From the President and IFST News

Food Science and Technology Pub Date: 2022-09-01 DOI: 10.1002/fsat.3603_3.x

Abstract
After more than 12?years as Chief Executive of IFST I have made the decision, with a great degree of sadness, to step down from the role to pursue my work as a consultant full-time. This will be my last article before I finish in November and therefore I hope you don't mind me using the opportunity to look back over my time in the role and reflect on some of the great moments and achievements for the Institute. When I took on the role, I could see the great potential for the Institute but what immediately struck me was how incredibly positive and dedicated its volunteer members were. I had worked in other membership bodies previously and never experienced this level of commitment and passion. So, before I start, I would like to thank all the amazingly talented and dedicated members, who I have met and worked with, for making the job so enjoyable and possible. For the first couple of years much of the focus was, necessarily, quite inward-looking. We needed to streamline and simplify our governance and ways of working, reducing our committee structures from 15 down to eight committees and halving the size of our constitutional documents. However, even during these first two years we introduced some new activities, which are still a part of our core activities today. We introduced our Student Career LaunchPads, initially in collaboration with Campden BRI, in 2011, gradually adding new venues until we were reaching around 400 undergraduate students a year across six locations. We have continued to work closely with Campden BRI in support of our future talent with the introduction of our UK Ecotrophelia competition in 2013. This year we celebrated the competition's 10th anniversary and it is still hugely well-regarded by the universities taking part and by the industry ‘dragons’ who are our judges. The institute celebrated its 50th Jubilee in 2014 with a wide range of special events and activities – those of you who were around then may remember the packets of sunflower seeds we sent out with your FS&T magazines to mark the occasion – with the request to send in photos of your growing efforts. We timed our new branding to coincide with the Jubilee – out went the old ‘Hoover’ logo - and 10?years on, our current brand and logo is still looking strong. We even had a special IFST cocktail created to match the new brand colour! Alongside the more fun and frivolous activities we also used our Jubilee year to launch our Register of Food Safety Professionals. This has proved to be a slow burn but continues to grow in numbers and recognition. We recognised our original strapline ‘The voice of the food profession’ rang a bit hollow. We did not even have a specific communications function in the first few years of my role and so the introduction of a Communications Coordinator role in 2014 was a big step forward in increasing our ‘voice’. Our voice grew louder in 2015 with the introduction of a part-time Scientific Policy Director and again in 2018, with the addition of a dedicated scientific resource in the form of a Scientific Affairs Manager. Our relationship with governmental departments and key industry stakeholders is now very positive and strong – as it should be for a professional body. Fast forwarding to the last few years, we have had COVID to contend with. However, our move to remote working proved to be a relatively positive one. Obviously, engaging remotely has its limitations, but our ability to work with our active members through online meetings has proved to be a very effective model – evidenced, for example, by the incredibly nimble activities of our COVID working group, who have since replicated this model to introduce a series of new ‘knowledge hubs’ – providing must-go-to resources for food professionals. I need to also mention the huge growth in both scale and credibility of our International Journal of Food Science and Technology. I've purposefully not mentioned individual names in this piece, as it would be so difficult to acknowledge all of those who have contributed to the Institute's success, but our current Editor and editorial team have done an incredible job in raising its status. I have mentioned earlier a few of the newer roles in the executive team but must thank and acknowledge all of the amazing colleagues I have worked with during my 12?years – past and present. I've received some very kind words from members since I announced my departure, but the Institute could not have achieved any of the successes it has without the incredible hard work and commitment of my close working colleagues. My personal motto during my time has always been ‘We have a serious job to do – but we can have fun doing it’. So, thank you to all of you for allowing me to have such fun!
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