NSF Honors Food Safety Leadership Award Winners

NSF Int’l. presented its Food Safety Leadership Awards on April 20 during the 2011 Food Safety Summit in Washington, D.C. The awards recognize individuals and organizations that have made a real and lasting impact on food safety. Winners include:

• NSF Food Safety Leadership Education Award: Brenda Halbrook, M.S., R.D., dir.-Office of Food Safety, USDA, Food and Nutrition Service. (Led creation of national food-safety and nutrition education programs in schools, including a two-year research study to establish best practices for cooking in schools.)
• NSF Food Safety Leadership System Improvement Award: David Ludwig, M.P.H., R.S., R.E.H.S., mgr.-Environmental Health Division, Maricopa County, Ariz., Environmental Services Department. (Ludwig developed a unique handwashing motivation system that since ’02, has doubled the handwashing rate and serves as a model for restaurant owners in the county).

Three Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented:

• Consumer Advocacy Food Safety: Nancy Donley, president-Safe Tables Our Priority. (After the death of her only child from eating ground beef contaminated  with E. coli , her national grassroots program pushed for new rules for mandatory HACCP systems that the USDA issued in 1996 for meat and poultry.)
• Public Health Food Safety: Donald Sharp, M.D., U.S. Public Health Service deputy dir., Food Safety Office, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Industry and Association Food Safety: Jill Hollingsworth, D.V.M., sr. v.p. of Food Safety Programs, Food Marketing Institute.

For more information, go to NSF Int’l’s website.”””