An official quarterly newsletter of American Association of Food Scientists for the Indian Subcontinent Volume 1, Issue 2 November 2008 INSIDE THIS ISSUE MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT 1 AAFSIS ANNUAL MEETING AND 2 BANQUET 2008 PANEL DISCUSSION DURING IFT 2008 3 ANNUAL MEETING FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY IN 4 INDIA PERSON OF THE YEAR AWARD 5 Dr. RAO NAMED AS IFT FELLOW 6 Neera Tulshian, IAM International Dr. RIZVI RECEIVED JEFFERSON 7 FELLOWSHIP Dear AAFSIS Members and Supporters, Dr. SINGH ELECTED TO NATIONAL 7 Welcome to another year of excitement and new ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING happenings at AAFSIS! I am happy to announce TATA TRUST DONATES TO CORNELL 8 that AAFSIS has now grown out of its infancy UNIVERSITY stage and is ready to march ahead with one step at a time. It won‟t be long before we start running HONORS (IFT) RECEIVED BY 8 a race! This has been possible due to hard work of SCIENTISTS FROM INDIAN SUBCONTINENT our very dedicated and energetic Executive Committee (EC) under the guidance of Dr Rizvi PLANS UNDERWAY FOR THE NEXT 9 and Dr Rao. I thank the entire 2007-2008 EC ANNUAL MEETING specially our past president Ms. Arti Bedi who has WEBSITE UPDATE! 10 been instrumental in steering this organization on right path through the idea of monthly CALL FOR PROPOSALS – IFT 10 teleconferences. And success it was! Thank you ANNUAL MEETING AND FOOD EXPO Arti and Ravin (Ravin, though not part of the EC at 2009 the beginning, did most of the work. He did a JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA 10 fantastic job of steering in place of Arti.) for this brilliant idea! AAFSIS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 13 (2008-2009) The newly elected EC has been hard at work since Page | 1 returning from 2008 IFT Conference in LA, Link student Community through student including monthly teleconferences, forward liaisons (Educational Institutes) planning, symposium planning and other ongoing Publicize AAFSIS amongst the Food activities. Those who were present at the „2008 Science professionals of the sub-continent, Annual General Meeting and Dinner‟ had yet via news media, technical journals, news another very successful meeting in New Orleans. letters, Internet and any other means available to us. Our achievements included: Explore opportunities for NGO activities in A high level official delegation from India Indian Subcontinent. comprised of officials from Government, IFT 2009 (Anaheim, California): Arrange Food processing Industry, and Academia. for a much larger delegation comprising of Official Recognition of this delegation by personnel from all disciplines (Government, IFT during the Opening Night. industry, and academia including students). A Panel Discussion on “Capacity building Arrange field trips, more networking and public-private partnership for food and opportunities and possibly partial funding agro-processing development in South for such a delegation. Asia” Annual Business Meeting followed by an Yes, we have a very ambitious agenda for the year Indian Banquet 2008-2009... My personal Goal is to make every Participation of some very distinguished member feel that they are part of AAFSIS and a speakers both from India as well as USA sense of belonging. Members can certainly look during this event. (Please refer to the web forward to being a part of the networking platform site as well as this news letter for further provided by AAFSIS and share their dream for the details). advancement of the Indian subcontinent by Official meeting between Delegation from sharing their ideas. No idea is a bad idea and I India, AAFSIS and IFT members where invite each and every AAFSIS member to share everyone had an opportunity to their ideas either by contacting any of the EC communicate directly and put forth their members, or using the Web. Make AAFSIS web concerns and/or suggestions. site as part of your “web sites to check regularly” and I promise you will not be disappointed (be Encouraged by the success of 2008 meeting, we patient for few weeks till we completely revamp our have set even more ambitious goals for the next website). Spread the word around, refer your year which include: friends in Food Industry, and encourage them to Registration of AAFSIS as a non profit join AAFSIS. I hope to see all of you at AAFSIS organization (501c) 2009 in California. To promote/ assist liaison between members and Industry/ Academia/ Neera Tulshian [email protected] Government from Indian Subcontinent and USA including R&D, liaison for assisting business entrepreneurs from the sub-continent To promote the Commerce between USA AAFSIS ANNUAL MEETING AND and the Indian subcontinent. Including R&D BANQUET 2008 and marketing of technology and end products. AAFSIS held its