Career mentoring in food microbiology

While I am passionate about the training and guidance of young people, and have been so since I first set foot in a teaching laboratory as an instructor 20 years ago, mentoring isn’t really something I’ve done a lot of, and can say I’ve never actually pursued opportunities to offer such guidance to aspiring food microbiologists. The interesting aspect is of course you never know where and when opportunities will present. A few weeks ago, I started moving our video content to our new Brand YouTube channel, with the first (and so far the only!) video on our channel being on my career in food microbiology. In fact, this video formed the basis of our vlog posted on May 24, which is located here: http://foodmicrobiology.academy/2020/05/24/my-food-microbiology-career/. So anyway, a few days ago my video was found by a (very) young aspiring food microbiologist in Mumbai, India. This teenage student made some comments to initiate a conversation with my around career advice and guidance, then we continue our discussions through Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Now, we’re about to formalise our discussions with a mentoring agreement. This is just great news and of mutual benefit as she can clearly gain from my years on a non-traditional career path and I real feel like I’m ‘giving back’ and encouraging and ‘grooming’ the next generation of passionate food microbiologists to come along and really take on the challenges of the world and solve them, which we can all really achieve together. This student is pretty amazing because even at her young age, she has a career vision and a firm goal of wanting to work in the area of food safety and foodborne diseases at the World Health Organization. With such a plan at such an early age, she can so get there as well. What I wanted this blog post to be was to introduce the career mentoring that Food Microbiology Academy now offers by elaborating on some of the examples I provided to this mentee during our early discussions. Firstly, too many people, myself included years ago in the mid to late 1990s, have a general career idea but no firm goal and vision. Without this, you do almost wander aimlessly to some extent. Thus, I would say – don’t worry about or try and identify what you will study as your undergraduate degree and where until you have identified your dream job. Then, you can work backwards. Setting your dream job as your goal will help answer so many questions, such as: Which is the highest degree I’ll need? Do I need to do a Master degree? if so, should it be a research or coursework Master degree? Which country should I complete my various degrees in? What should my undergraduate degree be in? What sort of opportunities should I seek during holidays or internships to support me reaching my career goal(s)? For example, if you have come to the conclusion that you need a PhD, does the Australian (three years, one laboratory, research only) or North American (four years, laboratory rotations during the first year, 25% coursework) model work better for you and your career. Then, for training like a PhD, the importance of factors that you should consider can be ranked like this, from most important to least important: Supervisor > Laboratory > Department > University > Country. Some people get to hung up over doing their PhD in a particular country or a particular university. However, it is the supervisor that is most critical and I’m sure you can find exceptional academic supervisors leading world-class research groups engaging in cutting edge discoveries located in what many would consider sub-standard universities or lower ranking countries for research training or higher education in general. However, you may not even be at the stage where you can identify your ideal or dream job, but you just have a hankering for food microbiology. In such case, perhaps consider the following, as a non-exhaustive list of careers in food microbiology that require high levels of responsibility, so senior positions that typical require a PhD: I) Teaching food microbiology in a college/university (professor in a community college).II) Doing food safety research in a university (research-only academic position, like Research Assistant Professor or Senior Research Fellow, in a research-intensive university).III) Teaching food microbiology and doing food safety research in a university (traditional academic position).IV) Doing food safety research and development in a food manufacturing company (only food manufacturing companies of substantial size, like Nestlé would engage in such R&D)V) Consulting and therefore providing advice to small and medium size food companies on keeping their products safe (either as an independent consultant or working for a scientific consulting firm).VI) Managing food safety at a large food manufacturing company (this may be part of a quality management role of if the food manufacturing operation is large enough, then it would be a seperate position).VII) Tracking foodborne diseases and identifying sources of outbreaks (such as at a government health organisation, which could be at a national level like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States or the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory in the Australian state of Victoria)VIII) Developing public health strategies and government policy to reduce foodborne disease (an advisory role in government to assemble scientific information and make recommendations for policy and legislative changes to protect the health of the citizens under the jurisdiction of the government you’re working for). So, if you’re a budding food microbiologist (no pun intended!) or simply want to find out more about careers and working in our field, do contact myself (Dr Philip Button, @pdbutton, by e-mail to philip.button@foodmicrobiology.academy).

