After being given the opportunity to present a point of view from our life’s work within food safety, we knew it would be around our beef food safety journey. The most time-consuming part of preparation was in how we would describe the past, present, and future. Beef is a delicious and nutritious protein, and for many Americans, it is consumed less than well done.1 The debate around whether a consumer can or should have the responsibility of safe cooking preparation will be left for another time, as will the focus on the industry politics of the Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) era. Rather, our focus is the key learnings that have led us to reflect on what did and did not work in the battle to reduce STEC-related illnesses. We also focus on how that work was achieved and the less-described sector of food safety—industry research and execution of food safety systems. Within our company alone, E. coli O157:H7 findings have been reduced 95 percent from the first year of testing in 2003 to now. At the outset of trim and ground beef product testing, most in or around the industry would not have believed that a drive to zero was possible.