According to the University of Arkansas, Food Safety Consortium, the newly activated Center for Food Safety at the University of Arkansas is taking an aggressive approach to its mission and the director knows his plan: prevent the problem before it arises.
“We’ve always operated on the premise of containment and reduction of pathogens,” Steven C. Ricke explained. “If we can get the numbers down, we’re happy because we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. Frankly, we have to start thinking about prevention of those pathogens from ever getting established. We have to create those kinds of barriers.”
Ricke is the first person to hold the newly endowed Donald “Buddy” Wray Chair in Food Safety and is also the first director of the Center for Food Safety, a unit within the UA Division of Agriculture Institute of Food Science and Engineering. He joined the UA in January from the faculty of Texas A&M University. At the Fayetteville campus he holds appointments as a professor in the food science and poultry science departments.