The major consumer and legislative issues in retail sales of animal products in recent years have been the hygiene and quality of the final product. This was the motivation for the topic of the symposium at this year's Annual Meeting, details of which all members should have received by now.

Dr Paul Rose has assembled an impressive list company of experts in this field from the UK and abroad. Professor Dianne Newell works at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, in Addlestone, Surrey and has recently completed a major review of the Campylobacter situation in the U.K. industry. Her paper deals with the control of food-borne pathogens that contaminate poultry meat and eggs. Prof. Newell will outline impressive successes in some areas that should now be extended to others.

Legislation and implementation of food safety regulations in the USA will be outlined by Professor Donald Conner who is Professor of Food Science in the Poultry Department of Auburn University. The success of new legislation will be evaluated and scientific developments that could lead to new Technologies to reduce pathogen load on poultry carcasses will be described. Prof. Conner's expertise is in the microbiological safety and quality of poultry meat and he is also heavily involved in training US poultry personnel on the new USDA Pathogen Reduction and HACCP Final Rule.

Dr Sava Buncic is a dual citizen of New Zealand and Yugoslavia and is currently Head of the Veterinary Public Health Unit at the University of Bristol. Until1998 he was a senior researcher in food microbiology safety at the Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand, Hamilton, NZ. Dr Buncic's general areas of research are the prevalence of food borne pathogenic bacteria in meat and the fate of these pathogens during preservation and processing. His paper will deal with hygiene and safety of stored poultry products, including packaging and storage conditions, and will cover frozen poultry meat, cooked ready-to-eat meat products, eggs and egg products.

Professor Geoff Mead, not a stranger to food hygiene, will chair the symposium and the following paper session that contains one submitted paper on turkey meat quality and two on egg quality. The Gordon Memorial Lecture that follows will be presented by Dr Dennis Alexander, also of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, and is entitled "Newcastle Disease".