(Note. This Address was given at meetings of members and invited guests in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds and Weybridge, arranged by IFST Branches, and at similar meetings organised by sister Institutes in Palmerston North (New Zealand) and Singapore, during 1979 and early 1980).

[Note to present-day readers: twenty-seven years is a very long time in food science and technology. This was prepared and given while I was IFST President during 1979 and 1980, and should be read with that in mind]

INTRODUCTION

Today, living as most people do in large cities and towns or sprawling urban conurbations, the only way in which the population as a whole can be provided with enough food, of the kinds and in the variety it wants, regularly and all the year round, is by providing it extensively in the form of prepared food products, processed and packaged in such ways that they can be transported and stored safely and without loss of their eating qualities. Moreover, whether you applaud it or deplore it, the facts of modern life are that many women go out to work, and that fewer and fewer people have the skill, or have the time to spare or the inclination to spend it in the kitchen, preparing dishes from basic ingredients. These developments, and the parallel growth of supermarket-style retailing have inexorably led to the increasing predominance of so-called "convenience foods", i.e. processed, preserved, prepacked foods in which all the hard — and some might say boring and unskilled — work has already been done, and only a minimum of time and effort is required to finish off the operation according to relatively simple and relatively foolproof instructions on the packet. Whether you use them in that way, as most people do, or whether you treat them as labour-saving combinations of ready ‘semi-prepared' ingredients which you utilise in creative cooking, they are here to stay.

MANUFACTURED FOODS

While appreciating that the personal experience of some individuals may be quite different, it is a fact that the British public as a whole has to rely to a very considerable extent on foods which have been manufactured and processed in factories rather than on foods which the individual consumers have prepared for themselves from prime ingredients as harvested, reared or caught. Manufactured foods therefore are very much a matter of public interest; and here I must undergo what I earlier described as the crucial test of genuineness, by explaining exactly what I mean by "the public interest" in manufactured foods. In doing so of necessity briefly, I shall be using words like "sufficient", "adequate", "competent", which I fully realise can be interpreted in different ways from differing viewpoints. Without here implying any particular interpretations of those words, I suggest we must all recognise the following factors as embodied in the public interest in food:

7. Redress — that adequate recourse exists for a purchaser to seek and obtain appropriate redress in the case of a justifiable complaint.

It is emphasised that none of these 7 items can be considered in isolation, and none can be disregarded. It is the integrated combination of all of them (including their interactions) which comprise the public interest in food. Of course these matters do not rest wholly and solely in the hands of food scientists and technologists. But we have a professional responsibility to serve them all, and in particular to contribute knowledge and its application to the task of trying to ensure that manufactured foods comply not only with consumers’ likes and dislikes but also with the requirements of quality, stability, safety, nourishment and economy. We also have a responsibility to inform the public about what is being done in those respects, and indeed to provide the public with objective help in distinguishing between valid scientific information and misinformation and in interpreting the significance of scientific information relating to food.

THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Until about a century ago, food was manufactured entirely by rule-of-thumb empirical methods. Then chemists, and microbiologists led by Pasteur, followed in turn by scientists of other disciplines, studied food and built up knowledge about

• the chemical composition of food materials;
• their physical, biological and biochemical behaviour;
• human nutritional requirements and nutritional factors in food materials;
• nature and behaviour of micro-organisms and their action on food;
• nature and behaviour of enzymes and their actions on food;
• interaction of food components, and effects of additives or contaminants;
• effects of foods on human health and safety;
• reaction of food materials with atmospheric oxygen, and with substances they contact during handling, processing, packaging;
• effects of various manufacturing operations, processes and storage conditions on all of the foregoing.

During the last 25 years or so, all this knowledge has been built-up to the point where it can be considered as "Food Science" i.e. "a coherent and systematic body of knowledge and understanding of the nature and composition of food materials, and their behaviour under the various conditions to which they may be subject."  This development enabled us to establish degree courses in food science.

"Food Technology" is "the application of food science to the practical treatment of food materials so as to convert them into food products of such nature, quality and stability, and so packaged and distributed, as to meet the requirements of the consumer and of safe and sound practice."

