Recognised as the go-to event for the entire food contact value chain, Smithers' Food Contact Asia conference returns September 6-8, 2021 in Shanghai, China to once again ignite important discussion around the regulatory landscape and market demand for packaged food and beverage products, and new opportunities for global expansion across all sectors of the food contact materials supply chain.This is a professional symposium. Those academic dialogues and practical sharing enhance my understanding of food contact global compliance.
- Dow Chemical
Kevin is co-founder and owner of Decernis and is an experienced regulatory attorney who has worked and consulted for 20+ years in the food and consumer products space. He advises some of the world’s largest manufacturers on Food, Food Contact and Supply Chain Compliance challenges globally. Working with a team of native speaker experts in all major markets, Kevin has led a Decernis team effort to expand regulatory coverage to over 200 countries. He spends much of the year meeting with clients to identify and satisfy their needs across the Decernis global client base. Kevin builds cooperative and partnering relationships with governmental agencies and organizations (today 40+ countries across five continents, including US FDA, European Union, Canada, China and Japan).
An expert on food contact and food additive regulation globally, Kevin is a frequent speaker at international conferences and an active participant in the Regulatory Affairs Committees of food, cosmetic and consumer product associations. Kevin also attends the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Additives in China annually as a member of the International Food Additives Council.
Prior to founding Decernis, Kevin worked as a regulatory attorney and later VP, International Operations at Ariel Research, which managed product safety regulations globally for chemical manufacturers.
Danhof Lee is Director of Regulatory Affair & Technical Administration, Asia Pacific PPG Packaging Coatings. He graduated from Shanghai University. Before joining PPG he had worked as engineer and subsidiary company director of a state-run paint coating manufacturer.
After joining PPG Packaging Coatings he has been Business Manager, Coating and Ink Technical Service Manager, China. Since 2007 he has been PS & Technical Administration Manager of AP and Director of Regulatory Affair & Technical Administration, Asia Pacific.
Mr. Lee has been in the role of leader who encourages and inspires team with insightful guidance. He possesses talent of foreseeing, evaluating the needs from home and abroad, to ensure R&D run on a more effective and correct way. In 2010 Mr. Lee was elected as Coating Subcommittee Chair of Industry Policy Advocacy Committee (IPAC), AICM and has been working with it till now.
Alistair manages the Food Packaging Safety Section within Smithers. This involves advising clients on the safety legislation which applies to food packaging in a wide range of different countries throughout the world and coordinating work programmes to ensure that clients' products meet these requirements. His expertise spans all the EU countries, USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Russia and all the South American countries.
Alistair graduated with a degree and PhD in Chemistry from Birmingham University. After working for BP and the Department of Health, he joined Smithers in 1994, taking up his current position in 1995.
Miao Hong has been engaged in food safety risk assessment and management for many years, and has rich working experience in diet exposure assessment and human health research, national standard formulation, food safety emergency response, etc. At present, she is committed to control the risk of on-line catering food safety according to the framework of food safety risk, improve the nutritional health management level of local life service merchants, and provide nutritious and healthy food for on-line caterting consumers. At the same time, she is a member of Committee on Risk Assessment of Traditional Chinese Medicine of the State Pharmacopoeia Commission, member of the committee of food authenticity and traceability Chinese of Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST), standing member of Collaborative Innovation Community of Catering Industry Nutrition Management of China Nutrition Society, plastic products branch of Technical Committee of China Food Contact Materials and Products Standardization, and expert member of Food Safety and Information Traceability Branch of China Non-staple Food Circulation Association.
David Ettinger is the chief representative in Keller and Heckman’s Shanghai, China office. Mr. Ettinger counsels multinational companies on the import and export of food and food-related products to ensure compliance with regulations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He also counsels clients on compliance with the laws and regulations in China regarding consumer products and tobacco-related products, such as e-cigarettes. Mr. Ettinger worked in the firm’s Washington, DC and Brussels offices, and is uniquely positioned to counsel foreign companies who need to navigate the regulatory landscape in Asia.
Mr. Ettinger is on the Executive Board and Chair of Mackrell International. He is on the leadership committee of the American Chamber of Commerce Shanghai’s Food, Agriculture & Beverage Committee. He is a frequent lecturer and author on international food safety matters. Mr. Ettinger is a Chambers and Partners ranked attorney in the area of Life Sciences (International Firms) – China and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America® since 2016 (FDA Law).
Prior to joining Keller and Heckman, Mr. Ettinger was a trademark attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Additionally, he has extensive trial experience as a former assistant district attorney in the Nassau County District Attorney's Office in New York where he prosecuted felonies and misdemeanors.
