The Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) is a research consortium consisting of the United States Food and Drug Administration's

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN ( )) is the branch of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that regulates food, dietary supplements, cosmetics, drugs, biologics, medical devices, and radiological products. ...

(FDA CFSAN), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and the food industry. Under the cooperative agreement, the Institute was established by IIT to bring together the food safety and technology expertise of academia, industry and government as a

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...

in the common goal of enhancing and improving the safety of food for U.S. consumers.

History

The Institute was established as the National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST) in 1988 with a $6.9 million donation of seven buildings and grounds by

Corn Products International Ingredion Incorporated is an American multinational ingredient provider based in Westchester, Illinois, producing mainly starches, non-GMO sweeteners, stevia, and pea protein. The company turns corn, tapioca, potatoes, plant-based stevia, grain ...

to IIT in 1988, located in the IIT

Moffett Campus Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

. The Moffett Technical Center consists of office, laboratory and pilot plant space located in

Bedford Park, Illinois Bedford Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, and is an industrial suburb of Chicago. The population was 602 at the 2020 census. Bedford Park consists of a small residential area and vast amounts of heavy industry sprawling t ...

, in the near west suburbs of Chicago. It was built in 1948-49 and named in honor of George M. Moffett, then-president of Corn Products Refining Co. The main building features bas relief murals created by architectural sculptor

Lee Lawrie Lee Oscar Lawrie (October 16, 1877 – January 23, 1963) was an American architectural sculptor and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions Lawrie's style evolved through ...

, who is best known for the ''

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

'' statue in front of New York City's Rockefeller Center. The panels depict various scenes of the history of corn and corn production in the Americas, including a buffalo hunt showing primitive corn grass, Native Americans cultivating and harvesting corn, and American corn milling and processing. One panel, labeled "Argo", appears to be symbolic of the Moffett Technical Center itself, showing an engineer working in the pilot plant, a chemist with retorts and test tubes, and a scientist at a microscope. In 2011, the NCFST was rebranded as the Institute for Food Safety and Health. The NCFST now operates as a center within the institute, along with new platforms such as the Center for Nutrition Research, Center for Processing Innovation, and the Center for Specialty Programs. IFSH has FDA personnel, IIT faculty and students, and more than 50 food industry-related partner companies." The institute is currently located in Bedford Park, Illinois, although it formerly identified as being located in

Summit, Illinois Summit is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 11,161 at the 2020 census. The name Summit, in use since 1836, refers to the highest point on the Chicago Portage between the northeast-flowing Chicago River and the s ...

. The Moffett campus contains food microbiology, food chemistry and packaging, food process engineering, methods validation, and proficiency testing laboratories. The institute also contains a BSL-3 laboratory and biocontainment pilot plant, which is the only BSL-3 biocontainment plant in the United States. The Department of Food Science and Nutrition offers certification in several topics, a doctorate degree, and master's degrees.

References

{{authority control Food safety organizations Food technology organizations Illinois Institute of Technology Medical and health organizations based in Illinois Research institutes in Illinois Research institutes established in 1988