Angela Anandappa, Ph.D. is the Founding Director for the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation. She has researched and worked in food safety and genomics for over 20 years, having established the Food Systems Innovation Center at the University of Kentucky with the goal of providing resources for local food businesses. She is also a board member of the Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative.

Dr. Anandappa has led the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation in its strategic and scientific direction since its inception at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Prior to founding the Alliance, she led the supply chain food safety pillar of the Kraft Heinz Company. She has been instrumental in product development and launching food, beverage, and animal feed products for a range of businesses, from very small to billion-dollar brands. Dr. Anandappa earned her Ph.D. in Animal and Food Science from the University of Kentucky with a focus on food microbiology and systems level food safety programs. She is a member of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), and other industry associations. She is also the former Chair of the Food Chemical Hazards and Food Allergy Professional Development Group at IAFP, and serves on several other boards.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak with Dr. Anandappa [20:07] about:

• Dr. Anandappa’s entry into food science, her early career, and what led her to found the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation
• Trainings and resources that are currently offered by the Alliance, as well as offerings in development
• Research that the Alliance is conducting in collaboration with industry, including work to better understand the labor force
• Prominent misconceptions about sanitation that need to be corrected at the corporate leadership level
• Questions that Dr. Anandappa aims to answer through her ongoing study of the sanitation workforce’s role in implementing regulatory initiatives, such as those aligned with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)
• The “Five Whys” principle and how it can drive improvements in the sanitation industry
• The need to generate data about how the use of sanitizers in the food industry contributes to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and why hygienic design is an important AMR mitigation tactic
• Dr. Anandappa’s long- and short-term goals for the Alliance, from research to regulatory advocacy.