Opening remarks Samuel B.

Godefroy APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum APEC Food Allergen Workshop May 2014


Sharing updates of a food scientist and regulator
Samgodefroy / opinions are my own
www.samgodefroy.com



Event: Food Allergen Management Workshop Introduction

Dates: May 6
th
, 2014


Bonjour toutes et tous,

Bienvenue ce 8
me
atelier sur les mthodes danalyse sur les allergnes alimentaires Un effort conjoint avec
le programme de ressources et de recherches de luniversit du Nebraska le FARRP.

Cet atelier est dsormais devenu un vnement rcurrent pour la communaut scientifique internationale,
spcialise sur ce sujet pour se runir et changer sur les derniers dveloppements des techniques, pratiques
danalyse, de gestion et de contrle des allergnes dans les aliments.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to those colleagues who are taking part in this workshop for the first
time, and in particular our colleagues from government organisations in the Asia Pacific Region.

For those of you who are repeat participants , we welcome you back and thank you for your commitment to this
important event for the food allergen analytical community.

We are glad to have reached the milestone of an 8th event of this workshop series. Looking back in time, the
first couple of events hosted in Ottawa were mainly North American in nature and pursued the objective to
share best practices and knowledge transfer mainly between Canadian and US experts, amongst the food
regulatory jurisdictions and academia.

This workshop has then pursued the ambition of becoming the hub of the food allergen analytical community,
thanks to the enhanced partnership between the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program (FARRP) of the
University of Nebraska with Health Canada. It also leveraged the increased structure and collaboration amongst
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Opening remarks Samuel B. Godefroy APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum APEC Food Allergen Workshop May 2014

community members, whether be it under the auspices of the AOAC : Association of Official Analytical
communities, or partnerships developed under other research and science initiatives, undertaken nationally or
internationally, particularly those supported by the European Union.

Over 10 years have passed since the organisation of the first HC/FARRP Allergen Workshop in October 2003
in Ottawa. Still, we continue to maintain the same ambition: that this event remains the hub of information and
best practices sharing amongst our community.

Of course, it is legitimate for us to ask ourselves, if after this 10 year milestone, we would foresee a continued
need for a venue such as this one.
As you will be noting from a number of talks and discussions throughout the workshop, the issue of food
allergies is with us to stay. There are indications in fact that food allergies are on the rise in a number of
countries and in particular in North America.

The Government of Canada considers the issue of food allergies to be amongst one of its important public
health priorities in relation with food and nutrition.
First, because we have evidence that roughly 2.5 million Canadians or about 7% of the population report that
they have food allergies.

For some of these fellow Canadians, allergic reactions can be serious and even life threatening. Celiac Disease
is a condition related to an immune-mediated reaction to Gluten and affects 1 per cent of our population. If a
celiac individual continues to consume Gluten, this condition will lead to a number of health consequences,
from malnutrition, fatigue, and other chronic diseases.

For both food allergies and celiac disease, a cure is not unfortunately on the immediate horizon, although
research continues to progress.

These conditions have an impact not only on our public health system, if managed solely in a reactive basis, but
also on society overall.

A preventive approach is what we need to address these issues.

The Government of Canada has been a pioneering jurisdiction to support this preventive approach through:
- rules, regulations or guidance to industry related to labeling and processing practices
- enforcement actions where compliance is not optimum
- development and dissemination of allergen detection methods to support our standard setting and
compliance and enforcement programs
- and working with health professionals, consumer and advocacy organisations to support education and
awareness related to prevention of food allergy incidents.

Maintaining and enhancing opportunities of information and expertise sharing such this workshop of food
allergen methodologies, in collaboration with FARRP, is an illustration of our commitment to ensure science
and evidence based decision making, for Canadas main food regulators Health Canada and the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency.

It is a great coincidence that this workshop is organised in May, which is our National Food Allergy Awareness
Month and Celiac Month in Canada.

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Opening remarks Samuel B. Godefroy APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum APEC Food Allergen Workshop May 2014

Organising this workshop is also a way for Government of Canada agencies to deliver on the commitment that
we should facilitate access to the latest developments in the food allergen control practices, to our domestic
stakeholders and equip them with the best tools to support their preventive control measures.

It is in response to the same level of priority for the importance of food allergen control as part of hazard
management in food processing, that the Government of Canada suggested that a capacity building initiative be
developed for experts of the Asia Pacific Region, under the auspices of the APEC Food Safety Cooperation
Forum.

This recommendation was made during the 4
th
and last meeting of the Food Safety Cooperation Forum, hosted
by the Government of Indonesia in Surabaya, in April 2013.

Canada would like to express its appreciation to the overwhelming level of support from APEC economies to
this initiative. This support was no doubt the key contributor to help us boost expert participation, into this
activity from as many economies as possible.

We are glad and appreciative to have received support and achieved participation in this event from the United
States, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Malaysia, Thailand, J apan, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Papua New-Guinea,
Australia and New-Zealand, Brunei and the Philippines to cite a few.

During the 2013 Surabaya meeting, the Government of Canada raised the fact that food related adverse
reactions, associated with poor labelling of food allergens or poor manufacturing practices continues to be a
growing source of food recalls, both for products made domestically or imported.

In a region where we concentrate close to of the international food trade, it is important that we alleviate such
impediments and work collectively to ensure access to safe and quality foods for all our citizens. It is also
important that we work together towards enhanced convergence of regulatory requirements governing the
management of existing and emerging food safety hazards, such as food allergens, in alignment with Codex
standards, Codex risk analysis principles and science driven decision making.


The Government of Canada has recommended that this capacity building initiative under the APEC Food Safety
Cooperation Forum pursue the following objectives:

- to raise awareness of good (allergen management-related) manufacturing processes
- to build competencies in laboratory analysis of priority allergens for both industry and government
oversight
- to build regulatory convergence associated with labelling of priority allergens, and
- to share and align responses to improper labelling and poor manufacturing processes associated with
food allergens.

This is what we hope to partially achieve through considering the integration of this Food Allergen
Methodologies Workshop as part of our APEC Capacity Building initiative for food allergen management.

No doubt that we will need to build and maintain momentum for a number of years, if we are to reach the goals
set in 2013 and to enhance the protection of Food Allergic Consumers in our region.

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Opening remarks Samuel B. Godefroy APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum APEC Food Allergen Workshop May 2014

In reviewing the program of our workshop, I am glad that this venue continues to bring together world experts
in the field of food allergen methods beyond our Asia Pacific Region. I would like to extend a warm welcome
to all our colleagues from Europe and thank you for your continued commitment to this event.

Before kicking off the technical program, a few words of thanks and acknowledgement :

I would like to thank all experts that have agreed to make themselves available and who are contributing to our
program.

I would like to thank the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program of the University of Nebraska, our
partner in the organisation of this workshop, in particular to Dr. Steve Taylor and Dr. J oseph Beaumert, for their
leadership in shaping our workshop program.

A special thank you goes to Pat Gergen from FARRP, our conference organiser, for her exceptional efforts in
making this event happen.

I would like to acknowledge my team members from Health Canadas Food Directorate, Michael Abbott, Dr.
Terry Koerner and J ean-Marc Gelinas as well as our colleagues in Health Canadas western region, based in
Vancouver.


I would like to wish us all a productive workshop through the technical program and the equally important
networking opportunities that this meeting provides.


Thank you, Merci y Muchos Gracias a Todos,



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