Jorge Hernandez is the chief food safety and compliance officer for Wholesome International, a restaurant company with different concepts and brands in the quick and fast casual foodservice markets in the U.S. He is responsible for food safety, quality, regulatory compliance, and sustainability for the organization. This includes developing structure and reporting lines for the staff, risk-based policies and procedures that meet or exceed FDA, USDA, and/or state regulations, as well as the department leadership and oversight over the company’s suppliers, restaurants, processing facilities, and distribution.

Previously, Hernandez worked for 12 years as the senior vice president for food safety and quality assurance at US Foods where he developed the food safety, quality, and food regulatory program for a corporation that included more than 80 distribution centers, 14 processing facilities, and over 550 private label co-packers with 1,600 facilities across all segments of the food industry.

Earlier, Jorge was the vice president of food safety and risk management at the National Restaurant Association where he led the development of the award-winning ServSafe food safety training program for the restaurant industry.

Jorge started his career as a regulator and held positions at the state and the Winnebago County health departments in Illinois, U.S. He has earned degrees in biology from Rockford University, microbiology from the Centro de Estudios Medico-Biologicos in Mexico City Mexico, and languages and literature from la Universite de la Sorbonne, Paris, France.

Jorge is the board member of several industry organizations, including STOP Foodborne, the International Food Protection Institute, and GFSI, where he co-leads the development of the International Standards for the Food Warehouse and Distribution and is currently the co-chair of the GFSI U.S./Canada Group.

Hernandez has published many articles and is a recognized consultant in the areas of food safety, food safety management systems, food safety accreditation, food safety training, and food safety operations. 

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

• The art of balancing food safety science with common sense and making decisions based on both
• Food safety culture and how it allows employees to speak up when food safety is at risk
• Challenges of temperature control, contamination, and traceability while distributing food
• The importance of working with supply chain partners who are knowledgeable about food safety and take it seriously
• Why having the most sophisticated, up-to-date technology is not always enough to ensure the safety of food
• Challenges faced by large food transporters that are not always problematic for smaller, local, or regional operators
• The importance of using technology properly to ensure the best data and integrity possible
• Best practices for transporting mixed loads 
• Why documentation and record-keeping are so important for times when technology may fail
• His thoughts on why food distribution is not a huge target for intentional contamination
• How the introduction of FSMA has helped make it safer to transport both raw product and ready-to-eat product on the same truck without cross-contamination issues
• Common transportation issues and the use of trucks that are not fit to safely transport food
• Working with GFSI to create international standards for transportation and warehousing
• How GFSI standards compare to the FSMA Sanitary Transportation rule
• Positive trends he sees with technology, big data, analytics, epidemiology, DNA, traceability, blockchain, and more.

Related Content:
FSMA's Final Rule on Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food 
The Supply Chain and Food Safety Culture: Distribution (June/July 2017)
The State of Food Safety: Regulation, Collaboration and the Advancement of a Globally Safe Food Supply (August/September 2012)
Foodservice Distribution: Maintaining the Cold Chain (August/September 2009)

News Mentioned in This Episode
South African Poultry Plant Closes Amid Deadly Listeria Outbreak Investigation
A Spoor-Marler Team Plans Class Action for South African Listeria Victims
Family of 5-Year-Old Awarded $6.5 Million in Salmonella Chicken Case

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.