New IFST president sets out top three priorities

In this video – filmed at the IFST spring conference in Norwich last week – Patterson explained her top priority was to raise the profile of food science and technology and work towards ensuring it received fairer treatment in the national media.

Patterson, of the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute, identified the other two top priorities as: encouraging the next generation of food scientists and technologists into the sector and planning the IFST’s jubilee programme next year. The theme for the initiative would be the fabulous future of food – celebrating the past and looking to future successes.

IFST’s jubilee programme​

This video interview also features Jon Poole, IFST ceo, who highlighted key themes from the conference, which took place at the John Innes Conference Centre on Thursday April 18.

Poole said that realising the aim set out in the conference’s title – Securing the future supply of food: challenges and opportunities – depended upon the successful interweaving of complex scientific, economic and political objectives.

Speaking at the same conference, professor Ian Crute, chief scientist with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, warned that dumbing down messages​ about food sustainability risking confusing the public and impairing the debate.