Sam Jennings
BSc, FIFST
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Sam Jennings has been working for Berry Ottaway & Associates Ltd since 2001. She provides advice to industry and governments globally on scientific, technical and regulatory aspects of food, particularly in relation to food supplements, functional foods and their ingredients. She offers advice on novel foods and health claims, and is currently an industry adviser on the permitted use of nutrition and health claims under the EU Regulation. Sam was part of a team of reviewers who assessed submissions from industry to the consortium of European food trade associations’ list of Article 13 health claims submitted in 2007.
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Sam is Technical Director to the Council for Responsible Nutrition UK (CRN UK), whose members she has been supporting since 2006. She has been a member of the International Alliance of Dietary/Food Supplement Associations (IADSA) international Technical Working Group since its conception in 2010, and was Chair of this group from 2012 to 2017. She was a member of the IADSA Scientific Council from 2006 until its cessation in 2018.
Sam has led international working groups in the production of global technical guidance documents for the supplement industry, many of which can also be applied to functional foods. The published documents include a global guide to good manufacturing practice (GMP) for supplements, guidelines on the handling of complaints of adverse events, guidelines on the preparation and use of certificates of analysis for supplement ingredients, shelf-life recommendations for supplements and stability testing for the shelf-life determination of supplements. Sam has also assisted in the production of an EU-focussed GMP guide for food supplements and a specific EU GMP guide for botanical preparations. She was part of a team working on a quality project for the ASEAN governments.
Sam is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) in the UK, and was Chair of the IFST Food Regulatory Special Interest Group from 2017 to 2021. She is also a member of the Institute of Food Technologists, USA and of the Society of Dairy Technology, UK. Sam is Chair of the UK Government’s Office for Product Safety and Standards Business Expert (Food Standards & Labelling) Group. She is a member of the UK Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) Working Group on Food Standards, which is helping develop the FSA’s Achieving Business Compliance programme. In a rather different role, Sam is the current Honorary Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee for the IFST.
Sam has authored and co-authored papers on a variety of food-related topics, and has also authored and co-authored a number of chapters in books on food science, food technology and food law, one of which has been translated and published in China and Russia. She was one of the editors of, and contributor to, the 3rd edition of the UK Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN)’s ‘Technical Guide for the Manufacture of Food Supplements’ (2009); joint editor, and contributor to, a text book by the CRN UK Technical Committee, ‘Technical Aspects of Manufacturing Food Supplements’ (2017); and joint author of the CRN UK book on Chemical Contaminants of Food (2021). Sam was assistant editor of the ‘International Review of Food Science and Technology’ (2008 and 2009) and now peer reviews papers for journals.
Sam has presented to governments and industry worldwide on topics including stability of food supplements, EU food law, GMP, purchasing quality ingredients and other technical issues as required. She runs tailored workshops for companies on UK/EU food law and claims, and is a guest lecturer for University College Birmingham (UCB), Birmingham, UK, and for Northeastern University, Boston, USA.
Sam was directly involved with the Codex Committee on Food Additives from 2013 to 2016, and from 2014-2016 attended the annual meetings as Head of Delegation and spokesperson for IADSA, an accredited NGO under Codex Alimentarius.
Email: [email protected]
