Food Safety Magazine recently announced that Joe Stout, R.S., will receive the magazine's Distinguished Service Award at the 2022 Food Safety Summit, taking place May 9–12 in Rosemont, Illinois.

Mr. Stout is a leader in quality and sanitation with over 40 years of experience in the industry. He founded Commercial Food Sanitation (CFS) in 2010. CFS provides strategic consulting, training, and solutions to address food safety, hygienic design, and sanitation challenges for food processing plants worldwide. With a goal of building a passion for food safety around the world, CFS Institute—the training arm of the company—trains hundreds of food industry professionals annually through its certification pathways, workshops at customer locations, and training sessions at CFS facilities around the world. Additionally, CFS provides regular training in sanitation and hygienic design at Intralox locations in New Orleans, Amsterdam, and Shanghai. 

Previously, Mr. Stout spent 30 years at Kraft Foods. While there, he held a variety of positions related to operations, quality, and sanitation, ultimately leading to his role as Kraft's Director of Global Product Protection, Sanitation, and Hygienic Design. While at Kraft, Mr. Stout had global responsibility for plant cleaning controls and processes, allergen and pathogen control programs, pest control, and hygienic design for facilities and equipment used in more than 200 Kraft plants. He also managed the Global Product Protection group, assuring global support for internal and external plants.

Mr. Stout led the American Meat Institute's (AMI's) Equipment Design Task Force and has partnered for Listeria intervention training with AMI and the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) Hygienic Design initiatives. He is currently leading continuous improvement in equipment hygienic design, both in process plants and field harvest equipment. Mr. Stout facilitated the development and execution of the Dairy Food Safety Training classes with Dairy Management Inc.'s Innovation Center.

In addition to his involvement with these initiatives and other leading industry organizations, Mr. Stout is a published authority on the subjects of food safety, sanitation, hygiene, and related areas. He became a Registered Sanitarian in the state of Pennsylvania in 1985. He is also the recipient of the IAFP 2015 Sanitarian of the Year Award and the IAFP 2020 Food Safety Award.

Past recipients of the Food Safety Magazine Distinguished Service Award include Reginald Bennett, M.Sc., Dane Bernard, M.Sc., Larry Beuchat, Ph.D., Robert L. Buchanan, Ph.D., Frank Busta, Ph.D., John N. Butts, Ph.D., Darin Detwiler, Ph.D., Keith Ito, Allen Katsuyama, Connie Kirby, M.Sc., John W. Larkin, Ph.D., Huub Lelieveld, Barbara Masters, D.V.M., Ann Marie McNamara, Ph.D., Theodora Morille-Hinds, M.Sc., William Sperber, Ph.D., Steve Taylor, Ph.D., David Theno, Ph.D., Bruce Tompkin, Ph.D., and Don L. Zink, Ph.D.