J. David Legan, PhD
Director of Science
David earned his Ph.D. in Food Technology from the University of Reading in the UK by modeling the ecology of mixed microbial populations, and then moved to Campden BRI in a variety of microbiological food safety research and client service roles. During that time, he was project lead for the Bacillus component of the UK’s pathogen modeling program. He moved again to Nabisco Research in New Jersey where he ran the corporate microbiology lab and developed a program of preservation technology development and microbial modeling. After the Kraft Foods acquisition, he moved to Chicago to work on Food Safety and Preservation research, and through modeling and validation studies:
- Optimized Oscar Mayer’s use of lactate and diacetate and their naturally cultured alternatives as Listeria-control agents in Ready to Eat meats
- Specified process conditions central to Oscar Mayer’s commercial launch of High Pressure Pasteurization of naturally cured RTE meats
David had responsibility for the Kraft cultures R&D group, developed a partnership to explore microwave sterilization leading to several patents, and led a program that developed an internal proprietary natural antimicrobial commercialized in several Kraft products. Technologies from his group supported approximately $4 billion in annual sales.
After years as a microbiology "client", he is now back in the "provider" role as Director of Science at Eurofins Microbiology Laboratories, Inc., by way of the Covance Food Solutions group based in Madison, WI, which he joined in 2016. In this role, he ensures appropriate method validation, explores new testing technologies, and fields multiple complicated food microbiology questions.
Products that his team has evaluated or developed and launched include:
- The 3M MDS platform in the Madison microbiology laboratory
- Flow cytometry for enumeration of probiotics
- Strain-level confirmation of probiotic identification using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
- Next-generation sequencing using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies GridION sequencing platform for microbial identification and microbiome analysis
Below are resources from David:
Eurofins develops and validates a versatile HPLC-UV/DAD method for analyzing twelve major cannabinoids in dried plant materials, concentrates and oils. Method was granted AOAC First Action OMA status (AOAC Official Method 2018.11).
As Minneola, a hybrid between grapefruit and mandarin, has become more popular it may be susceptible to fraud and/or adulteration. This poster shows the phenolic pattern of this fruit, in relation to other orange, grapefruit and mandarin fruits that may be used to identify its juice or juice concentrate.
In this blog post Dan Berg, Food Scientist, Analytical Services Manager for Eurofins Food Integrity & Innovation talks through the top 10 things you should know about the new nutritional facts panel rules.
In this document, you will see the list of chemicals on the Proposition 65 list and learn how Eurofins is prepared to help you develop your products, qualify your supply chain, and conduct ongoing quality control to minimize the risk of incomplete labeling.
This document describes the nutrition and supplement facts labels changes.
In this three-part series Dan Berg, Food Scientist, Analytical Services Manager at Eurofins talks through some of the more complicated issues and some related manners to consider for manufacturers in their efforts to meet the current regulations for Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts panels. In this first part of the 3 part series, he discusses RACCs (Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed), Dietary Fiber, and Added Sugars.
In this three-part series Dan Berg, Food Scientist, Analytical Services Manager at Eurofins talks through some of the more complicated issues and some related manners to consider for manufacturers in their efforts to meet the current regulations for Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts panels. In this second part of the three part series, he discusses vitamins (A, D, E, and Folic Acid/Folates).
In this three-part series Dan Berg, Food Scientist, Analytical Services Manager at Eurofins talks through some of the more complicated issues and some related manners to consider for manufacturers in their efforts to meet the current regulations for Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts panels. In this the final part of the three part series, he discusses other related rules.
In this blog post Andrew Ward discusses using a 3rd party inspection partner to ensure that quality of the products that a buyer is purchasing. Do you have a 3rd party inspection partner?
DNA sequencing is an important tool to identify all Probiotic organisms in a sample all in one assay. In this Scientific Poster, Eurofins scientists investigate a long-read sequencing method that accurately identifies probiotic organisms in complex samples recently presented at SHIFT 20.
