Annual Reports

Each year, ICMSF provides an annual report to the International Union of Microbiological Societies to summarise membership and activities. An example is presented below and select past reports are provided in PDF format.

Note to IUMS on ICMSF activities (2019-2023)

Membership

As of the start of 2023, ICMSF membership consists of 20 ICMSF members and 1 Executive Director residing in 15 different countries. The Commission’s membership, collectively, represents broad complementary expertise in food safety, including risk assessment, research, product and process development, public health, agriculture, food technology, food safety management, quality control, education, systems thinking and process engineering. Members come from academia, food industry and governmental organisations.

In this section

Highlights for the reporting period

2020

The 53^rd annual meeting of the Commission was held in the form of a series of virtual meetings during November and December. These meetings were attended by all members at the time and engaged several former members (Bob Buchanan; Bernadette Franco) as well as consultants (Nigel French, Massey Univ., New Zealand; Narelle Fegan, CSIRO, Australia; Wang Jun, CFSA, China; Bobby Krishna, Dubai Municipality, UAE; Sarah Cahill, FAO, Rome; Ellen Evans, Cardiff Metropolitan Univ., UK; Mike Batz, FDA, US).
The Commission elected four new members (Mike Batz, Nigel French, Wang Jun, and Bobby Krishna) and bid farewell to Paul Cook as an ICMSF member (2017-2020).
After 20 years of chairing the Commission, Martin Cole stood down as Chairperson and the ICMSF elected Marcel Zwietering as the new Chairperson. ICMSF is greatly indebted to Martin for his leadership during this extensive period.
The Commission commemorated the passing of former members, namely Hans Juergen Sinell (ICMSF member from 1972-1992), Russ Flowers (ICMSF member 1996-2013) and Ricardo Sobol (ICMSF Latin America Sub-Commission member 1989-2020).
Throughout the year, the Commission continued its work on subtitles for the first set of 10 YouTube clips, supported by individuals from different countries. Leon Gorris and Marcel Zwietering recorded 9 new video clips.
The ICMSF spreadsheet posted on ICMSF.org was updated to version 10, to include a new type of sampling plan: i.e., a quantitative, qualitative 3 class plan designed specifically for Listeria monocytogenes. Jeff Farber, Marcel Zwietering and Bob Buchanan were involved in the paper supporting this new approach.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission issued an opinion paper on the impact of COVID-19 on food safety that was well received.

2021

The 54^th annual ICMSF meeting again was through virtual means. The meeting was attended by all members at the time and engaged several former members (Bob Buchanan; Paul Cook; Bernadette Franco) and consultants (Sarah Cahill, FAO, Rome; Narelle Fegan of CSIRO, Australia; Ellen Evans of Cardiff University, UK; Anett Winkler, Cargill, Germany). No new members were elected.
The first position paper associated to our Book 9 project was published in Frontiers in Microbiology (Big data Impacting Food Safety).
Like in previous years, 2021 was a year that Commission members contributed to food safety outreach and development through working with international organizations and associations such as FAO, WHO, Codex, JEMRA, IAFP, ILSI. For instance, several members were involved in an ILSI Europe paper on environmental monitoring and an ILSI publication on present knowledge in Food Safety or in JEMRA reports concerning Microbial safety of food in situations of malnourishment (MRA 29) and Microbiological Risk Assessment for food safety guidelines (MRA 36). Also, ICMSF members were involved in a very successful LAS-ICMSF webinar, contributed a COVID-19 and food safety session during the IAFP Europe conference, staged a session on the future of feeding people safely during the SRI Congress, organized a session on Food Safety for SAAFoST, and contributed to the 15^th Dubai International Food Safety Conference as well as to the Asia Pacific F&B Industry Water Reuse Conference. Training workshops were given across India in the frame of CHIFSS (Capability Harnessing Initiative for Food Safety Sciences).

2022

The majority of the Commission membership met physically in Dubai in November for the 55^th annual meeting, back-to-back to the 16^th Dubai International Food Safety Conference (DIFSC), upon invitation of Dubai Municipality (DM). Members and consultants unable to attend in person contributed through virtual means. During the annual meeting, much of the focus was on progressing Book 9. ICMSF members actively contributed to the DIFSC program and discussions, including offering an ICMSF workshop and symposium session in the context of risk-based food safety management. Visits to food safety related facilities of Dubai Municipality and other meetings allowed close and valuable interaction and discussion with DM staff members. No new members were elected.
Throughout the year, the ICMSF membership has again been very actively involved with (inter-)governmental (e.g. FAO, WHO, Codes Alimentarius) and scientific organizations (e.g. IAFP, ILSI, CHIFSS), participating in expert meetings, workshops, webinars, and symposia during the year. For instance, several members were involved in new JEMRA reports that have been issued (i.e. on Listeria monocytogenes and on Shiga-toxin producing coli) or that are in the progress of being published (i.e. on water use and reuse in food production and processing for different commodity sectors). In April, Commission members teamed-up with the LAS-ICMSF sub-commission to hold a successful second webinar. As part of the IAFP annual meeting in Pittsburgh, a ICMSF workshop on Sampling and Testing as well as a round table session on COVID-19 and Food Safety learnings were held.

Note: Information the Commission can be found on www.ICMSF.org.

Respectfully submitted,

Leon G.M. Gorris

ICMSF Secretary

14 February 2023

The International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF, the Commission) was formed in 1962 through the action of the International Committee on Food Microbiology and Hygiene, a committee of the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS). Through the IUMS, the ICMSF is linked to the International Union of Biological Societies (IUBS) and to the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations.

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