William Weichelt is in the newly created position of director, Food Safety & Industry Relations, for the National Restaurant Association (NRA) and has over 20 years of experience in the foodservice and food manufacturing sectors. 

The NRA is the largest foodservice trade association in the world by membership—supporting over 500,000 restaurant businesses. They represent and advocate for foodservice industry interests—with a focus on financial and regulatory obstacles. They also provide tools and systems that help members of all sizes get significantly better operating results as well as networking, education and research resources.

Specific to food safety their ServSafe Program provides comprehensive educational materials to the restaurant industry through face-to-face and online instruction. More than 5 million foodservice professionals have been certified through the ServSafe Food Protection Manager Certification Examination.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to William Weichelt about:

• Challenges the NRA faces with the start of their new Food Safety Industry Relations department
• NRA’s current top priorities to help the industry going forward
• Using food safety best practices that have been applied in manufacturing to create new best practices in foodservice and hospitality
• Working with an industry that runs the gamut—from large operators with their own systems in place to independent operators who have no food science staff or expertise
• The challenge of figuring out what topics to educate the industry on in the short-term, based on need, from edible marijuana to implementing a food safety management system
• NRA's training and resources offered to smaller operators who do not have food safety staff
• Challenges related to keeping ServSafe relevant and always in line with the FDA Food Code
• Milestones that NRA has achieved as the organization's 100th-anniversary approaches
• The importance of having everyone in an organization from the top down involved in the implementation and maintenance of a food safety management system
• The new Food Safety Industry Relations department's future plans to help the industry in new areas: food fraud, food defense, traceability and figuring out how to apply these topics to the restaurant level, not just to manufacturers
• How changing trends, consumer demand and product innovations impact how the food industry operates and how it all affects the industry’s approach to food safety

Related Content and Resources
For National Food Safety Month, Restaurants Focus on Food Allergens
National Restaurant Association
ServSafe 

News Mentioned in This Episode 
The "Best .gif Ever," tweeted by the Safe Food Alliance
A Look Back at 2017 Food Recalls
Norovirus Sickens More than 100 at 2018 Winter Olympic Games
New USDA, FDA Joint Venture to Improve Food Safety Oversight and Inspection Process
Lactalis Official Statement Regarding Salmonella Tainted Baby Formula
List of Lactalis Recalled Products 
South Africa's Listeriosis Outbreak Death Toll Exceeds 100
Chicken Line Speed Changes
PCA's Remaining Appeals Denied
What's in Your Sushi?

Bob Ferguson's Food Safety Insights Articles:
Food Safety Insights: Testing and Sanitation for Allergen Control (February/March 2018) 
Food Safety Insights: Outsourcing: Pathogen Testing under the Microscope ( December 2017/January 2018)
Food Safety Insights: The New Face of Sanitation Programs: New Rules, New Challenges (October/November 2017)
Food Safety Insights: A Closer Look at Environmental Monitoring in the Processing Plant (August/September 2017)
Food Safety Insights: What Industry and FDA Are Thinking About FSMA Implementation (June/July 2017)
Food Safety Insights: The Drivers of Differences in Food Safety Testing Practices (April/May 2017)
Food Safety Insights: A Look at the Microbiology Testing Market (February/March 2017)

Miguel Ramirez is a seasoned food manufacturing executive with more than three decades of operational leadership experience in the food industry. He currently serves as Vice President of Operations at Fresca Foods Inc. in Louisville, Colorado, where he has held progressive leadership roles over the past 13 years including Plant Manager, Director of Operations, and his current VP role. Prior to Fresca Foods, Miguel spent over 24 years with Butterball LLC, where he managed more than 12 production lines across a two-shift operation with a workforce of 350 employees.

Madisen Hodgson, M.S. is a food safety and quality assurance professional with nearly a decade of progressive experience spanning food manufacturing, retail bakery, beverage, and airline catering environments. She currently serves as a Quality Assurance Manager for a protein and nutritional bar manufacturer in Denver, Colorado, where she oversees the full food safety management system and leads a multi-shift quality assurance team across multiple production lines.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to WHO’s Dr. Elaine Borghi about the new global foodborne disease burden estimates, updates to the methodology, key insights from the data, and the importance of using data to target food safety interventions, aligning with the WFSD theme “From Burden to Solutions—Safe Food Everywhere.”

Alissa Welsher, Ph.D. is a Senior Consultant at Elanco Poultry Food Safety. Dr. Welsher received her bachelor's degree in biological sciences from the University of Pittsburgh, a master's degree in poultry science, and a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Arkansas. Her area of expertise is in meat and poultry food safety, and she specializes in integrated pest management (IPM). 

Brady Carter, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Officer at Carter Scientific Solutions. He specializes in water activity, moisture sorption, shelf-life stability, plant science, and wheat production and quality. He has 23 years of experience in research and development and previously was a Research Professor at Washington State University focusing on wheat end-use quality. Dr. Carter has pioneered work in using dynamic isotherms to investigate product stability and establish critical water activities for optimal shelf life. He also specializes in shelf-life loss and effective utilization of instrumentation to address product safety and quality issues. Dr. Carter holds a Ph.D. in Crop Science and Food Engineering and an M.S degree in Cereal Chemistry and Crop Science from Washington State University, as well as a B.A. degree in Botany from Weber State University.

To get a taste of the discussions that were happening at the 2026 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Roberta Wagner, M.Sc., Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs for the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA); Steven Mandernach, J.D., Executive Director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) and Sandra Eskin, J.D., CEO of STOP Foodborne Illness; Jacob Nelson, Asset Protection Sales Manager at the Sherwin-Williams Company and Feraas Aiameh, Food and Beverage Marketing Manager at the Sherwin-Williams Company; Conrad Choiniere, Ph.D., Director of  the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA's) Office of Microbiological Food Safety, Vanessa Coffman, Ph.D., Director of the Alliance to Stop Foodborne Illness, and Lone Jespersen, Ph.D., Founder and Principal of Cultivate SA; and Cindy Jiang, Senior Director, Global Food Safety Risk Management, Global Supply Chain at McDonald's (retired).

To get a taste of the discussions that were happening at the 2026 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Jeremy Zenlea, M.B.A., Vice President and Head of Health and Safety for EG America and Laurie Farmer, Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Office of Retail Food Protection; David Clifford, M.B.A., Director of Food Safety at Nestlé USA and Sara Mortimore, M.Sc., Founder of Sara Mortimore LLC and formerly Vice President for Food Safety at Walmart; Frank Curto, Ph.D., Vice President of Operations at Ecowize North America; and Drew McDonald, Senior Vice President of Quality, Food Safety, and Regulatory Affairs for Taylor Fresh Foods and Conrad Choiniere, Ph.D., Director of FDA’s Office of Microbiological Food Safety.