Deb Kane, M.S., is Vice President of Food Safety, Quality, EHSS, and Regulatory at J&J Snack Foods Corporation. She has over 30 years of experience as an FSQA professional. Prior to joining J&J Snack Foods, she held positions with Campbell Soup Company, Kraft General Foods, and AeroFarms Indoor Vertical Farm. She has worked as a food safety microbiologist with experience in pathogen control, risk assessments, spoilage investigations, root cause analysis, and inoculation challenge studies. She earned an M.S. degree in Food Science and a graduate certificate in Food Safety and Defense from Kansas State University, as well as a B.S. degree in Biology from The College of New Jersey.
At the 2023 Food Safety Summit, a dynamic workshop brought together leading experts to introduce the concepts, methods, and different tools of root cause analysis (RCA). Participants learned how to dig into systems and find meaningful data to identify the root causes of issues develop impactful solutions that prevent problems from recurring. An RCA session at the 2024 Summit will further explore these concepts.
This article discusses applied RCA and the Food Safety Summit associated education offered on this topic.
The 2023 Food Safety Summit's kick-off workshop will demystify the root-cause analysis process by breaking it down into easy-to-understand steps, shed light on the regulatory expectations for the investigative process, examine the due diligence needed for investigations, and provide insight on best practices for successful implementation used within industry.
