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Food Safety Matters
Food Safety Matters is a podcast for food safety professionals hosted by the Food Safety Magazine editorial team – the leading media brand in food safety for over 20 years. Each episode will feature a conversation with a food safety professional sharing their experiences and insights of the important job of safeguarding the world’s food supply.
This special BONUS episode of Food Safety Matters focuses on Listeria Right Now, an environmental Listeria test offering molecular-level accuracy, with no enrichment and a total time to results of under one hour. This innovative food safety product was introduced at the annual IAFP meeting this year, with many people remarking that it was a “game changer”.
Because of the pervasiveness of Listeria in the environment, the risk that Listeria can be introduced into a food processing facilities can happen at any time. The goal of an environmental monitoring program is to verify the effectiveness of contamination control programs, identify microbial harborage sites, and ensure that corrective actions have eliminated organisms such as Listeria from the plant.
With the intent of helping to control this ubiquitous pathogen in food processing facilities, Neogen has developed a one-hour Listeria test that features the total elimination of the enrichment process. Neogen’s new Listeria Right Now test is fast and flexible enough to be used in a “seek and destroy” mode, as well as to identify vectors and sources of contamination.
To understand the practical applications of this innovative new pathogen test and the possibilities it brings to food processing and production we spoke with Jim Topper, a senior marketing development manager with Neogen.
In this episode, we speak with Neogen’s Jim Topper about:
Conventional environmental monitoring methods and how Listeria Right Now has moved the needle.
FDA’s guidance on Listeria testing that supports “seek and destroy” methods.
What the Listeria Right Now actually is.
Obtaining Listeria test results in under one hour and the timeline to results.
The types of validations performed for the Listeria Right Now system.
How this product will be used throughout the food industry.
Whether the product should be used for all Listeria testing.
James (Jim) Jones joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2023 as the agency's first Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods. In this position, he leads the charge in setting and advancing priorities for a proposed, unified Human Foods Program, which includes food safety, chemical safety, and nutrition activities. He currently oversees the leadership of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and the Office of Food Policy and Response (OFPR), until the proposed Human Foods Program reorganization is implemented.
Robert (Bob) Manning, M.B.A., M.S., M.E.M., has worked in the food and beverage industry for over 25 years in various facility and senior corporate positions. He is currently CEO of Liquid, and formerly worked as Vice President of Technical Operations at Niagara Bottling. He has spent most of his time in Operations and Quality roles for large companies such as HP Hood LLC, Campbell's Soup, and Niagara Bottling, as well as consulting for major domestic and international firms.
Brittany Sambol is the Vice President of Operations at Wildtype Foods, where she is responsible for leading the scale-up of the company’s operations function, including product commercialization and manufacturing facility expansion. Prior to joining Wildtype, Brittany spent six years at Clif Bar & Company, leading in various areas including supply chain and contract manufacturing management, product innovation and scale-up, and sustainable packaging development. Earlier in her career, Brittany worked as a chemical engineer and then spent over 12 years directly leading manufacturing operations in the CPG industry.
Khyati Shah, Ph.D. is an esteemed molecular biologist with a distinguished career spanning over ten years in the development and promotion of innovative pathogen testing of products for the food and beverage industry. Serving as a global product manager for the Food and Beverage segment of the Life Sciences business of MilliporeSigma, Dr. Shah is instrumental in creating and spearheading the product roadmap for the cultured meat and alternative protein business. With MilliporeSigma's strong focus on providing research and development (R&D) to scale-up solutions in this emerging industry, Dr. Shah enables cost-effective, sustainable, and efficient supply chain solutions to bring cultured meat and seafood products to market.
Jason Richardson, Ph.D. is the Vice President of Global Quality and Food Safety of The Coca-Cola Company, a position he has held since January 2021. In this role, Jason leads a team of quality and food safety professionals who are accountable for delivering global strategic and operational leadership for the performance and progress of quality and food safety programs across the Coca-Cola system.
Brian Ronholm, M.A.,is the Director of Food Policy for Consumer Reports, where he leads advocacy efforts to advance a safe and healthy food system. He was in public service prior to joining Consumer Reports, having served as Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and before that, as a congressional staff person for Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.
Natalie Dyenson, M.P.H. is the Chief Food Safety and Regulatory Officer for the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA). She has nearly three decades of experience in food safety that encompasses the entire produce supply chain, from farm to fork. In her role at IFPA, Natalie and her team actively work to guide the industry on food safety issues and connect with regulators and policymakers to advocate for a science-focused and risk-based approach to food safety worldwide.