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2008 Symposium : |
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Register now for the 2008 RFA Symposium & Tour! Join us for an educational and networking event featuring two tracks - Industry Development and Technical. You choose the track that fits your needs! Click the links to the right or scroll down for full details. |
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2008 RFA SYMPOSIUM & TOUR Date: September 16-17, 2008 The RFA Symposium & Tour is an exciting event that combines expert speaker presentations with educational tours to offer attendees a unique learning experience.
This year's event will take place in Chicago, Illinois, and like last year's Symposium, it will again feature two separate tracks - one will be an Industry Development track focused on business and marketing issues and the other will be a Technical track focused on food safety topics. Unlike last year, however, the two tracks will be held on separate days, allowing attendees to participate in both tracks if desired at no extra charge (Please note on registration form where indicated). This means you can attend two full days of educational sessions and tours for just one Registration fee! The Industry Development Track will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and will include a tour of the CME Group - the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade - along with three educational speaker presentations covering commodities, industry trends and sustainability. The Technical Track will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday and will feature a tour of The National Center for Food Safety and Technology, a tour of Sterigenics' food irradiation facility and two educational speaker sessions covering important food safety topics. Both tracks will include lunch for attendees. Optional Networking Opportunity:On Monday evening, the RFA will coordinate an optional dinner for attendees to be held at 6:30 p.m. (meet in the hotel lobby at 6:15 p.m. - this meal is not included in the Registration Fee). On Tuesday evening, there will be a special dinner event sponsored by Purac. Attendees will depart from the hotel lobby at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday for the Sponsored dinner. If you would like to meet and network with fellow attendees over dinner on one or both evenings, please mark where indicated on the Registration Form. Industry Development Program Agenda: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Industry Development Track Details The Industry Development and Program Committee has developed a program of such importance that no one can afford to miss it. The full-day seminar will include a tour of the CME group (The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade) combined with expert speaker presentations on vital topics affecting our industry. The program will be of great interest and importance to all marketing people, purchasing directors, business owners, sales professionals, and even technical people should find this to be both interesting and informative. The Industry Development track will take place on Tuesday, September 16th, beginning at 8 a.m. The first half of the day will be dedicated to the area that has been the most concern to all of us over the last 18 months - commodities. The surging prices of commodities have been devastating to everyone in the industry and our goal is to learn how to manage our businesses in these difficult times. During this seminar, attendees will learn about how the commodities markets function. You will gain insight into how weather, world market conditions, and speculators can impact commodities and learn how all commodities are tied together and how they influence one another. The seminar will officially begin with a short ride to the CME Group for a full tour of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade. Attendees will learn about their organizations and how they operate and will have the opportunity to sit in the viewing gallery and watch the floor as commodities are being traded. After the tour, the group will return to the hotel for a presentation by Joe Victor, the vice president of marketing for Allendale, Inc., a leading commodities consulting firm. Mr. Victor will explain what has been happening with commodities in recent months. He will make projections and show what to look for when planning directions and making decisions over the coming months. This session alone makes the RFA Symposium a worthwhile event to attend. Following a networking luncheon, John Cskor of Kor Food Innovation will address trends in the refrigerated foods category. He will suggest the types of products you will need to consider as R&D projects for your company. Mr. Cskor is responsible for developing the breakfast program for a major national chain and is currently working on refrigerated foods projects. This presentation will be important to anyone who is looking to expand his/her product line. The final presentation will be by Chris MacGrory of IPL, Inc. Mr. MacGrory will discuss the topic of sustainability, addressing the facts and myths surrounding the concept. He will provide guidance as to how we can determine where to "Go Green" and he will point out areas to be avoided. He will also explain how to measure the bottom line value of green procedures and give examples of what we should be doing and how we can implement meaningful green programs in our organization. The Industry Development Track portion of the Symposium will conclude at 4:00 p.m. However, attendees have the option to stay and attend the Technical Track tour and sessions on Wednesday if desired, at no additional charge. Technical Program Agenda: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Technical Track Details: The Technical Track portion of the RFA Symposium is also a "can't-miss event" for all RFA members, especially those involved in food safety, quality assurance, R&D, and plant operations. The full-day seminar will take place on Wednesday and will include a morning tour of The National Center for Food Safety and Technology with speaker presentations on important food safety and technology topics and an afternoon tour of the food irradiation facility at Sterigenics. Technical Track attendees are also offered the option to come in on early and attend the Industry Development Track tour and sessions on Tuesday at no additional charge. On Wednesday, the Technical Track will begin with travel to The National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST), a research consortium among the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and the food industry. The NCFST incorporates the FDA Division of Food Processing Science and Technology and was set up by FDA to form a link with industry for its expertise in food technology. It is the only center where industry can work collaboratively on projects with FDA scientists on food safety and technology research. Membership in the NCFST allows companies to gain an early insight into emerging food safety issues from the CFSAN perspective to assess the safety of new technologies which may be important for innovation. This early collaboration with FDA may also facilitate speed to market through the regulatory process. Attendees will tour the NCFST Level 3 Biocontainment laboratories and pilot plant facilities, which have capabilities in ultraviolet, high pressire and irradiation processing. After a full tour of the center, attendees will gather in one of the NCFST meeting rooms for two important speaker presentations: First, an expert NCFST microbiologist will address attendees on microorganisms of significance in refrigerated foods, focusing on food safety aspects of hot processing and resultant concerns about spore forming organisms, as hot fill and other similar technologies are increasingly used to produce new refrigerated food products. Our second speaker is Mark Crowell, the founder and Principal Culinologist at CuliNex, a consultancy specializing in the development of organic and natural food products. Mr. Crowell is the former director of product development for Olive Garden Restaurants and Starbucks Coffee Company. CuliNex specializes in assisting retailers, food manufacturers, ingredient suppliers and multi-unit foodservice operators achieve their growth goals by bringing successful products to market. In this session, Mr. Crowell will address the topics of natural and organic food products. These are two important trends in our industry, yet the term “natural” is not well defined and there is much misinformation on organic. This session will help define these terms and provide guidance in participating in this growing segment of the food industry, where sustainability, environmental impact, and health concerns are all intertwined. Following the speaker sessions, attendees will board the bus and eat lunch while en route to Sterigenics Food Irradiation Facility. Sterigenics is the world's leading supplier of high-quality microorganism-reduction services, offering a choice of gamma, electron beam and ethylene oxide fumigation technologies. At a time when food safety issues are increasingly in the news, Sterigenics services are enabling food processors worldwide to provide cleaner, safer and healthier food products to the marketplace and the global dinner table. Within its arsenal of technology and service offerings is the superior microbial reduction capability of irradiation processing, a consumer-accepted, government-approved precaution that virtually eliminates the bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses. Attendees will get an in-depth tour of the Sterigenics' Schaumburg facility which specializes in food irradiation, getting a chance to observe and understand the irradiation process. Many refrigerated foods can benefit from the advantages of irradiation, and this Symposium provides a unique opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of this amazing technology. The Sterigenics tour, attendees will board the bus and return to the hotel. The Symposium will officially conclude at 4:00 p.m. Registration Fees: The registration fees for this event are as follows (prices are per person): NOTE: The registration fee will cover your attendance the full two days if you choose to attend both tracks.
To register, please download the Registration
Form. Complete the form
and return it to the RFA office along with payment. To
register, please fill out the attached registration form and return
it to the RFA office along with payment. Forms should be received
no later than August 25, 2008. Confirmation will be sent by email
in August. Click to download the PDF file of the the Registration form: 2008 Symposium Registration Form You can also download a full brochure with all the information
the Symposium and the Registration forms: |
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