John Holah is the Technical Director at Holchem Laboratories, the UKs largest supplier of food hygiene services to the food manufacturing industry. John’s current responsibilities include the development of innovative cleaning and disinfection chemicals and technologies and their successful utilisation in effectively designed, engineered, validated and managed sanitation programmes.

John is an applied microbiologist whose work has focussed on the prevention of microbial, chemical and foreign body contamination of food during its manufacture, distribution and retail. John has an extensive knowledge of the food industry, having worked within >500 food factories and catering establishments, in the UK, Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia.

John has a passion for food safety and food hygiene and has been responsible for establishing many GMP/GHP’s used in the food industry for the control of pathogens, particularly Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli. He has undertaken specific investigations into microbial contamination incidents in factories from SME’s to multinational companies and has worked at a Corporate level to advise major international companies on developing HACCP, prerequisite and quality systems to provide an integrated food safety plan. He has specific expertise on the hygienic design of food factories and food processing equipment; factory services and water systems; maintenance; cleaning and disinfection; personnel hygiene and environmental sampling.

At an academic level, John has led several European and national research projects, has written over 100 publications, given over 200 external presentations, edited several books, has a wide range of teaching experience at all levels from industry to University MSc courses, and has been external supervisor to more than 20 PhD students.

John has represented the UK on CEN/TC 216/Chemical disinfectants and antiseptics, chaired ISO/TC 199/WG2 on the Hygiene requirements for the design of machinery, is an active member of the European Hygienic Design of Equipment Group (EHEDG) and the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) and was a member of the National Health Service Rapid Review Panel.

John is an Honorary Professor of Food Safety at Cardiff Metropolitan University and was previously Head of the Food Hygiene Department at Campden BRI