BOOK REVIEWS
ECONOMICS OF HACCP: COSTS AND BENEFITS. L.J. Unnevehr, ed. Eagan Press, American Association of Cereal Chemists, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121-2097. Phone 651-454-7250, fax 651-454-0766, e-mail [email protected]. ISBN: 1-891127-16-0. 2000. 412 pp. No price given.
In June 1998, the Regional Research Project on Private Strategies, Public Policies, and Food System Performance held a conference in Washington, D.C., to report on the financial impact of HACCP. More than 130 participants representing 13 countries attended. Scientists from several countries and emerging economies presented papers. This book is the proceedings of the conference. Its financial focus allows food technologists to gain insight into the methods economists use to develop cost benefit analyses.
The economists measured cost factors as those costs that companies incurred when implementing HACCP plans. Benefits were primarily seen as the economic impact on society resulting from improving the safety of the food supply.
Two investigators attempted to determine the economic benefit of other aspects of HACCP, such as improved efficiencies or improved product quality that results from using a systematic food safety system. In the former case, the investigators used an econometric model and concluded that HACCP increased production efficiency. The latter case reported the results of a survey of the British dairy industry and concluded that the greatest intangible result was the ability to retain customers.
The book has one minor limitation—the author did not develop an index for the volume. Therefore, if readers plan to use this book as a reference, they should keep notes to ensure that various facts can be found at a later time. Even with this limitation, the book serves as an excellent reference for food technologists and agricultural and applied economists.
John G. Surak, IFT Fellow, Professor of Food Science, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.
PRINCIPLES OF COLOR TECHNOLOGY, 3rd ed. Roy S. Berns. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10158-0012. Phone 800-225-5945 or 212-850-6011, fax 212-850-6008; e-mail [email protected]. ISBN: 0-471-19459-X. 2000. 247 pp. No price given.
The second edition of Billmeyer and Saltzman’s Principles of Color Technology was a classic textbook, or reference, for every course in color technology for the past 20 years, and the third edition promises to be even better. The first aspect of the book that will impress readers is the hundreds and hundreds of color illustrations. One might reasonably expect that a book on color theory would be liberally illustrated in color, but this one exceeds any expectations. Fortunately, the author has the cooperation of the Eastman Kodak Co., without which it would not have been possible.
The author states, “This a book about color, colorants, the coloring of materials, and reproducing the color of materials through imaging. In this book, color may mean a certain kind of light, its effect on the human eye, or (most important of all) the result of this effect in the mind of the viewer. We describe each of these aspects of color and relate them to one another.”
The first chapter is devoted to defining color, physical stimuli, sources of light, and how materials modify light. This is followed by a description of color, color coordinates, color appearance, and metamerism. Chapter 2 is devoted to a description of color based on color mixing systems and color matching systems. Chapter 3 is devoted to color measurement by visual methods, spectrophotometry, and colorimetry. Chapter 4 is devoted to the measurement of color quality. Chapter 5 is devoted to a discussion of colorants. Chapter 6 discusses ways of producing colors by visual matching, algorithms for spectrophotometers, and colorimeters and encoding for images and graphics.
This book is a lucid, and often sophisticated, description of color theory. It is not a “how to” manual for any industry.
Frederick J. Francis, IFT Fellow, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass.