Reflections on Our Member Commitment

Serving as your president over the last year has been a great honor. When elected to the office, I made the commitment to IFT and to our members to ensure that the development and delivery of all IFT programs would provide value to you, our members, and would be driven by your needs. In order to fulfill this commitment, we built our strategic plan on the foundations of four promises: to focus on your professional development needs, provide you with productive networks, communicate and lead innovation, and advocate on your behalf for the issues important to you.

We further emphasized this by developing and aligning strategic plans for our Student Association and our Foundation. From encouraging our best and brightest through Feeding Tomorrow’s scholarships to bringing together the collective knowledge of our community to pursue global food solutions, our three missions now work seamlessly to advance the science of food and its application across the global food system.

The alignment of the three parts of IFT also reflects our commitment to our five core values of community, integrity, passion, progress, and respect.

To understand how best to deliver on our promises, we needed insight into what those promises would specifically mean to our members. To do this, we conducted our first annual member needs survey this year. Our goals were to gain an understanding of your awareness and utilization of our programs, how you rate the performance and delivery of those programs, and your perceived value of programs that benefit IFT members individually and as a whole.

With more than 3,000 responses from current, former, and prospective IFT members, the member needs survey shed light on both areas of success and improvements needed. We asked about you and your work environment and what you valued most about IFT membership. We wanted to know how you thought we were doing in elevating the reputation of the profession, offering you networking opportunities, and providing you with the resources you need to do your job.

Overwhelmingly, you told us that being an IFT member means access to the most current information and news related to the science of food, opportunities to meet and network with one another, and access to educational and professional development opportunities. You also provided specific improvement suggestions that we shall use as a guide in making adjustments to our institute and its programming.

This invaluable survey information will directly impact program decisions within the whole of IFT as we move forward in supporting members. By gaining a clear understanding of your needs, your internal and external workplace challenges, how research funding impacts your work, and what you believe the future of the science of food will look like, we can better create the necessary resources you need for your development and that of our profession. We are committed to surveying our community annually to ensure that we are continuously providing the most valuable membership experience.

Of course, while the member needs survey has been crucial in planning for the future, much is already achieved via our devoted volunteers. As an organization, IFT has some of the most outstanding volunteers I have encountered. Your dedication to our institute is inspiring, and I have had the pleasure of interacting with many of you over the past year. To those of you who have served as board members, trustees, division and section leaders, award and scholarship jurors, work group and task force members, I say thank you. Working with you over the past year has been stimulating and an honor.

I know from my own personal experience that volunteering is hard work but can be very rewarding. As volunteers, you are tasked with coming together to share your collective wisdom to enhance our institute. It is also a unique opportunity to learn from and collaborate with our outstanding international community who are passionate about the science of food. I encourage those interested in volunteering to visit IFT Volunteer Central to learn more about this exciting opportunity, especially as we approach the time of year when the presidents will be reviewing membership of juries, task forces, work groups, and IFT representation.

You, our members, are at the core of this institute. You are the driving force behind our mission, the inspiration behind our promises, and the backbone of our values. I am exceedingly grateful for your feedback, your service, and your work within our profession. I am delighted with the achievements to date and excited about the future as we collaborate to work toward a world where science, technology, and innovation are universally accepted as essential for a safe, nutritious, and sustainable food supply for everyone.

Colin Dennis, CBE, PhD, CFS, CSci
IFT President, 2015–2016
Chairman, IFIS Ltd., Reading, United Kingdom
[email protected]