Joseph Scimeca, PhD, led IDFA’s Regulatory and Scientific Affairs team. Scimeca has extensive technical regulatory and scientific expertise that includes over 33 years of industry experience. In his position with IDFA, he provided strategic regulatory and scientific leadership for the dairy food and beverage industry covering a broad range of areas including product safety, quality, and labeling; nutrition and health policy; product identity standards; food defense; sustainability initiatives; Codex and other international standards; technical trade barriers; and emerging science and technologies affecting the dairy sector.
He came to IDFA from Cargill Inc. where he worked for 16 years, serving most recently as Vice President of Global Regulatory & Scientific Affairs. For Cargill, Scimeca provided leadership for ensuring food, feed, and other consumer products were safe, protected against intentional acts of economic adulteration and bioterrorism, and in conformance with relevant food/feed regulations, standards, and internal policies. He managed a team of 30 regulatory professionals based in locations around the world that collaborated with their business partners in facilitating compliance against existing and emerging regulations. Previously, he held similar regulatory affairs roles with General Mills, Pillsbury, and Kraft.
Scimeca has a proven track record working with the FDA and USDA to lead the broad food industry in regulatory reform, with notable efforts in shaping and influencing FDA FSMA regulations, and with several foreign governments in their efforts to modernize food regulations, including China, Canada, India, EU, and Indonesia. Scimeca is skilled at building and leading private-public partnerships to advance food safety initiatives leading to improved public health.
He has and continues to chair or serve on numerous and varied technical committees for scientific, academic, and trade organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, IUFoST, IFT, ILSI, and JIFSAN, among others. He has authored nearly 40 peer-reviewed scientific papers, monographs, and book chapters.
In his leisure time, he enjoys traveling with his wife and adult children, and finding time to run, backpack, and rock-climb. See LinkedIn Profile.
