By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — A Michigan-based company is helping to ensure that seafood from areas affected by the Gulf oil spill is safe to eat.

The International Food Protection Training Institute (IFPTI), a leader in delivering career-spanning, standards-based food protection training to state and local food safety officials, is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Services (NFMS) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to train food protection officials to determine the safety and acceptability of seafood from the oil-contaminated Gulf-states area.

This federal program will provide hands-on training to develop skills in sensory detection for taint in seafood exposed to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. These skills are critical for seafood safety monitoring in order for food protection officials to take regulatory response measures that can include advisories and opening and closing of fisheries. All instruction will be provided by a special NMFS/FDA Sensory Expert Team that has been collecting baseline samples from the Gulf region for these and future training sessions.

IFPTI Executive Director Jerry Wojtala is an expert in food safety. He said the institute will conduct training for the next several weeks, and the institute is picking up the cost.

“The value or benefit from this training is two-fold,” Wojtala said. “States will have trained sensory screeners in a variety of agencies and points in the food safety system in order to detect and prevent potential contamination threats to the food supply.” And, “the Gulf area will have an increased capacity of trained screeners that can be leveraged in a coordinated response effort.”

Wojtala said the IFPTI became aware of the need for this training after providing a similar training course in Gainesville, Fla., in May. In addition to coordinating attendance of state officials from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, IFPTI will reimburse attendees’ travel expenses to Pascagoula, Miss., where the training will take place, to overcome the limited funding for training and tight travel budgets that would otherwise have prevented these food protection officials from getting this vital emergency training.

Upon completion, the trained individuals will be able to assist in issuing advisories, opening and closing harvest areas, monitoring points along the food chain – harvest vessels, docks, packers, processors, wholesalers and retailers – and in compliance and enforcement situations.

Most instruction is course-specific. Training will focus on assessing the abilities of students to detect oil “taint” at various levels in a variety of Gulf seafood primarily through the sense of smell.
“Only trained instructors in a given expertise are used,” Wojtala said. “After initial skills are developed, students are evaluated as to their ability level. Most will be able to be used as sensory screeners in various capacities, while some may show ability to advance into areas requiring more expertise.”

To date, working in partnership with the Association of Food & Drug Officials, and in collaboration with the FDA, IFPTI has trained more than 500 food protection professionals from 37 states. Utilizing a FY2010 federal appropriation, IFPTI expects to train approximately 1,000 state and local food protection professionals in 2010, and the Institute is preparing to train up to 2,000 to 3,000 food safety officials in 2011 utilizing funding allocated for such purposes in the President’s FY2011 Budget.

The IFPTI is a nonprofit organization. Working in partnership with the Association of Food and Drug Officials, the Institute seeks to protect the public’s health by working with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial food protection officials in the creation of an integrated national food protection system that ensures the safety of the U.S. food supply. IFPTI’s training facilities are located in Western Michigan University’s Kendall Center in Battle Creek, Mich. Initial funding for IFPTI has been provided by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Visit www.ifpti.org for more information.