seventh annual meeting and More regular communication between th AAFSIS members and happenings at banquet on June 30 at Embassy Suites, New AAFSIS Orleans. The banquet was attended by members and guests from IFT, as well as a delegation from Page | 2 India including Padmashri Dr. V. Prakash, center in New Orleans, stood out as a milestone Director, CFTRI, the premier Food Research for the Food Scientists from the Indian Institute in South Asia; Mr. Balachandran, IAS, Subcontinent. Chief Executive, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, and Mr. K. Vijayaraghavan, During this year‟s IFT meetings, the “American Chairman, Sathguru Management Consultants, Association of Food Scientists for the Indian Hyderabad. Sub-continent” (AAFSIS) sponsored a panel discussion on “Capacity Building and Public-Private Partnership for Food and Agro-processing Development in South Asia”. The panel discussion hosted by IFT International division and was held at session 154 on July 1. Panel discussion included presentations and participation in discussions by Padmashri Dr. V. Prakash, CFTRI, Mr. G. Balachandran, IAS, Food Safety and Standards Regulatory Authority of India, Dr. John Floros, President of IFT, Mr. Vijayaraghavan, Sathguru Management Consultants, Hyderabad, India, Dr. Vijay Sood, After the dinner, Mr. Balachandran spoke on the Vice-President, General Mills, MN, and Mr. Robert new initiatives by the Government of India for Nooter, Director, International Development, Land improving food safety and standards in India. Mr. O'Lakes, Inc. MN. Vijayaraghavan spoke on the current potential for the growth of food processing in India stressing the need for generating skilled professionals to augment the rapidly growing food processing sector in the country. He explained how the new initiative, to set up a National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management under the aegis of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries would accomplish this need. The members also elected the new AAFSIS committee for 2008-2009, with Neera Tulshian as President. Mr. K. Vijayaraghavan was nominated as India Liaison for AAFSIS. Mr. Balachandran‟s presentation gave a comprehensive overview of developing regulatory framework for the fast growing Indian Food industry. Mr. Balachandran heads the Food Safety PANEL DISCUSSION DURING IFT 2008 and Standards Regulatory Authority of India which ANNUAL MEETING functions somewhat similar to FDA in the US. Dr. Prakash‟s presented the glimpse of the success Ravin Gnanasambandam, Land O'Lakes, Inc. story of CFTRI as it developed a record 1200 patents highlighting CFTRI‟s fervor is developing AAFSIS organized a panel discussion on and rightfully managing the Intellectual property. “Capacity Building and Public-Private Partnership Vijayraghavan from Sathguru consultants talked for Food and Agro-processing Development in about current farm to market integration initiatives, South Asia” during IFT‟s annual meetings in New and the opportunities and investment outlook in Orleans, LA. the food processing industry. This year‟s annual meetings of Institute of Food Technologists held at the memorial Convention Dr. Floros from IFT gave an insightful presentation Page | 3 on IFT‟s role and involvement in food systems food industry ranks fifth in size in the country, development initiative. The session concluded representing 6.3 per cent of GDP. It accounts with two presentations on the hands-on, on-site for 13 per cent of the country‟s exports and 6 experiences in managing projects in the per cent of total industrial investment. developing world by the global entities from The industry size is estimated at US$ 70 outside India. Dr. Vijay Sood from General Mills billion, including US$ 22 billion of value added gave a presentation on food commercialization products. opportunities in India, and Robert Nooter from The sector has been attracting FDI across different categories. Land O'Lakes, Inc. shared the experiences and perspectives on capacity building in food and Policy Initiatives agro-processing and providing solutions towards global prosperity. Several policy measures have been taken in the past years with regard to regulation and control, Overall, the panel discussion turned out to be a fiscal policy, export and import, exchange and very informative and useful to the audience as interest rate control and other incentives. The Indian government has abolished discussion centered around the immense potential licensing for almost all food and for Food processing sector in India, regulatory agro-processing industries except for some landscape for Food entrepreneurship, growing items like beer, potable alcohol and wines, opportunities, and management challenges faced cane sugar, hydrogenated animal fats & oils by food producers and in the changing