Specialists in consumer and retail food safety from nine Southeastern land-grant universities launched the Food Safety Extension Network in 2021 to raise general awareness of the importance of preserving food safely and to be a resource for home cooks, small, independent food retailers, and home-based food preparation businesses. This publication gives an overview of how the Network was built and how it expects to operate. The publication is excerpted from the New Technologies for Ag Extension 2022-2023 Yearbook, which documents dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation. This work is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Grant projects improve human, environmental, and community health.
PUBLISHED BY
Food Safety Network Consortium
Welcome. “Because We Can” is a publication of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. This publication celebrates the accomplishments of a team at Extension professionals from several land-grant universities that received fund- ing for this project in 2022-2023. NTAE is a grant program generously supported by the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and administered through a partnership between Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation (EXF). The primary objective of NTAE is to provide financial assistance to competitively selected Extension programs that align with the strategic goal and priority program areas of the USDA and the Extension Com- mittee on Organization and Policy (ECOP). Through this support, NTAE helps teams catalyze, accelerate, and expand their work in their respective fields. Since its inception in 2019, the NTAE program has successfully funded and supported a total of 72 projects and leaders. This includes collaborations with all Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) and ECOP Program Action Teams (PATs). Selected programs receive support for a period of one year. The project leader and their team are provided with invaluable mentoring from a team of catalysts, key infor- mants, and coaches from the EXF. This customized and innovative support model assists teams in exploring new possibilities, enhancing the intended impact of their projects, and sharing their work with a national audience. Additionally, each team receives additional resources and support to create materials and experiences that speed the development of their projects and bring about desired changes. The project showcased in this publication reflects the diversity and breadth of Extension disciplinary work and programming. In this publication, you will gain deeper insights into this exciting project, including the lessons learned, the project’s significance for Extension in a broader context, and what lies ahead for the team.
PROJECT TEAM
4 WAYS TO USE THIS PUBLICATION. 1. BE INSPIRED . Follow our model to create an Extension network in your area of expertise. 2. ADVOCATE. Show this publication to your Exten- sion Director and talk about how to use it to enhance your Extension’s public outreach. 3. SHARE. Share this publication with potential community partners who could help you create new programming. 4. GIVE FEEDBACK. Did this publication inform your Extension work? Share what you’ve
Benjamin Chapman, Ph.D. Department Head, Professor, Food Safety Extension Specialist, North Carolina State University, North Carolina State University Extension Carla Schwan Assistant Professor, Food Safety Extension Specialist, University of Georgia Ellen Shumaker Director, Outreach and Extension Activities, Safe Plates Program, North Carolina State University Allisen Penn FACS Associate Dean for Extension and Outreach Family & Consumer Sciences, University of Georgia Lester Schonberger Research Associate, Department of Food Science and Technology, Virginia Tech University Amarat Simonne, Ph.D. Food Safety and Quality, University of Florida Janet Johnson Regional Extension Agent, Auburn University
PUBLICATIONS
Editorial Staff Julie Halverson Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Heather Martin Design & Production Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith Ellen P. Krugel Heather Martin
© Extension Foundation Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommer- cial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Published by Extension Foundation. Citations for this publication may be made using the following: Kansas City: Extension Foundation (2022). Because We Can (1st ed). ISBN: 978-1-955687-35-5. This work, ISBN 978-1-955687-35-5, is supported by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. 2020- 41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Website extension.org
We are thrilled to share the remarkable work featured in this publication with you.
Contact Bryan Cave LLP One Kansas City Place
learned with us by emailing: contact-us@extension.org.
Sincerely,
1200 Main Street, Suite 3800 Kansas City, MO 64105-2122
Beverly Coberly, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer
Ashley Griffin, MS Chief Operating Officer (Interim)
Consortium to give cooks safe ways to pickle, ferment, pressure-cook, and store food. W e C an Because
Food preservation methods have been around since the beginning of humanity, but when COVID-19 hit, people returned to home gardening and home cooking to keep their social distance from crowds at grocery stores and restaurants, driving a resurgence in interest in food preservation.