THE ACTIVITIES OF FOOD SCIENTISTS AND TECHNOLOGISTS

Instead of trying, and failing, to outline in the limited time available all the kinds of work involved, let me illustrate some of the main activities by considering the humble can of peas. No not so humble; in the United Kingdom we can over 250,000 tons a year, and allowing for various can sizes this represents around 700 million cans. Now you can debate till the cows come home about the relative merits of canned peas, frozen peas and fresh peas (whether from field or garden or from town greengrocer) but the fact remains that every time someone bought a can of peas they could have had frozen (or fresh for a rather limited period). So there is a substantial public demand for canned peas. They come in two main kinds; so-called "garden peas" involving the canning of freshly-harvested peas; and so-called "processed peas", where peas which have been dried and stored are soaked in water and then canned. To avoid additional complications, I’ll use canned garden peas as my illustration.

Some of our guests may have had a go at home canning fruit or vegetables, and are wondering what all the fuss is about, and why science and technology should be needed for something so easy and straightforward. The answer is partly that the ease stems from what science and technology has discovered in the past, embodied in recommended procedures and the structure and composition of the cans; but mainly that the manufacturer has to cope with vast problems of size and speed of operations, of costs, of legislation and of distribution that the home canner does not encounter. Let us see what those problems are and how they are solved.

Someone had first to find out "what makes peas tick", and how to breed and select the varieties which give the best results in the canning process.

Someone had to determine the best cultivation conditions, the right stage at which to harvest to give the best results in canning, and how to establish effectively when the peas have reached that stage.

It would take far too long, and cost far too much, to harvest and shell the peas by hand. So someone had to design mobile machines which harvest the pea vines, separate the peas from the pods, cool the peas and feed them into mobile tanks for delivery to the factory.

Someone had to find out the best conditions of time and temperature between harvesting and canning to minimise risk of off-flavour occurring.

Someone had to devise rapid and continuous methods of washing the peas at the factory, removing damaged or discoloured ones, removing any bits of pod or weed, removing stones, insects and other foreign matter, grading the peas for size, and blanching them in hot water or steam before canning; and someone had to establish the precise requirements of time and temperature of blanching to give the best results.

Someone had to devise machines capable of filling precisely the right quantities of peas and liquor into each and every can at speeds of hundreds of cans a minute.

Someone had to determine what should be the composition of the liquor; for example how much salt and how much sugar, whether mint essence and if so how much, and what should be the quality and hardness of the water to give peas which, after canning and eventual cooking, are neither too hard nor too mushy.

Someone had to devise a can capable of being hermetically sealed, at high speeds, and capable of standing up safely to the rigours of processing, and subsequent storage and transport, without the can or the seal becoming damaged. Someone also had to devise a protective internal lacquer for the can to prevent corrosion and the blackening that would otherwise occur in peas.

The object of the canning exercise, of course, is to heat the sealed can and contents so as to kill any bacteria in the pack without overcooking the peas. Someone had to find out the precise requirements of various time-temperature combinations which would achieve that safely, and also find out what influence different can sizes would have (because of the different lengths of time for heat to penetrate from the outside to the centre in cans of varying sizes).

Someone had to design equipment in which this heating process could be carried out under known and controlled time-temperature conditions while coping with the high speed flow of large numbers of cans. Someone had to find out what was the effect of such heat processes on the nutritional value of the resulting product. Someone had to translate all these findings into practical operating instructions and procedures in field and factory.

Someone had to work out a system of tests during production, and then carry out those tests to make sure that the peas and liquor were being properly prepared, the right amounts of each filled, the cans properly sealed and the cooking properly carried out.

Someone had to carry out tests on samples of the finished canned product to make sure that they were of correct quality and complied with all the requirements of food laws and codes of practice.

And as a final, independent safeguard, people in Public Analysts’ Laboratories up and down the country had to carry out similar checks and tests on these among many other food products sampled from the shops.

Parallel with all ‘this, someone had to identify all the possible risks of contamination during production, and to specify design features of factory and plant, precautions, cleaning-and-sterilising materials, methods, and schedules, and inspection routines; and someone had to carry out these inspections and appropriate tests to ensure avoidance of contamination.

