Keeping Food Safe
As an array of bread dough, pizza crusts and cinnamon rolls streams past on the processing
lines, Julie Goplin says her career "is more challenging
and exciting than I ever thought it could be."
Goplin is quality assurance manager at Drayton Enterprises in Fargo, a rapidly growing
company marketing preproofed dough products coast to
coast. Preproofed means the yeast is activated to start
the dough rising, then the products are frozen and shipped to
customers—mostly other food sellers
like Schwanns and Happy Joe's. The company's bread products are marketed under the Two
Sicily's name in the region's grocery stores.
Goplin makes sure quality ingredients come
in and top-quality products are shipped out. She oversees every quality-related detail in
between—from the kinds of smocks workers wear (no buttons
to fall off) to equipment maintenance (no broken parts or fragments) to swabbing for bacterial
contamination.
With the industry and consumers focusing on food safety and quality, NDSU is gearing up to
meet the demand for research, information and
graduates like Goplin. She holds bachelor's and
master's degrees in microbiology and has taken part of
the coursework for a first-in-the-nation minor in
food safety that NDSU developed. "That
coursework prepared me more for this job than anything else
I've done," Goplin says.
More than 30 students have completed the minor, first offered in the summer of 2000. It is
the centerpiece of NDSU's Great Plains Institute of
Food Safety. Plans are to expand it into
bachelor's, master's, doctorate and graduate certificate
programs. Graduates are already in demand. Drayton
found Goplin's resume on the NDSU Placement Office
Web site and called her for an interview.
NDSU's effort is unique because it pulls expertise from three colleges and seven
academic departments. "NDSU will be the only university in
the entire world offering this," says Patricia
Jensen, vice president for agricultural affairs. "We are
getting support from every corner."
"There have been some dramatic,
high-profile cases that have made the public doubt the
food supply. Anybody in the food industry has to deal
with this now," says Lisa Nolan, director of the
institute. "And, in light of current events, our students will
have the expertise to ensure that our food supply
remains secure."
The institute is serving as a catalyst for
research, bringing faculty from diverse backgrounds
together. Economist William Nganje and
microbiologist Catherine Logue are developing procedures to
assess risks in the food industry from various
pathogens. Their goal: to help industry develop strategies to
avoid those risks. Work is also under way to assess
food safety concerns in bison meat. Agricultural
engineer Suranjan Panigrahi is leading efforts to
develop sensors to detect spoilage in meat packages.
Outreach efforts are another key. NDSU's Beef Quality Assurance program helps beef
producers make their products safer. Beef specialist Greg
Lardy helped develop that program and is an instructor
in the food safety curriculum.
Extension food and nutrition specialist Julie Garden-Robinson is another instructor. Last year
she coordinated eight workshops across the state
for people who cook for senior citizens. Now a
lesson plan is available so county extension agents
can teach the course. Other programs have been aimed
at volunteers who cook for community meals and workers in restaurants and institutional food services.
Last year 200 high school students in LaMoure, Marion and Grand Forks participated in a mini-certification course in food safety that
Garden-Robinson developed in collaboration with a
program assistant and extension agent. "Follow-up
surveys show that students learned the concepts and in
some cases are teaching their parents better food
safety practices," she says. "These are the kids who
are serving up burgers when we go out to eat, so reaching this group could have significant
influence on public food safety."
For more information: Lisa Nolan, 701-231-8530, lisa.nolan@ndsu.nodak.edu
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