At the 21st annual Food Safety Summit in Rosemont, IL, editorial director Barbara VanRenterghem sat down with four food safety pros for real-time insight on the Summit sessions, topics, trends, and more.

Craig Henry is a food safety consultant with Intro Inc. There, he specializes in U.S. food safety program development and review for federal regulatory compliance such as the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). He is a lead instructor for FSMA Preventive Control Qualified Individual training for human food. He also led the contracting team delivering technical content for FSMA human food guidance to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Prior to this role, Craig's previous roles were with Decernis, Deloitte and Touche, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Koch Foods, Foster Farms, and Cargill, among others. 

Gary Ades is president of G&L Consulting Group LLC. He is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Food Safety Magazine.

Paul Kiecker is the Deputy Administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)—a role he's held since May 2018. From August 2017 through January 2019, Kiecker was the agency’s Acting Administrator. He initially joined FSIS in 1988 as a food inspector.

​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. He's also held past roles at Fresh Integrity Group, Inc., Earthbound Farm, and as a consultant in the foodservice sector. 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 named one of the food industry’s top food safety leaders by Marler/Clark’s Food Safety News in 2013. 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 Craig [9:15], Gary [20:18], Paul [36:05], and Will [47:31] about:

• Food Safety Summit's new format, Community Cafes, and the new focus on supply chain management content
• Recurring challenges for Summit attendees: keeping up with documentation, lack of resources, little commitment, incorrect reporting, and more
• The need for university extensions to bridge the gap with smaller food businesses
• Problems associated with incongruent messaging from the government agencies
• Why business and financial expertise are needed when making food safety decisions
• How changes within the industry are leading to food safety problems not seen in years
• Whole genome sequencing
• Blockchain technology

News Mentioned in This Episode
LGMA Releases New, Stricter Water Rules for Leafy Greens Growers [1:45]
Foodborne Illness is on the Rise, Says CDC [2:26]
Walmart Welcomes Sara Mortimore as New Food Safety Leader [2:58]
CDC Tweets: Don't Wash Raw Chicken [3:25]

Sponsored by:

The 2019 Sani Awards
No-Rinse Sanitizing Multi-Surface Spray 
SaniProfessional.com

Alex LeBeau, Ph.D., M.P.H., CIH is the owner of Exposure Assessment Consulting LLC in Orlando, Florida, where he offers toxicology, industrial hygiene, risk assessment, and public health consulting services. Over his 13-year career, he has evaluated environmental and occupational exposures and has performed toxicological evaluations of chemicals and biological agents. He has also performed human health risk assessments of contaminated sites using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state regulatory guidelines and has monitored remediation activities at those sites. To evaluate the exposure impacts on building occupants, he has performed indoor environmental quality assessments, including Legionella and water quality assessments, at healthcare, residential, and industrial facilities.

In this bonus episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to MilliporeSigma food regulatory compliance experts about how regulators, laboratories, and manufacturers are responding to emerging food safety risks in an increasingly complex landscape.

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.