Increase in requests for home food preservation recipes in 2020 620%
The National Center for Home Food Preservation reported that requests for validated home food preservation recipes shot up a whopping 620% in 2020 compared with the previous year—the key word being “vali- dated,” indicating consumers’ general awareness of the importance of preserving food safely. This demand for best food preservation practices prompted a group of Extension educators to create a consortium of food safety experts who could be a resource for home cooks, as well as for small, independent food retailers and home-based food preparation businesses. Founded in 2020, the Food Safety Extension Network (FSEN) launched officially in 2021 with 41 Extension specialists in consumer and retail food safety from nine Southeastern land-grant universities (LGUs). FSEN’s objectives are to create a model for fee-based membership, through which insti- tutions can collaborate and share expertise and partner with external institutions to support their work. FSEN’s founders have received two New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grants. “The first grant helped us begin to develop the idea for the consortium,” says Ben Chapman, a Food Safety Extension Specialist at North Carolina State University and co-lead on the project. “But growing an idea, getting buy-in, and building trust take time, so we applied for a second round of funding.” In this Q&A, Chapman talks about the team’s experience with the NTAE program, what the team learned about creat- ing a multi institution network, and about the basic structure of the FSEN. ➤
National Center for Home Food Preservation
States that allow home cooks to sell food prepared in their kitchens 50
Estimated cottage-food industry sales in 2019 $20B
Stateline.org
Over-communicating and making sure that all can see the vision of the group is paramount.
The retail food safety subgroup will convene members who specialize in technical food safety expertise for the food retail industry. Sharing resources and expertise will help each state in the network improve their ability and efficiency in supporting retail food safety. We also want to have a larger academic presence in national organizations such as the Conference for Food Protection and the Association of Food and Drug Officials. Entrepreneurs starting home-based food busi- nesses often don’t understand food science or sanitation principles involved in preparing food for sale. How will you support this audience? We plan to develop a network of members who specialize in this area to offer technical assistance to cottage food business owners. While cottage laws vary from state to state, basic sanitation practices and food science principles apply to all cottage food producers. Sharing resources will help each state develop training and resources to build their state-specific cottage law training programs.
—Ben Chapman, Food Safety Extension Specialist, North Carolina State University
need to be updated with information on the latest technolo- gy and research, which will require validating the safety of new tools and equipment.
A meeting of some of the Food Safety Extension Network educators at the University of Georgia, in June 2022.
The retail food industry faces many food safety challenges—including high rates of staff turn- over, language barriers, and a lack of knowl- edge about regulations. How will the Network help the industry meet these challenges? We will develop educational resources and provide training related to specialized processes—such as fermenting kimchi in a restaurant—and variances, retail HACCP (hazard anal- ysis and critical control points), food safety culture, school and child nutrition programs, online food sales, foods not for sale, as well as current trends and emerging issues in food safety. We also want to connect local expertise to local regulators and local industry, as these groups lead the regu- latory landscape in food safety. While academic/Extension folks have been valued in these areas, those who have been super active are beginning to leave and we want to help reinject academic expertise in these settings.
How did this second round of NTAE funding help your team? Our group has really benefited from the consistent monthly check-ins, mentorship, and network expansion. We hope that the program will help us take the concept to imple- mentation and provide a robust foundation for long-term sustainability.
and Agriculture—mainly by inviting staff and program leaders to listen, ask questions, and provide input. This has opened up doors to communication and made us stronger as a network.
Your program is an example of how Extension has widened its focus. How is your team work- ing with university leadership in a creative way to accomplish this? We’re working with college administrators (across many institutions) to increase the visibility of consumer food service and in-home food businesses and to emphasize the importance of these issues on public health and the econ- omy. We are considering, for example, how to get in front of consumers through traditional media, social media in the foods and nutrition spaces, as well as through communi- ty-based networks that Extension is already a part of. How will the Network serve home cooks who want to learn to preserve food safely? By curating information from existing publications, collecting relevant data, identifying safe recipes, as well as validating recipes that lack the data to support them. Our content will reflect trends such as low-sugar jams and jellies, the use of glass-top ranges, and the renewed pop- ularity of fermentation—along with popular new tools like electric pressure canners and home freeze dryers. Recipes
What’s next for FSEN?
What have you learned this year that surprised you?
The FSEN members want to create a shared library of re- sources, provide support for agents and specialists through unique training opportunities with subject matter experts from member institutions, and offer opportunities for institutions to add value to their existing programs. ■
That it’s of the utmost importance to keep open lines of com- munication with all participants. Also, perceived problems can erode months of work. Over-communicating and mak- ing sure that all can see the vision of the group is paramount. Is your program a model that Extension teams at other LGUs could adopt? Yeah, I think it is. In fact, we’ve had conversations with other multistate Extension groups thinking about creating networks in food safety, food systems, and food preservation. What’s one of the most important partnerships you’ve formed during this process? The big one for me is that we have been successful in con- necting directly with partners at the National Institute of Food
University of Arkansas Clemson University University of Florida University of Georgia University of Kentucky North Carolina State University Oklahoma State University University of Tennessee Virginia Tech University
The institutions on the right provided resources for,
feedback on the Food Safety
Extension Network framework, priorities, & target audiences
Page 1 Page 2-3 Page 4-5 Page 6-7Powered by FlippingBook