Editor's Plate: Ask the experts

By Dave Fusaro, Editor in Chief

FoodProcessing.com

We’ve created quite a deep pool of experts for both us and you to draw upon … in print and on the web.

“All experience is an arch to build upon.” Thanks for the advice, Henry Brooks Adams. We’ve got lots of expertise under this Food Processing roof – expertise we want to share with you. Often we don’t do a good enough job of promoting what we have. Then again, you can never have enough expertise.

So we went out and found some additional top guns. We’ve created an editorial advisory board of industry people who will consult with us on major issues throughout the year. They’ll be critiquing our magazine, suggesting stories to tackle next year, helping to pick a Processor of the Year and generally keeping us on task and on our toes. They are listed in the box at the bottom of this page.

This is a good time to reflect on the talented contributors we already have, who every month help me put together the best magazine in the food manufacturing industry:

• Hollis Ashman and Jacqueline Beckley left product development careers with Nabisco and Kraft to found the Understanding and Insight Group, a consumer research and business development company. They write each month’s unique Product Spotlight.
  
  
• David Joy of the law firm Keller & Heckman LLP specializes in food and drug law, with emphases on food safety, labeling, ingredient evaluation, organics, biotechnology and other issues involving FDA, USDA other government agencies.
  
  
• Frances Katz, our Senior Technical Editor, was director of research at American Maize Products Co. She’s also a former editor in chief of Food Processing magazine.
  
  
• Mike Pehanich, another former editor in chief of this magazine, is our Plant Operations Editor. For several years he staged the Food Plants and Workforce conference series.
  
  
• Kantha Shelke, Ph.D., our Ingredients Editor, was a senior scientist at Pillsbury/Grand Metropolitan, head of strategic R&D at Continental Baking and head of research, innovation & marketing strategy at Ben & Jerry’s.
  
  
• Columnist John Stanton is professor of food marketing at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, a frequent guest speaker and the author of several books on the subject.

I’m also blessed with a great staff. Their names are to the left of this column. But worth noting is that News & Trends Editor Diane Toops last month won what has become an annual award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) for her back-page column Toops Scoops. And our overall staff won an ASBPE award for News Analysis for “Without a Trace,” our March 2004 story on the first case of mad cow disease.

We wondered what more we could do with all this expertise. This much brain power in one place should be better shared with the food processing world. So we went to our web site developers and added an “Ask the Experts” button at the top of our home page (www.foodprocessing.com). From process control to potassium to packaging, whether your problem is with the FDA, some MBAs or your SAP, we invite you to visit that page and ask them a question.

Also, don’t ever hesitate to pose some toughies to the signature immediately below.

— Dave Fusaro

Food Processing Editorial Advisory Board Cheryl J. Baldwin, Ph.D. Senior Scientist, Kraft Foods Theron (“Tee”) Downes Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University School of Packaging (also T.W. Downes and Associates) Gerry Gomolka Vice President-Process Engineering, The Stellar Group Dave Kramer Vice President-Engineering, Sara Lee Foods William McCabe Vice President-Ice Cream, Smith Dairy Don Nugent President/CEO, Graceland Fruit Inc. Daryl Thomas Vice President-Marketing, Herr Foods Inc. Elaine Wedral, Ph.D. President (retired), Nestle R&D Center