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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced in a presentation to the American Farm Bureau Federation that the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will close five district offices as part of USDA’s
“Blueprint for Stronger Service.”
The offices to be closed are
headquartered in Lawrence, KS;
Beltsville, MD; Minneapolis,
MN; Albany, NY and Madison,
WI. The transition is expected to be complete at the end of
FY13.
Based on a department-wide review of operations conducted
as part of the Obama administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste,
the new blueprint means significant cuts to all major agencies.
Altogether, USDA will close 259 domestic offices, facilities and
labs across the country, as well as seven foreign offices. These
changes will provide efficiencies valued at about $150 million
annually. A complete list of cuts, as well as detailed fact sheets,
has been made available online at http://goo.gl/dg WiX.
USDA Blueprint for Stronger Services
Sean Connolly has joined Sara
Lee Corporation as the chief
executive officer of the company’s North American retail
and foodservice business.
Sodexo Inc. has
announced the appointment of
Olivier Poirot as
senior vice president and chief
financial officer.
The Grocery Manufacturers
Association (GMA) has announced that Glenn Black has
been selected to chair the
newly formed food safety preventive controls alliance steering and executive committee.
GMA also announced the appointment of Jennifer Kaleda
as vice president for industry
affairs, operational effectiveness.
Poirot
Food Safety Net
Services has named
Patricia Wester,
vice president, regulatory affairs.
United Fresh
Produce Association has wel-
comed Shelby Rajkovich as
Wester
their new communications
manager.
The American Meat Institute
has announced the appointment of food industry veteran
Eric Mittenthal as vice president of public affairs.
Thierry Fabozzi
has been named
managing director
of Plastic Technologies Inc. Europe,
Yverdon, Switzerland.
Fabozzi
Bettcher Indus-
tries Inc. has an-
nounced that Paul
Pirozzola has
joined the company
as vice president of
marketing.
PRO*ACT, a distributor of fresh produce to the
foodservice industry,
has announced the
addition of Kelly
Jacob to the management
team in the newly created position of vice president of retail
sales.
International Light Tech-
Jacob
Pirozzola
PURE Bioscience Receives GRAS
Determination for Proprietary Formula
PURE Bioscience announced that their proprietary antimicrobial formula, silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC), has received FDA
Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) determination for use on
food processing equipment, machinery and utensils.
The GRAS designation is usually awarded to chemicals or substances added to food; in this case, SDC is being applied as a
hard-surface disinfectant formula. This is a very positive step toward bringing a nontoxic formula (no rinsing required) to the food
processing industry, which has been widely criticized for not being
able to control E. coli, Norovirus, methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus and other pathogens, all of which PURE’s patented
SDC kills with a 24-hour residual.
Covance Receives ISO Accreditation
Covance Inc. announced that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) awarded full 17025 accreditation
to its new microbiology laboratory in Madison, WI. Covance
acquired the laboratory from TRAC Microbiology in September 2011.
nologies has named Phil
Goodwin to the position of
light-emitting diode (LED) lighting sales manager for their expanding LED product line.
Certified Laboratories Inc.
and the Certified Food Safety
Center are pleased to announce the addition of Gary
Gray to its roster of seasoned
professionals.
Vollrath has announced the appointment of Nancy
Wagner to vice
president of supply
chain.
Key Technology
has announced the
promotion of Bret
Larreau to the new
position of manager
of business devel-
opment, Louis Vintro as senior
vice president of
business develop-
ment and global
operations and
Richard
Hebel
as optical product
marketing manager.
James Moe and
Brendan “Denny”
Wagner
Vintro
Hebel
Larreau
Terrazas have been named
blending supervisors at Wixon,
a manufacturer of seasonings,
flavors, ingredients and consumer products for the food
and beverage industry.
Staco has recently added longtime industry
veteran Jim Beiersdorff as the Eastern
regional manager.
Dur-A-Flex has named
David Hughes vice
president of marketing, research &
development.
Neogen Corpora-
tion has hired Gerry
Broski as senior di-
rector of food safety
marketing.
Wendy Warren,
Ph.D. and Tony
Vagnino have
joined AEGIS FOOD TESTING
LABS to help cus-
tomers understand
and
cope
with
changing
food safety regula-
tions.
Beiersdorff
Hughes
Broski
Warren
Vagnino
