Long-term funding helps IFPTI establish presence in Battle Creek
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By Nathan Peck | MiBiz
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With secure funding from the federal government, the International Food Protection Training Institute is helping Battle Creek become a center for food science globally. COURTESY PHOTO |
BATTLE CREEK — Battle Creek’s push to become a center for food science recently got a boost with a $6.5 million U.S. Food and Drug Administration grant to the International Food Protection Training Institute.
The grant supports the training of food screeners over the next five years, gives the organization a stable source of funding and establishes the IFPTI as the lead training agency for the FDA. The funding allows the organization to broaden its programming and has drawn international attention to the IFPTI and its sister organization, the Global Food Protection Institute.
“Obviously, it is critical to our continued operation, and we are very excited about it. This allows us to move forward with the work we started and allows us to do a lot more that really grabs people’s attention,” said Gerald Wojtala, executive director of IFPTI. “It allows us to really make a difference.”
There is a significant hill to climb. Food-borne illnesses sicken one in six people in the United States, force the hospitalization of 128,000 and kill 3,000 each year, according to a study published Sept. 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act called for a national training center for food inspectors to ensure federal, state and local agencies have a consistent training to bring together an often-fractious food safety system. To date, the IFPTI has trained 1,800 food safety inspectors from 49 states.
Officials identified training as a cost-effective means to help create an integrated food safety system. The IFPTI focused on instructing regional and local trainers to make the best use of limited resources. The new law demands food producers and processors report outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. Ensuring consistent training will help standardize the system.
“By utilizing the resources and capacity at the federal, state and local agencies, training is the standard you can use to compare how you do all the work in the food safety arena,” Wojtala said.
Global interest, local impact
The IFPTI and GFPI continue to attract attention from around the globe as countries that export to the United States look to meet U.S. standards and as governments revamp their own food safety infrastructures. The IFPTI had originally intended to build out its domestic programming first and then follow by developing programs for international audiences.
The FDA grant directly funds training at the IFPTI. The GFPI draws separate funding from course fees and grants.
Demand for the training offered to U.S. food inspectors forced a change in plans, said Joan Bowman, VP of external affairs at the IFPTI and GFPI.
“As we are the first of its kind, there is a lot of interest in how we’ve organized ourselves. We are not just another training company. We have a process, a systematic approach to creating a training network,” Bowman said. “Countries like Saudi Arabia are in the midst of revamping their Food and Drug Authority, while we have had interest from Chinese officials as they export goods into the U.S.”
Paying dividends
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Battle Creek Unlimited (BCU) provided the initial investment into the IFPTI. The training center leverages private investment in food safety in the region, including the Kellogg Company’s $54 million investment in its W.K. Kellogg Institute for Nutrition Research – its research and development arm – and Covance Inc.’s $14 million investment in a microbiology and food chemistry lab in Battle Creek.
The rest of the world is taking notice, said Karl Dehn, president and CEO of BCU.
“The most significant milestone was to secure longer term funding. It is saying IFPTI has arrived. It allows the IFPTI to expand its presence and relationship with FDA and potentially opens other doors for opportunities with FDA and other governmental entities,” Dehn said. “For Battle Creek, this means that the overall institute will expand its presence … and there will be an increase of training taking place in Battle Creek, which opens opportunities for us to commercialize food safety technology.”