Tom Carr has been in the Plastic Packaging Industry for 28 years, beginning his career with Trigon Packaging Systems in 1991 as a BSc(Tech) Student. Working in the Research and Development lab of their Hamilton plant, he became proficient in film analysis and physical properties testing of plastic packaging. In 2009, he ventured into the world of packaging regulatory compliance. Mentored by Sealed Air’s Regulatory Directors in Europe (Dario Dainelli) and America (Martin Ecoff), the learning curve was steep, but rewarding, eventually overseeing the compliance needs for Sealed Air’s Australia/New Zealand products, predominantly for Fonterra and the NZ Meat industry.
In 2015, Tom moved his family to Palmerston North to join Fonterra’s Packaging innovation and Development Team as a Senior Packaging Technologist at Fonterra’s Research and Development Centre. For the past 5 years Tom has overseen packaging compliance for Fonterra’s local and export business.
Fun fact: Tom is passionate about Litter reduction, and was Keep New Zealand Beautiful’s “Tidy Kiwi Award for 2017”, for picking up over 1300kg of litter since 2015. Tom is New Zealand’s leading user of the Litterati App, having snapped, tagged and bagged over 35,000 pieces of Litter since April 2017.
Svetlana has started her career in Danone as Global Packaging Specifications Manager in 2017, after acquiring her MSc in Food Safety and Toxicology. Within her role in the Specialized Nutrition department, she is responsible for the validation of food contact materials on regulatory compliance and food safety, assuring that infants, young children and patients receive the safest packaging possible. Another part of this role, is the negotiation on quality agreements with packaging suppliers, that requires both external as internal cross-functional collaboration with her colleagues in USA, Mercosur, China, Asia and European countries.
Sabine Lindner a Biologist holding a PhD from Bonn University worked from 1994 to 2007 for the German Vinyl Association.
Since 2007 she is with PlasticsEurope Deutschland where she is responsible for consumer an environmental issues as food contact materials, toys, drinking water contact materials, building and construction products, nanomaterials, PVC and Bioplastics.
Additionally she is facilitator of several working groups at PlasticsEurope and coordinating related activities throughout Europe for: Food Contact Materials, Drinking Water Contact Materials
Chen Hu provides assistance to foreign and domestic clients in the area of food, food packaging, and chemical control, in matters related to regulatory compliance in in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian countries.
Mr. Hu works closely with government authorities and trade associations in various phases of regulatory development. Mr. Hu has prepared and submitted hundreds of Chinese applications for registration of food packaging materials, food additives, new food ingredients, and new chemical substances. He is experienced in auditing plant facilities for food and food packaging manufacturers.
Mr. Hu has master degrees in biochemistry and biostatistics
Anita Chang completed her Ph.D. in Immunology at State University of New York at Buffalo. Following this, Dr. Chang worked at the Uniformed Service University of Health Sciences as a postdoctoral fellow for two years to investigate gene expression. Afterwards, Dr. Chang worked at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health as a staff fellow for one year, where she developed a monoclonal antibody against carcinoembryonic antigen. Dr. Chang started at the FDA in the Office of Food Additive Safety since 1991. Currently, Dr. Chang serves as a Regulatory Review Scientist in the Division of Food Contact Substances.
Dr. Yan Gu has been a toxicology specialist with Steptoe's Food and Feed Safety, Compliance, and Contact Materials team for more than two years. Yan is highly experienced in the safety review and evaluation of toxicological data for food contact materials, other food and color additives, and GRAS. He has assisted clients with food contact material submissions to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and regulatory authorities in China and other countries.
Yan has been a regulatory toxicology reviewer since the implementation of the FDA's Food Contact Notification Program two decades ago. He has worked on Food Contact Notifications (FCNs, over 180), Pre-Notification Consultations (PNCs, near 100), Food Additive Petitions (FAPs), and Color Additive Petitions (CAPs). During his tenure at the FDA, he participated in the development and improvement of the FCN Toxicology Guidance for Industry and the development of the Guidance of Safety Assessment for Infant Food Contact Materials for Industry. As a member of the FDA special task force team on Melamine and Bisphenol A (BPA), he was deeply involved in method development, emergency response, scientific review, and risk assessment. Yan has served as a lead of a special working group to use probabilistic approach to determine an appropriate dietary level for recommending the submission of reproductive/development toxicity testing in FCNs.
Bonnie Zhang graduated from Fudan University as Ph.D, majoring Pharmaceutics. She works in Sealedair as Regulatory Affairs Manager who is responsible for monitoring regulatory update, checking product compliance and executing regulatory advocacy strategy in agreement with regional Food Care and Product Care business stakeholders.
She has more than 10 years regulatory affairs experiences with chemical control laws, food packaging, medical device and fragrances. Before joined Sealed Air, Bonnie Zhang worked in internal companies as Product stewardship and compliance manager where she managed regulatory communication, product compliance check, customer support activities in food packaging industry. She also supported pharma excipient IDL application and medical device certificate related issues.
