The inability to hold the Center for Produce Safety’s annual CPS Research Symposium in its traditional form has opened up new opportunities for greater participation, says Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, executive director of CPS.
The Packer’s Tom Karst spoke with Fernandez-Fenaroli on June 12, and she said the CPS Research Symposium will feature a series of five weekly web seminars during June and July, starting June 23.
Registration for all virtual seminars is available online.
“It is incredibly exciting,” Fernandez-Fenaroli said. “We have about 1,100 participants signed up so far, and I believe our last count was close to 40 countries.”
The five weekly events will be 90-minute each. If participants want to ask even more questions than can be answered in the 90-minute web seminars, she said moderators and scientists are staying on for at least an additional 30 minutes extend the question and answer session.
The virtual event is attracting a much broader audience than the “on-site” version, helped by the fact that registration is free. Fernandez-Fenaroli praised the sponsors of the event, who quickly pivoted to embrace the online web events when the in-person symposium was impossible.
The first session is set for June 23, and will be moderated by Suresh De Costa, director of food safety for Lipman Family Farms.
Speakers at the June 23 session include Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and Dav Corsi, senior vice president of perishable merchandising for Wegmans Food Markets.
The Packer’s Food Safety Coverage
Turning up the heat on composting