An account like this could be given of the development and production of each and every manufactured food. All these "someones" are scientists and technologists concerned with food. Some are "general practitioners" in the field, others specialise in particular parts of it. All of them are members of a young but increasingly well-established and honourable profession, with our Institute as its incorporated professional qualifying body. Members qualify for corporate membership in their personal professional capacities and are bound by the ethical provisions of a Code of Professional Conduct. Some of us work in food manufacture, some in ingredients manufacture, some in universities or polytechnics, some in research establishments, some as consultants, some in food law enforcement, some in Government Departments.

We thus bring together diverse viewpoints and experiences, but this, together with the Code of Professional Conduct, guarantees that when we speak in consensus as a profession, we do so grinding nobody’s sectional axe, but as a responsible profession.

THE CODE OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT

What is significant about a Code of Professional Conduct? There is nothing new about food scientists and technologists individually carrying out their work with integrity. A Code, however, is a collective public declaration by a profession that its members’ professional activities must be carried out with integrity as well as with competence.

The members of any profession have multiple responsibilities; to the public; to the branch of learning on which the profession is based; to their professional institute representing the profession as a whole; to their fellow professionals as individuals, as colleagues, as superiors or as subordinates; and to themselves and their dependents. Moreover, except for a small number of self-employed consultants or senior partners in a consultancy, or proprietors of wholly-owned family businesses who happen also to be food scientists or technologists, food professionals are employees, whether of companies, organisations or official establishments. They therefore have the additional responsibility to promote and serve the proper interests of the establishment for which they work. For any profession, It is important not only that its practitioners carry out this complex range of responsibilities, but also that the ethical principles by which they do so and the resulting standards of conduct are openly declared, as an assurance to the public, as a guide to professionals and their employers, as a help to new and future entrants to the profession, and — as a last resort if needed — in order to discipline the hopefully rare black sheep.

Yes, there is a disciplinary aspect, for it would be unrealistic to assume that our profession is unique in being free from unethical, unprofessional conduct. Moreover, employed professionals are not wholly free agents, and in the event of their coming under pressure, whether blatant or subtle, the existence of the Code greatly strengthens their hand in resisting pressure to contravene its principles.

The Code of Professional Conduct itself has been kept short and simple. Explanations and applications have been supplied in five Guideline Statements, while the Code itself is merely the brief statement of nine principles which are binding on all members. Each is required

"WHOLESOMENESS"

Item No. (vi), which refers to the wholesomeness of food, is the "keystone" of the Code. It concerns the important and sensitive area where the work of the profession directly touches the public interest, i.e. the food actually purchased and consumed by the public. It is the subject of the most important Professional Conduct Guideline entitled "Wholesomeness of Food". I shall not recite its 8 pages of fine print now. They are available, and members have their own copies. I shall merely indicate its main features.

Firstly, in a topic subject to emotive attitudes and deliberate scare-mongering, it stresses the importance of maintenance of strict objectivity by scientists and technologists.

Secondly, it explains how wholesomeness is much wider than compliance with legislation; the frequent need to interpret the application of legislation in particular circumstances, and the responsibility to contribute to the development of legislation, cannot effectively be ethically guided by the injunction "comply with legislation".

Thirdly, the guideline considers aspects and attitudes involved in wholesomeness, namely consumer satisfaction, compositional standards, hygienic conditions manufacture, absence of injury to health and appropriate nutritional considerations.

After discussing consumer satisfaction, the guideline sums up the requirement in terms of a selection of raw materials, an ingredients formulation, processing in accordance with good commercial practice, appropriate packaging and effective laboratory control procedures, a distribution system and cycle, and appropriate storage, handling and preparation instructions, which, taken together, will consistently yield products such as to satisfy the reasonable expectations of the consumer at the time of consumption.

Compositional standards are a matter of compliance with the legislation of the country for which the product is intended; the raw materials, their proportions and manufacturing methods should be such as to ensure that compositional standards can be consistently adhered to, and that adherence monitored by appropriate control checks.

Hygienic conditions of manufacture are indicated, and their practice needs to be monitored.

