Welcome to SOFHT’s New Directors

On 16th June, SOFHT held it’s 26th AGM at the National Memorial Arboretum where we said thank you and goodbye to Fiona Sutherland, Jamie Weall and Richard Werran for their support on Council and welcomed Dave Childs and Deb Smith as our new Directors.

Dave works for Holchem, now part of the Kersia Group, as a Technical Service Manager and has 30 years experience working within the food manufacturing industry. After graduating from Strathclyde University with a degree in Biotechnology, Dave has worked as both a Microbiologist and Hygiene Manager within the fresh meat and ready to eat industry sectors, before moving into technical sales and technical service support roles within the specialty hygiene chemical manufacturing industry in 2004.

This background has played a big part in Dave’s enthusiasm for the practical aspects of a Hygiene Management System and the search for realistic solutions to customers’ problems, particularly in trouble shooting microbiological issues within a food processing environment. Dave manages Holchem’s validation, verification and monitoring test kits and equipment portfolio and provides customer support on the various systems available along with providing specialist advice around cleaning validation.

Deb is the Global Hygiene Specialist at Vikan with over 35 years of food safety/research training and experience. Prior to joining Vikan she worked for 3 years as a microbiologist at a large poultry production site, 16 years with DEFRA as a Scientific Officer in the Food Safety Division, and for 9 years as Food Hygiene Research Manager at Campden BRI managing research projects, and providing training and support to the food industry with regard to food hygiene.

Deb is an active Committee Member of the UK regional section of the European Hygienic Engineering Design Group, a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, and sits on the IFST Scientific Committee. She is also current Chair of the Microbiology Member Interest Group at Campden BRI, and has worked on the development of GFSI Benchmark requirements as part of the Service Provision Technical Working Group.