I’ve been in New Zealand for the past week hanging out with our friends at the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.  Last week I attended and spoke at the NZFSA’s annual meeting in windy Wellington (check out my slides here), and will be here for another week meeting with NZFSA staff and some industry folk.

My talk focused on the impact of electronic communication on how food safety is discussed in the ether of the internet, and how industry and government should be aware and ready to respond and use the same methods. I also spoke about iFSN’s infosheets, and how we are attempting to use the same channels of info to get food safety messages out to the front lines in a compelling way.

A major topic at NZFSA’s conference was what the food industry, with support from NZFSA, are doing to reduce the relatively high rates of campylobacterosis within the country.  As I walked through Wellington this afternoon, I saw a huge poster of Flight of the Conchords — a Kiwi comedy duo who has made it big in the US and Canada on HBO — and thought that maybe one of their catchy tunes focusing on food safety might be a cool way to create a dialogue around food safety with a different set of target food handlers. Maybe something along the lines of Business Time.

Also had the chance to do some sailing (thanx to Philippa, Rod, Chris and Roger — and I didn’t puke this time, so that was pretty awesome.)