Food technology neophobia

Neophobia has been defined as an “irrational fear” (Figure 1) and that is certainly true. The concept of food neophobia is certainly not new.  However, the area and indeed concept of food technology neophobia is a relatively new idea.  Perhaps I should refine that somewhat and say that food technology neophobia is not new, but recognition of it to the point where it has been named, is new.  The importance of food technology neophobia prompted Cox and Evans (2008) to develop a psychometric scale in the mid-2000s to assesses such consumer concerns.  This scale has been validated by Verneau et al. (2014) has been applied to assess degree of concern and resistance to various agrifood technologies by consumers, such as by Vidigal et al. (2015), who found (predictably) that concern was highest for genetic modification in food and agriculture along with applications of nanotechnology.  Furthermore, this scale has been refined, abbreviated and applied to consumers (Schnettler et al., 2016).  The original food technology neophobia scale has also also been demonstrated to be suitable for its intended purpose in a vastly different cultural and society context from which it was developed (De Steur et al., 2015). This increasing prominence of food technology neophobia can be linked to the increasingly rapidity of technological advancements in the last two to three decades (Figure 2) and that food technology neophobia could be seen as something that is holding back progress in society, in the world, and curtailing implementation of scientific and technological advancements.  For example in Australia, the federal government approved commercial cultivation of GM canola in 2003 – it was the first GM food to receive approval in Australia after GM cotton has been increasingly grown since 1996.  However, despite this federal approval after a rigorous assessment by the Office of the Gene Tehnology Regulator (OGTR), most states immediately placed moratoria on planting in their respective jurisdictions, with only Queensland and the Northern Territory not.  This no doubt hindered progress in those early years of GM canola growth as the crop was not permitted commercially until 2008, when New South Wales and Victoria lifted their moratoria.  Only last year, did South Australia lift their moratorium on the cultivation of GM canola.  Now, 20% of Australia’s canola crop is genetically modified, bringing great benefits to primary producers. It has been a long and slow journey to (very) gradually increase the proportion of GM canola over non-GM canola (Figure 3).  One can lament the situation and the negative impact that such moratoria had on society’s progress in Australia.  It took 16 years for GM canola to be permitted to be grown in every state and territory after federal approval to do so I 2003, but at least it has happened now and the wheels of advancement in that area are moving again. While I have detailed the situation with GM canola here, the same neophobic section tends to occur with various food processing technologies, and has been happening for a very long time. Despite the science supporting the public health benefits of milk pasteurisation, many consumers remained skeptical and indeed opposed to implementation of this life-saving technology. Today, there is great food technology neophobia associated with food irradiation in particularly. It is safe and effective (Figure 4), and the science continues to demonstrate that, but consumer resistance prevents its wide scale adoption. There is little doubt that the world could be in a far better place now if science and technology was allow to progress and advance society without hindrance from people’s, largely irrational, fears.  There is certainly a major trust issue involved in this aspect, yet there is some contradiction.  Let me explain – one result from a study (Figure 5) that I was involved in that was published in 2013 (Chan et al., 2013) was that people trust scientists (and their family GP) most when it comes to product information about food.  Presumably this is because consumers see scientists and their family GP as having no conflict of interest. In general though, GPs and scientists are the two most trusted professions in Australia (Figure 6). As one may expect, food manufacturers were considered to be the least trustworthy.  So, based on this, consumers should presumably be open to listening to scientists sharing with them about the science of a particular scientific innovation and how/what the practical applications of that technology are, or can be.  However, this doesn’t always seem to be the case.  People still tend to be suspicious, of the technology.  Is this because there is interference from government and/or food manufacturers? Or contribution to the argument from some minor advocacy groups?  Perhaps both of these are true. Or is that scientists just can’t communicate in an effective, impactful and persuasive manner? Meaning, they simply can’t sell their results and ideas are scientific safety.  One aspect is certain though, the science is strong and robust and it is being communicated to consumers by impartial scientists that have no link to any organisations with an interest in advancing the technology, yet people are not listening.  Why is that and how real is food technology neophobia?  Most importantly, as scientists, what are the most effective ways we can work with consumers to alleviate their concerns and show them the real benefits of technology innovation and implementation?  This is likely to be a key to advancing society and indeed saving the world as we continue to grow in population, farm marginal lands (Figure 6) and encounter many challenges in public health. References Chan, C., Kam, B., Coulthard, D., Pereira, S., & Button, P. (2013, January). Food product information: Trusted sources and delivery media. In ACIS 2013: Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (pp. 1-13). RMIT. Cox, D. N., & Evans, G. (2008). Construction and validation of a psychometric scale to measure consumers’ fears of novel food technologies: The food technology neophobia scale. Food Quality and Preference, 19(8), 704-710. De Steur, H., Odongo, W., & Gellynck, X. (2016). Applying the food technology neophobia scale in a

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