virtual event together – and how have you resolved these?
Neal Dando: Planning for Pittcon starts more than a year in advance of the Conference. When we started detailed planning for Pittcon 2021 (in Q1 2020), we began by executing our normal production process for a F2F show. By late Q2, 2020 it became apparent that we would have to pivot to a virtual-only Conference. An upfront challenge for us was the lack of precedent for large technical, virtual-only conferences. Over Q3, 2020 we quickly worked to evaluate virtual platform partners as well as attend virtual-only conferences that became available during this time. Based on our research, we opted to professionally re-record conference presentations in order to maximize quality and minimize potential accessibility disruptions. A large difference between F2F and virtual conferences is the advance scheduling and preparation required to build out the exposition booths and pre-record all talks. This presents a timing challenge can be a surprise to exhibitors and presenters if they have not participated in a virtual event previously.
FEI: Is there a specific theme for Pittcon 2021? If so, can you tell us more about this?
ND: We have invested significant efforts to maximize the connectivity aspects of our Conference. A concern inherent in virtual programming is how to enable or facilitate physical engagement. The virtual platform we’ve developed incorporates a number of novel elements and features designed for enabling the serendipitous “A-Ha” moments that often occur during F2F conferences. On a lighter note, Pittcon 2021 was originally intended to take place in New Orleans. We worked with New Orleans Convention Center staff to incorporate visual elements features to create a virtual aspects of New Orleans for our attendees.
FEI: What key new trends in the industry have you noticed in the past year? For example, a move to ‘green’ sourcing, production processes. What do you think is driving these trends?
ND: People are increasingly embracing the fact that we must all do our part to combat the ongoing and worsening effects of climate change. This desire is also felt in the convention industry and encouraging transitions to lower energy, lower waste, reduced footprint options for show organizers. This trend is driven by attendee demand.
FEI: Is there any new tech recently introduced, or on the horizon, that you think will have a significant impact on the industry? Can you tell us a bit about this new tech?
ND: Covid-19 has made the answer to this question rather apparent. Our ability to rapidly characterize diseases and develop vaccines and other forms of effective treatments is absolutely unprecedented. This growing capability stems from the development and application of advanced characterization tools. We are very fortunate that many of the companies that commercially offer these technologies are exhibiting at Pittcon 2021.
FEI: Can you tell us about some of the speakers who will be giving talks at Pittcon – and, without giving too much away, can you tell us what they will be discussing?
Joseph Powell, Ph.D., Shell Chief Scientist – Chemical Engineering – is the 2021 Coulter Lecture guest speaker.
ND: Pittcon 2021 was originally intended to be located in New Orleans. Given the importance of the energy industry in the region we elected to choose our featured speaker from the energy industry. At Pittcon 2021, the Coulter Lecturer will be Joseph Powell, Shell Chief Scientist – Chemical Engineering. [Powell’s lecture is entitled The Industrial Laboratory for Energy and Chemicals: Past, Present, and Future.] Joe will discuss the challenges facing the energy industry as well as opportunities and future directions for meeting future global energy demand. This is a very important and relevant topic, given rising global interest in defining and executing on actionable goals for mitigating climate change
FEI: Can you tell us about some of the symposia you have lined up?
ND: Pittcon’s Technical Program focuses on several tracks. These tracks are: Energy, Environmental, Bioanalytical, Cannabis, Food Science/Agriculture, Forensics/Toxicology, Industry/Manufacturing, Nanotechnology/Material Science, Life Sciences and Pharma.
A subset of the symposia we have dedicated to some of these tracks are:
BIOANALYTICAL: Emerging Technologies for Precision Diagnostics of Infections and Infectious Diseases High-Throughput Digital Biological Assays: Single Molecules to Single Cells
ENERGY: Advanced Analytical Techniques in the Study of Energy Storage Materials
CANNABIS: Cannabis in 2021: Analytical Challenges and Impacts on Driving and Public Health Analysis Methods for Cannabis – From Plants to Commercial Products
ENVIRONMENTAL: Detecting, Quantifying, and Evaluating PFAS (Perfluoroalkyl Substrates) Exposures in the Environment IAEAC – Thinking Outside of the Box: What is the Role of Analytical Chemists in Combatting Climate Change?
FOOD SCIENCE & AGRICULTURE: Food Safety and Security Emerging Chemical Contaminants in Foods
FORENSICS & TOXICOLOGY: Analytical Challenges and Occurrence Studies Emerging Analytical Methods for Chemical and Biological Forensic Evidence NIJ – Innovations and Trends in Forensic Examination of Seized Drugs and Forensic Toxicology
INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURING: The Wallace H. Coulter Lecture – The Industrial Laboratory for Energy and Chemicals: Past, Present, and Future Characterizing Catalysts for Louisiana’s Industries
NANOTECHNOLOGY & MATERIALS SCIENCE: Nanosized Molecules, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology for Biological Analysis and Medical Diagnostics: From Fundamental Research to Practical Applications Nature Inspired Material Science
PHARMACEUTICAL: Characterization of New Pharmaceutical Modalities to Understand Its Active and Formulated State
FEI: I see Pittcon 2021 is offering ‘virtual booths’ for exhibitors. Can you explain how these will work?
ND: Like a F2F conference, we’ll have an exposition hall where attendees will be able to enter booths and interact with booth personnel in real time via chat boxes and Zoom rooms from the convenience of their own computer. Short videos are an option that booth personnel may use to make brief descriptions of their products and services. One advantage of offering virtual booths is that you can visit the anytime, 24/7. Any questions or inquiries you post during “off-hour” periods will go directly to the booth person of your choice so they can respond at their earliest convenience.
FEI: You will be offering ‘short courses’ online. Can you tell us a bit about these? Do you think this is something you could continue in this virtual format in future Pittcon events, when the pandemic is behind us?
ND: Absolutely. Pittcon has offered on-line short courses for several years now as a complement to F2F courses. The virtual-only format of Pittcon 2021 has dramatically increased the number and range of our virtual offerings this year. We anticipate maintaining a large and growing number of virtual short course offerings in forward years as a means of extending our science outreach to those unable to attend Pittcon in person.
FEI: Is there anything else you would like to highlight about the virtual Pittcon 2021?
ND: The Pittsburgh Conference is a volunteer, non-profit organization that has been an annual event since 1950. Over 90% of the net income generated at Pittcon 2021 will be given out over the next year in the form of Teacher grants, Teacher awards, scholarships and science outreach activities. These grant, award, and outreach activities are executed by volunteers in the Society for Analytical Chemist and the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh. The impact of these efforts is felt both nationally and internationally.
Attend Pittcon 2021.
The virtual event is demand until 12 June.
To register and attend the virtual event, visit: https://pittcon.org
December 2022
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