It was back in 2018 when I received an email from Mike Knowles asking if I wanted to contribute to a book on Present Knowledge in Food Safety. I knew Mike from my old days at CSL, a UK government agency that was concerned with food safety. At the time, Mike was Chief Scientist at MAFF, the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. That was in 1995. Mike later worked for Coca Cola and I worked for multinational food safety testing laboratories, but our paths kept crossing, at ILSI and elsewhere. And when Mike asks, it’s difficult to say “no”, especially when your co-editors, besides Mike, are Alan Boobis and Lucia Anelich!
So I joined the journey and we managed to attract the best experts in various fields, covering topics of chemical contaminants, plant protection and veterinary drug residues, pathogens and food fraud and many more. The risk assessment topics cover not only agriculture but also aquaculture and food processing.
After a long journey with numerous ups and downs, and the covid pandemic in the middle, we finished the book with up-to-date information that will guide readers in their risk assessment through the food chain.
Condensed down to 72 chapters, written by well over 100 authors and on more than 1100 pages, the book is a reference to all those who are concerned with food safety.
And a big “thank you” goes to all the many authors who were often very patient with us, especially when we faced delays for some of the chapters and consequently the other chapters had to be updated again.
And of course, it was a great collaboration with my co-editors Lucia and Alan, and the ILSI team, especially Allison Worden and later James Cameron.
But without Mike Knowles’ persistence, this book would have never been published. Mike kept us on track and guided us around many cliffs. A very big “THANK YOU” goes to Mike who made all of this happen!
