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Using Science to Make Food Safer

Increasing stress on food supply chains and increasing food costs have a consequence on safety. Adulteration and misrepresentation become more prevalent and risk of eating unsafe foods increases.

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Who is Professor Chris Elliott?

Chris is a professor of food safety at Queens University Belfast, where he founded the Institute for Global Food Safety (IGFS)

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Who is Dr. Mary McBride?

As one of the team leads in Agilent segment marketing, Dr. Mary McBride plays a critical role in ensuring Agilent delivers solutions to our customer’s latest and future challenges.

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What is the Institute for Global Food Security?

Promoting global food integrity from soil to society.

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Podcast Episodes

In this podcast series, global thought leader, Professor Chris Elliott shares his thoughts on the challenges of food integrity and security, the impact of recent events on supply chains and the increasing challenge of environmental vs economic sustainability of foods. Speaking with Mary McBride, AVP of Global Segment Marketing at Agilent, the current state of play in food authenticity testing and what the likely next big challenges to food supply are is discussed.

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Episode One

This first episode of the podcast introduces Mary McBride and Professor Chris Elliott. They discuss the meaning of food security, food integrity and food authenticity.

Chris gives his thoughts on the greatest challenges facing food supply chains today, the impact of food pricing and urges us to think beyond food security purely as supply.

As quality and safety are interlinked the connection between integrity, authenticity, and sustainability is discussed and Chris shares his concerns around oversimplification of the relationship and looking for one single solution.

More information on the topics discussed can be found:


Episode Two

The second episode of our podcast with Professor Chris Elliott and Agilent's Mary McBride takes a look at the development of food authenticity and integrity testing, and how Chris's career path has developed as the complexity and capability of testing has grown.

Chris tells us of his journey over 48 years from a government food safety laboratory in Belfast to his current position as a recognized lead in food safety testing.

The importance of opportunity for early stage researchers to develop, the importance of building a network of peers to learn from and a willingness to listen to other researchers approaches to problem solving are among the topics covered.

Chris also mentions the challenge of building a cutting edge facility in the face of technical and political challenges and how the recognition and awards he has received have allowed further opportunities for the team at the Institute for Global Food Safety.

More information on some of the topics can be found here:


Episode Three

In the third part of this podcast series Mary McBride and Professor Chris Elliott are in conversation about the advances of food authenticity.

Chris recently receive an Agilent Thought Leader Award.  Part of this award brings a collaboration agreement to develop next generation testing for food integrity.   The scope of the projects and the reasons why these projects have been selected is discussed; their roots in the industry and why it is important that research is not done purely for research's sake.  A focus on the impact of any project's outcome steering the selection are explained.

Chris mentions some notorious scares in deliberate adulteration of foods and how these events drive his ambition to avoid  good enough testing but the need for selecting the correct instrumental approach to an application based on best fit problem solving rather and how collaboration with companies like Agilent, with such a broad portfolio and knowledge base, is critical.

More information on the topics discussed can be found here:


Episode Four

In the final part of the discussion between Professor Chris Elliott and Agilent's Mary McBride, the discussion turns to the future for the Institute for Global Food Safety (IGFS) and for Chris as he looks beyond his current role.

The discussion begins with Chris's thoughts on how the team have futureproofed the IGFS by taking a pragmatic approach to development of solutions, avoiding an arms race for the greatest sensitivity but focusing on a move towards rapid, simple, multi-species fit for purpose testing. The trend toward larger data with intelligent interrogation and interpretation.

Chris also shares his pride in heading up a team with a focus on mentoring and developing the whole team and creating an institute with a healthy reputation and competition for sought after roles.

Chris is confident in the legacy he leaves and comfortable there will be no vacuum or implosion as he has occasionally witnessed when a PI moves on. Finally Chris gives a little insight into his personal future beyond food safety testing.

More information on the topics raised can be found here:



Fighting Food Fraud

According to the European Commission, food fraud is defined as any intentional adulteration or misrepresentation of foods or food ingredients for economic gain.

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Agilent Thought Leader Awards

The program promotes fundamental scientific advancements by recognizing and supporting the research of influential thought leaders in the life sciences, diagnostics, and chemical analysis space, through the contribution of financial support, products, and Agilent expertise.

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