David Fenley is a research assistant at the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD) and student in the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. This post first appeared on the NCFPD’s Blog. 

At the National Center for Food Protection and Defense we aim to anticipate food system disruptions before they become just that, disruptions.

While markets around the world react to the Chinese H7N9 bird flu scare and poultry is slaughtered by the tens of thousands in an attempt to contain its further spread, the United States might not have too much cause for concern.

The flu virus is not easily spread from person-to-person and the U.S. does not currently import Chinese poultry for human consumption. Pet food, on the other hand, is imported and has a history of harming our furry friends.

In the past decade, U.S. trade relations with China have improved immensely, but there are still many points of contention, poultry being one of them.

The University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine has tapped Shaun Kennedy to promote the college’s work in the University-wide initiative related to global food security.

“Shaun Kennedy brings exceptional skills and experience to these time-critical initiatives,” says Dr. Trevor Ames, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. “With global food security capturing national headlines and when faced with compelling food challenges that require dynamic public-private-academic partnerships, we look to Shaun.”

In his new role, Kennedy, an associate professor in the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine, will help map food and nutrition strengths across the University and encourage new collaborations that bring together experts from diverse fields to spur creativity and innovation in tackling complex food and nutrition issues ranging from food safety to obesity.

The horsemeat scandal in Europe has received much media attention over the past few weeks and details around the story still continue to unfold.

There are still many unknown aspects to the situation, but this incident of economically motivated adulteration (EMA), or “food fraud”, is notable for its scale and provides yet another example of how globalized and complex our food supply chains are. It also illustrates how EMA occurs and why it can be so difficult to prevent …

Honey has been known to have a long history of adulteration with cheaper sweeteners, such as high-fructose corn syrup or rice syrup. What does this mean for the consumer? …