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Code of Conduct

IFT Member Code of Professional Conduct

IFT envisions world where science and innovation are connected and universally accepted as essential to improving food for everyone.

IFT is guided by our vision, mission, promises, and core values. IFT members may serve as: scientists, technologists, manufacturers, policy makers, marketers, and more. These members come together to advance the science of food.

To ensure our work continues to be mission-driven and to benefit the global community, all IFT members shall:

- Employ the science of food for the benefit of society
- Ensure the safety of food and encourage its consumption as part of a healthy diet
- Consider the environmental ramifications of one’s actions: make efficient use of resources in the food system; use non-renewable resources with consideration; minimize the production of waste
- Provide clear and accurate information to inform citizens’ food choices in the marketplace
- Attempt to understand critical perspectives about the food system
- Respect the letter and spirit of applicable food laws and regulations
- Be aware of social consequences of food technologies
Uphold professional ethics through our advocacy initiatives, memberships, personal and public representations, and contributions to the science of food.
- Confine activities and advocacy to areas of professional competence
- Support ethical activities of professional colleagues
- Consider the effect of actions on public confidence in the profession
- Support professional development, particularly for junior colleagues
- Contribute to a working climate that encourages science-based considered judgment
- Represent professional qualifications honestly
- Treat colleagues and co-workers with respect as individuals and for their expertise
- Give deserved credit to the work of others
- Recognize responsibility to those who rely on us for scientific and technical advice
- Satisfy contractual conditions of employment
- Respect confidences and confidential information
- Disclose all conflicts of obligation and conflicts of interest; avoid or manage severe conflicts
- Ensure understanding of the likely consequences of others not taking professional advice
- Consider potential benefits as well as potential harms of a food technology under consideration
- Be knowledgeable about the scientific basis for benefits to be claimed or possible harms
- Seek to ensure that information for consumers goes beyond being not-false and misleading, but is also true and accurate concerning both explicit and implicit claims
- Report research results accurately and objectively and confine conclusions to what is supported by research performed
- Cite and credit the research and writing of others, including one’s own, as appropriate
- In reviewing others’ work, strive to maintain objectivity and employ only impersonal criteria
- Among scientists, value collective skepticism to avoid premature conclusions
- Strive to avoid sources of bias
- Disclose all conflicts of interest; avoid or manage severe conflicts
- Contribute to a deserved positive public reputation of the profession
- Support the advancement of knowledge in the science and technology of food
- Support continuing professional education of one’s self and members in general
- Support fellow professional members who experience negative consequences from adhering to the Code
- Support IFT, not excluding constructive criticism
- Not misrepresent the position of the professional association
- Support students and junior professionals in the field
- Avoid exploitation of professional status to promote premature, misleading, exaggerated, or poorly supported scientific opinion to the public