Advances in Food Science and Safety

Georgia is the nation's leading pecan-producing state — and University of Georgia researchers intend to keep it that way. Working with an international team of experts, four faculty from the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have received a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture award for the second phase of a study to adapt one of Georgia’s top commodities, the pecan.

When government officials need expert opinions, they often turn to academia for advice. The University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety has a long history of working with such entities to help ensure a safe global food supply, and its involvement in government matters deepened last fall when the center’s director participated in a high-profile review of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

From studying the way light affects foodborne pathogens to designing innovative technology for data processing, the team at the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety is pushing the boundaries of technology to help protect a safe and secure global food chain. The center, a unit of UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is critical to both domestic and international advances in food safety—an estimated 48 million people in the U.S. alone get sick from contaminated food or beverages each year, and 3,000 die from foodborne illness. CFS is the base of operations for a team of food scientists with a wide variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise working together on the front lines of food safety research.