Joan Menke-Schaenzer is the chief quality officer at Van Drunen Farms and FutureCeuticals. There, she is responsible for the safety and quality of the company's vegetable and herb growing and processing plants—both conventional and organic—as well as their nutraceutical ingredient business. 

Joan's career has also included food safety and quality roles in manufacturing, foodservice, and retail. She's led McDonalds' global supply chain, safety, and compliance organization. She spearheaded food safety and quality at ConAgra, Walmart, and Kraft as well.

Joan served on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Food Advisory Committee and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's Board of Scientific Counselors Food Safety Modernization Act Implementation Working Group.

Joan earned her B.Sc. in food science from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.  

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Joan [17:09] about:

• Challenges she's experienced across the supply chain at various levels of the food industry
• The importance of communication and soft skills in food safety
• How creative thinking can advance food safety success
• Her involvement in past foodborne outbreaks and how being proactive was the best decision for public health
• Issuing a recall even before a clear root cause was confirmed
• Gaining support from employers when it comes to joining industry and trade associations
• Why it's imperative to have existing relationships with regulators before a crisis occurs
• The benefits of epidemiological traceback and it can help in the event of an outbreak
• Proactively managing supply chains with GFSI audits
• Consumer research and combining that with risk assessment
• The benefits of partnering with suppliers
• How she used whole-genome sequencing to pinpoint the source of a growth niche
• Her views on blockchain and how it may not be the answer at all levels of the food supply chain
• How becoming responsible for profit and loss changed how she approached food safety decision-making
• Why it's important to build a support network throughout your career

News Mentioned in This Episode
Study: Here's Why Consumers Don't Use Thermometers When They Cook [2:36]
Updated Tomato Metrics [6:23]
Push for a Single Federal Food Safety Agency [9:54] 

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.