Name: Avoiding Sanitation Pitfalls: Challenges and Opportunities for Your Environmental Monitoring Program
Start: 2025-05-01T14:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

Avoiding Sanitation Pitfalls: Challenges and Opportunities for Your Environmental Monitoring Program

5/1/25 2:00 pm to 5/1/26 EDT

Contact: Vania Halabou

An environmental monitoring program (EMP) is an essential part of your food safety and HACCP plans. It helps ensure that your facility environment has been properly cleaned and sanitized and is fit for the production of safe food. In this webinar, industry veterans and independent experts will guide attendees on maintaining proper environmental conditions inside your plant, the selection of zones for sampling, and sampling techniques and oversight. They will also discuss pitfalls to avoid in your EMP, including program failures and common mistakes, and why these programs can fail to eliminate resident pathogen strains (e.g., Listeria, Salmonella) in facilities, with the meat/poultry and fresh produce sectors as examples. Other concerns to be addressed include relationships with testing labs and the need for comprehensive Listeria management.

From this webinar, attendees will learn:

Environmental sanitation pitfalls to avoid, and how to ensure biological safety inside your plant
Best practices and guidance for sampling
Significant problems seen in EMPs, and why these failures occur
The need for comprehensive Listeria management

Speakers:

Robert W. Powitz, Ph.D., M.P.H., RS, DLAAS, Consultant, R.W. Powitz & Associates. Robert W. Powitz, Ph.D., M.P.H., RS, DLAAS, a forensic sanitarian, is Principal Consultant and Technical Director of R.W. Powitz & Associates, a professional corporation of forensic sanitarians who specialize in environmental and public health litigation support services to law firms, insurance companies, governmental agencies, and industry.

John Butts, Ph.D., Principal, Food Safety By Design LLC. Dr. John Butts held the primary technical role at Land O' Frost for over 40 years. His team developed the "Seek and Destroy" process for Listeria monocytogenes control in the early 1990s. In 2010, he founded Food Safety By Design LLC to help producers of high-risk products learn how to prevent and manage food safety risks. Root cause identification, as well as preventive and predictive practices, are key components of the Food Safety By Design "Seek and Destroy" process. Dr. Butts received the 2006 Food Safety Magazine Distinguished Service Award, the 2009 Scientific Achievement Award from the American Meat Institute Foundation, and the NSF Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. He was inducted into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame in 2020 and received the 2024 International Association of Food Protection Honorary Life Membership Award. He is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Food Safety Magazine.

Joan Rosen, M.Sc., Founder, JC Rosen Resources. Joan Rosen is the founder of JC Rosen Resources, a consulting firm with global expertise in food safety, quality systems, post-harvest technology, and regulatory affairs for the fresh produce and food industries. Previously, Joan was the Director of Global Food Safety and Quality, Chiquita Brands International/Fresh Express for over 22 years. She serves on the Technical Committees for the Center for Produce Safety and International Fresh Produce Association. She is also a lead instructor for Preventive Controls for Human Food, a trainer for the Produce Rule, and has completed Foreign Supplier Verification Programs training. She received an M.Sc. degree in Food Science and Postharvest Physiology from the University of California–Davis and a B.Sc. degree in Food Science from Cornell University. Joan is also a recipient of IFPA's Technical Excellence Award. Previously, Joan led postharvest research programs at Campbell Soup Company and worked in flavor development and application at Florasynth Inc.

Moderator: Adrienne Blume, Editorial Director, Food Safety Magazine

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