Food Safety Expert Robert H. Deibel, Ph.D., Honored with American Meat Institute Foundation Scientific Achievement Award

Robert H. Deibel, Ph.D., president and CEO of Deibel Laboratories, was honored today with the American Meat Institute Foundation (AMIF) Scientific Achievement Award. The award was presented during AMI’s International Meat, Poultry & Seafood Convention, October 24-27, 2007, in Chicago, Ill.

One of the foremost experts on food microbiology and foodborne illness, Deibel was honored for his more than 50 years of service to the industry as an educator and a scientist. In presenting the award, AMI President and CEO J. Patrick Boyle said Deibel “wrote the book on food microbiology,” noting that his chapter in Bergey’s Manual for Microbiology has been read by countless food microbiology students.

After earning his master’s degree in bacteriology in 1952, Deibel joined AMI, then in Chicago, where he rose from assistant bacteriologist to chief of the bacteriology division. After completing his Ph.D. in 1962, he became a professor, first at Cornell and two years later at the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Bacteriology, where he ultimately became chairman.

Throughout his career, he has worked with food businesses nationwide on spoilage and food safety issues. Today, he owns and operates eight laboratories across the United States and one and Canada and continues to serve the food industry.

“Dr. Robert Deibel’s practical, yet science-based approach to problem-solving has made him uniquely able to bridge science and application resulting in safer meat products,” Boyle said.

The American Meat Institute Foundation is a non-profit research, education and information foundation established by the American Meat Institute to study ways the meat and poultry industry can produce better, safer products and operate more efficiently.

AMI represents the interests of packers and processors of beef, pork, lamb, veal and turkey products and their suppliers throughout North America. Together, AMI’s members produce 95 percent of the beef, pork, lamb and veal products and 70 percent of the turkey products in the United States. The Institute provides legislative, regulatory, public relations, technical, scientific and educational services to the meat and poultry packing and processing industry.