Food Industry Luminaries Join IdentiGEN Business Advisory Board
LAWRENCE, Kan., U.S., and DUBLIN, Ireland, Dec. 6, 2007. IdentiGEN, Inc., a leading global provider of DNA-based identification and verification solutions for enhancing food safety and building consumer confidence in the food and agriculture industries, announced the first members of its Business Advisory Board, a group of food industry veterans who will help guide the company’s North American expansion.
Initial members of IdentiGEN’s Business Advisory Board include Alan Tank, former CEO of the National Pork Producers Council; David Juday, an economist and former White House staff member in the agriculture and food sectors; Michael John, former president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association; Ken Stettmeier, a former executive of fresh meat programs in the grocery industry and Dennis McKerracher, former president of the Canadian Livestock Identification Agency.
“We are serious about being a positive force in the North American agriculture and food scene, and this group of experienced executives will help advance this goal,” said Donald R. Marvin, president and CEO of IdentiGEN North America. Marvin said IdentiGEN would be adding new members to its Business Advisory Board in the coming months.
IdentiGEN’s DNA TraceBack® system utilizes DNA identification technology — in a manner akin to that used for forensic investigations — to identify and trace the source of meat products through the entire supply chain. The DNA TraceBack system was recently approved by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service as a Process Verified Program. DNA TraceBack enables retailers, meat producers, meat processors and food-service outlets to respond to the growing consumer demand, both domestically and in export markets, for more information about where and how their meat is produced.
The varied and distinguished record of achievement of these business leaders will be of significant value to IdentiGEN as we continue to expand the scope of our business,” said Dr. Patrick Cunningham, co-founder and chairman of IdentiGEN, Ltd. “We look forward to their unique contributions as we work together to take IdentiGEN to the next stage.”
The DNA TraceBack system uses IdentiGEN’s proprietary ID-GENerator technology to create large numbers of unique DNA profiles at a cost of pennies per pound. Its implementation requires few modifications to current handling and processing procedures for fresh beef and pork. The system is already in widespread use in a number of European retail chains.
IdentiGEN was founded in 1996 by a group of geneticists from Ireland’s Trinity College
who developed a unique system that utilizes DNA analysis to support marketing of branded meat,
verify country of origin and validate marketing claims and product attributes. DNA TraceBack
can also be a major competitive positioning and risk-management tool for retailers, because it
supports seamless and fast traceability in the event of a product recall.
Biographies of IdentiGEN Business Advisory Board Members
Alan Tank - Alan Tank is an original founder of AgCert International plc. (LSE), a world leader
in the production and sale of agriculturally derived greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions,
which are utilized to satisfy the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union
Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Prior to founding AgCert, Tank was the CEO of the
National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), one of the nation’s largest agricultural commodity
organizations with an annual budget of more than $50 million.
David Juday - Dave Juday is an economist and entrepreneur specializing in the agricultural and
food sectors. He serves a range of clients in the agriculture, energy, and financial sectors as a
consulting analyst following economic and policy developments that drive agricultural and
commodity markets. He has worked for the American Meat Institute and the International Dairy
Foods Association, on a number of livestock and meat-related projects for the United Soybean
Board, and for a wide variety of agribusiness corporations. Prior to his private-sector career,
Juday served in the White House as Deputy Director of Domestic Policy in the Office of the Vice
President, where he was Vice President Dan Quayle’s chief agriculture policy advisor.
Michael John - Mike John is Vice President, John Ranch, Inc., a commercial cow/calf and
retained ownership operation, in Huntsville, Mo., and Director, MFA Health Track Beef
Alliance, MFA Inc., Columbia, Mo., a feeder cattle source and process verification program. He was president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in 2006 and held other executive
positions with NCBA in 2004 and 2005.
Ken Stettmeier - Ken Stettmeier has more than 25 years of extensive meat-industry experience.
His diverse expertise covers the fields of producing, slaughtering, fabricating, merchandising,
selling and commodity trading. Stettmeier is a featured speaker on animal welfare, country-of origin
labeling, animal identification, environmental sustainability and meat traceability.
Dennis McKerracher - Dennis McKerracher has many years of experience with the Canadian
Livestock Identification Agency, Canada’s national agency for livestock traceability, and was its
past president. A 2006 winner of the Alberta Emerald Award for research and innovation,
McKerracher has spent his entire life in agriculture and owns a hog grower/finisher operation in
High River, Alberta, Canada.
About IdentiGEN
IdentiGEN Ltd., with its North American subsidiary IdentiGEN, Inc., is a privately held venturebacked
company, and a leading provider of DNA-based solutions to the agriculture and food
industries. The company was founded as a spin-out from the Institute of Genetics, Trinity
College, where the company’s core area of expertise — genetic identification — was developed
and is now being deployed in a variety of ways to enhance consumer confidence in the safety and
quality of food products. Through IdentiGEN’s DNA-based TraceBack® system, retailers, meat
processors, producers and local governments, for the first time, have the tools to unequivocally
trace the identity of meat back to its source. IdentiGEN is also a major provider of BSE (or mad
cow disease) and GMO (or genetically-modified organism) testing services in Europe.
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