 Paul Huntingfoot, retiring chairperson of the CCFA working group. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. So let's start at the beginning. Can you tell me when and in what capacity you began work on this committee? So when I first started with the committee, the first role that I had was as raptor for the GSFA working group. I started on the GSFA basically right away coming into the committee, but more as a recorder of decisions as opposed to formulating processes to get to those decisions. The U.S. doesn't only chair the physical working group, we also chair the electronic working group, which is good because then that means when we get here we know what's going on. But that truly does mean that we work on it throughout the entire year. So we will leave the committee here with a mandate of what the electronic working group will be working on, and we give ourselves about a break of a month, and then we start formulating the documents to be circulated, and then that basically goes throughout the year. We have about a month and then we get back to it. It's all about coming to the meeting. Everything that we're doing is working towards coming towards the meeting, because that's where it all kind of comes alive. Before that, you're dealing with paper, you're double checking everything and doing a lot of detail type work, but we have people who help us sometimes back home, and I always feel like you're not really going to understand it until you come here and see it in action. This session of CCFA, one of the good things about this committee is there's so many opportunities for input for people to discuss it. We do multiple circulars with the electronic working group. That generates a report. Then we come to the meeting and before the plenary, we have a physical working group where we once again go through the issues and make sure that everyone understands them and has to provide their input so that when you come to plenary, it really is the results-oriented part. Checking a group like this is a tough role, and I imagine it gets even tougher when there are disagreements. How do you as chair approach those situations? The biggest part is to remain open to what is the particular issue that the person you're talking to who's having a disagreement as to how to approach it, what is the issue they're trying to get at to fix it, because we're all here for the same reason. We're all here to make sure food is safe, to make sure it's available. Since we have that common ground, how can we use that to get to that agreement? In your experience, what sort of commodities or topics create the biggest challenge? Anything that is a very traditional food, something that goes with the identity of a region. People have very strong feelings about it that they feel, you know, no, this is the way grandma used to make it, for instance, forever, so nothing can change. It must be exactly the same. But the problem is different areas have different ideas as to what that food should be. Even, you know, you could go from one county to another country, one city to another city, and it might be made differently, but everyone thinks that their way is the best way and the only way. So it's dealing with those type of very traditional foods, especially in Codex parlance, those with long-standing commodity standards that apply to it. That's often the biggest sticking point. Tell me about any standout moments in your time working with this working group? The first time I chaired the physical working group was a major milestone. I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into. Actually, even before that first time that I was repertoire, then I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. I tend to be an optimist. I tend to think that we can get to solutions that may take time, but we can always get to consensus. Actually, we had two major topics at this meeting here. One being the wine additives, that the very first time I chaired the physical working group was when we started talking about that. So 10 years, and we reached consensus today, so only took 10 years. And what's the best thing about chairing this work? What were you miss? The best thing about being at the meeting, chairing the physical working group, things like that nature is it gives you a structure and a topic to interact with people that you'd never interact with otherwise. And so that's one of the really unique things about Codex compared to the other things that I do, that interactions with people from all over the globe, which is really quite exciting. I call it my Codex family, which would be all the delegates that have come often, or the observers that have come often. You really do build relationships. You're in a high intensity environment for almost two weeks. And it's not all just at the meeting. A lot of the negotiations, for example, that are done to get to that common ground might be over coffee at one of the breaks. So you do get to know people, and you do form relationships with them. And I kept those up, and I hope to continue to do so. This has been your last session as chair of the working group. What were you miss, and what tips do you have for your successor? So the most important thing for my successor to know would be the coffee break is your best friend, your most important tool. Anything you think is going to be difficult, schedule it right before the coffee break, start that discussion and say, OK, go out on the coffee break and come back with an answer. And what do you think the committee is going to be looking like in 15 years' time? 15 years from now or at some point in the far future. It's going to be the fact that there's going to be totally new foods that weren't accounted for in the GSFA. You know, there's all this work now going on with plant-based meats or bioengineered meats or things of that nature. It will be how do these new technologies fit into food safety and trade? And there will be a part for CCFA to play in that. And it'll be interesting though. There's still going to be a role for this committee. Thank you very much.