FOOD odyssey.

This year's IFT expo, set for June 23-27 in New Orleans, will look at where the industry's been -- and where it's going.

Genetic modification. Bioterrorism. Allergens. Mad cow. Foot-and-mouth. Formulating for aging boomers.

For the food industry, what a long, strange trip it's

"2001: A Food Odyssey" is the theme of this year's IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo for the Institute of Food Technologists, to be held June 23-27, 2001 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, La.

"The development, growth and impact of food technology has been taking many directions, bringing both opportunities and challenges for all of us," says Elizabeth Larmond, this year's annual meeting committee chair. "It's fitting, therefore, that the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists has been designated `2001, A Food Odyssey ... Visions for Change.'"

The major components of IFT are, as always, technical presentations and an exhibit by suppliers of industry goods and services. The expo will bring together more than 900 exhibitors, presenting the latest innovations and improvements in products and services for every facet of the food industry, including experimental disciplines soon to be explored.

The technical presentations come in several forms: pre-meetings on June 22-23; hot topics, presentations on controversial or pressing industry issues; forums on broad topics of concern; symposiums on other issues; technical oral sessions and technical poster sessions that impart highly specific information from academic and industry experts.

Pre-meetings

The pre-meetings for this year's IFT will take place at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. This year's program will focus on a variety of topical subjects. There will be a total of ten programs, including the traditional Basic Symposiums with seven two-day programs and two one-day programs.

Topics of the two-day programs include:

* Product development based on experience (June 22-23)

* Food engineering fundamentals for R&D (June 22-23)

* Emerging beverage technologies and a regulatory outlook for the new millennium

* Sanitation and GMP compliance: prerequisites for HACCP & food quality

* Process control for the food processing industry

* Project management for R&D professionals

* HACCP: Risk management of chemical hazards

* Fat: The good, the bad and the future in product development

* One-day programs will include:

Successful selling and negotiating skills

Presentation skills for food professionals

Hot topics

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday mornings will feature Hot Topics of special industry interest. These include:

* Bioterrorism: Is the food industry at risk? (9 a.m. Sunday, June 24) A look at topics such as contamination and threatened contamination of foods, business disruption, and creation of fear in the food-consuming public.

* What happened to the "R" in R&D? (9 a.m. Monday, June 25) Research developments are a popular target for cuts in food company budgets. This session will look at how to justify the "R" in "R&D" as it relates to marketplace success.

* Mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease. (9 a.m. Tuesday, June 26) A look not only at these diseases, but at how such threats seem to be extremely magnified due to the globalization of the food chain and the rapidity of international commerce.

Symposiums and technical sessions

Attendees will have 16 symposiums to choose from each day on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and five on Wednesday. Sample topics for the symposiums are:

* Nutraceuticals and functional foods: From concepts and regulations to final products

* Developments in the regulation of genetically modified organisms

* Exploring the limits of packaging: The role of emerging technologies

* How processing can optimize the phytonutrient benefits of fruits and vegetables

* The state of the food industry and the food supply in developing regions of the world

* Sampling, testing, and detection methods in biotech food crops

The technical sessions will come, as always, in the form of oral and poster sessions. Typically the IFT presentations with the greatest depth of information, the two-hour technical oral sessions are broken into 15-minute segments. The sessions center on broad topics such as functional foods and nonthermal processing technologies; the individual segments tackle complex, esoteric aspects of these topics, such as "Mechanism of storage stability of micro-encapsulated fish oil enriched in DHA and EPA."

For more information or to register, contact the Institute of Food Technologists at 312/782-8424 or access http://am-fe.ift.org.