Absence of injury to health is discussed, including the factors and considerations involved in "safety". We must of course be careful to know what we mean when we say "safe". Nothing in life can be said to be 100% safe with 100% certainty. Who of us knows for certain that we are not going to die, or to break a leg, or to catch a cold, or get a stone in our shoe, say during the next week? I have deliberately mentioned hazards ranging from the most serious down to the trivial irritation. I have not mentioned unknown hazards, but there are bound to be hazards that threaten us that we don't know exist. In a hazardous world, what can we do to improve our chances? Well, we can take precautions to minimise the likelihood of known dangers, with much more concentration on serious dangers than on trivial ones; as far as unknown dangers concerned, all we can do is watch out for signs and search out clues which might lead us to learn of their existence and nature. In food as in every other aspect of life, the question is really one about prudence, precautions and research. It is also about "trade-off", where we deliberately accept what, in the light of current knowledge and the best expert advice and judgment, we consider to be a lesser hazard as a means of avoiding a greater hazard; for example when, as an individual, one agrees to undergo an operation, or when, as a nation we adopt a programme of inoculation against a disease.

Nine areas of potential hazard are enumerated and discussed, namely microbiological hazard, natural toxic substances, agricultural residues, intentional additives, toxic substances arising from processing, unusual food ingredients and new processing techniques, environmental contaminants, anti-nutritional factors, adverse interaction of medical drugs with foods; and the need for appropriate vigilance indicated. In dealing with potential hazards, moreover, action should be based on four ethical principles (I) compliance with the law, and when that needs interpretation it should be interpreted in the light of the other three; (2) best available methods of good commercial practice deployed against preventable known hazards, monitoring for effectiveness of measures and precautions; (3) unless evidence indicates otherwise, providing an adequate food supply to the advantage of the population is preferable to decreasing it to achieve an indeterminate increment in safety; (4) choose the alternative whose worst outcome is better than the worst outcome of any other course, in the light of available knowledge.

THE PUBLIC SERVICE ROLE OF THE INSTITUTE

I have identified the many ways in which the work of individual food professionals in various fields serve the public interest; there are additional ways by which the Institute itself does so, by what it does in the field of education and training — especially in its recent initiative in developing the Mastership in Food Control and jointly launching it with the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Institute of Biology; by what it does in the way of careers counselling; by the objective scientific and technical advice it gives to Government; and above all by the Code of Professional Conduct and Guidelines.

In the food field, the Institute’s combination of independent objectivity, professional responsibility and binding ethical code is unique, and fits it now to go further and, without compromising those characteristics, to promote or extend discussions and collaboration with food trade associations, with consumer bodies, with enforcement bodies, with government, with educational bodies and with other scientific professions —co-operating with all but subservient to none of them and usurping the role of none of them. We can, we should and we are jointly exploring with each of them the ways in which such co-operation might be pursued; ways in which the Institute might help in distinguishing between valid scientific information and misinformation, and in interpreting the significance of scientific information about food; ways in which the Institute might help to ensure appropriate research, consideration and action on well-founded matters of concern or need; ways in which the Institute might lend its impartial good offices in helping the various sectional interests to reach agreement on matters of public interest.

Food scientists and technologists do not know it all (nor pretend to) and have no magical powers. But the body of knowledge we have built up, our training, our method, our professional ethics and the facilities at our disposal, all enable us to tackle or pose to ourselves worthwhile questions and problems; to seek and gain the knowledge to enable them to be answered or solved; and to find effective ways of utilising and applying the increasing body of knowledge to the enhancement of the variety, quality, stability, safety, nutritive value and economy of foods — not forgetting that most people like to enjoy foods too!

Of course we cannot determine how or to what extent society in general or governments or industry or consumers, make use of the metaphorical fruits of our work. In fact, in the United Kingdom the authorities and the food industries make quite effective use of that work. The extension of the Institute’s public service role is to permit and encourage far more extensive and much more effective use of our knowledge, our work and our professional body, by government, industry and consumers alike, in the public interest.

This is not charting a new path, but taking further steps along a course already charted. By taking them, we shall not only be serving the public interest, but shall in the process hope to gain still further the respect and high regard of Government, industry and consumers for our young profession and its young professional Institute, which, not surprisingly, we also wish to do.

[Footnote: The Code of Professional Conduct was subsequently revised and updated. Its extended terms and associated Guidelines can be accessed at www.ifst.org/  ]