Home » Multimedia » Podcasts » Food Safety Matters » Ep. 15. Will Daniels: "It was a game changer for the industry"
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.
Will Daniels is president of the produce division at IEH Laboratories and Consulting Group. In this role, Will is responsible for lab and consulting services for the produce industry. Prior to joining IEH, Will was president and CEO of Fresh Integrity Group, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in operations and food safety consulting for the fresh produce and perishables industries. He was recently involved in the cold-pressed juice industry, working with two startups to develop their operations. Prior to his involvement with start-up companies, Will was with Earthbound Farm from 1999 until 2014. Having leadership roles in both quality assurance and operations, he helped the company grow from a small, regional salad producer to the nation’s largest grower, packer, and shipper of organic produce. As Earthbound Farm’s Chief Food Integrity Officer, Daniels was responsible for food safety, food quality, and the company’s organic integrity program. Before joining Earthbound Farm, Will worked for 15 years as a consultant in the foodservice sector; working in the back of the house designing menus, introducing food safety and, improving costs; he even had his own catering business.
Will is a sought-after speaker and has addressed key issues in food safety in the produce industry at meetings of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Restaurant Association, the Institute of Food Technologists and the International Association for Food Protection. He was the keynote speaker at the 2013 Food Safety Summit in Washington, DC, was one of the Packer 25 annual list of produce leaders for 2013 and was named one of the food industry’s top food safety leaders by Marler/Clark’s Food Safety News in 2013. He has also been featured in a variety of national news stories on food safety with media such as The New York Times and ABC News’s Good Morning America; he is the author of two book chapters, “Effectively Managing through a Crisis,” in Microbial Safety of Fresh Produce, published by Wiley in 2009 and “Pathogen Testing in Fresh Produce: Earthbound Farm,” in Global Safety of Fresh Produce; A Handbook of Best Practice, Innovative Commercial Collations and Case Studies, published by Woodhead Publishing in 2014. An active leader in the food industry, Will serves on a variety of boards and technical committees.
In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Will Daniels about:
How Earthbound Farm responded to a deadly E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak linked to fresh spinach
The complexities and challenges of the supply chain
Balancing food safety needs with marketing objectives
The importance of education along every point of the supply chain
Low product pricing and its effect on food safety
Misconceptions about FSMA regulations
Getting the C-suite to understand the value of investing in food safety
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.
Brian Sylvester, J.D., is a Partner in Perkins Coie LLP's Washington D.C. office and a former Attorney-Advisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Marketing, Regulatory, and Food Safety Programs Division's Office of the General Counsel. At Perkins Coie, Brian focuses his practice on regulatory matters before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the USDA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and analogous state regulatory bodies. He is a leading authority on food technology regulation and serves as a trusted advisor to global brands, startups, life science companies, investors, and trade associations.