Lone Jespersen is a principal at Cultivate, an organization dedicated to helping food manufacturers globally make safe, great tasting food through cultural effectiveness. Lone has significant experience with food manufacturing, having previously spent 11 years with Maple Leaf Foods. Following the tragic event in 2008 when Maple Leaf products claimed 23 Canadian lives, Lone lead the execution of the Maple Leaf Foods, food safety strategy and its operations learning strategy.

Prior to that, Lone worked for Woodbridge Foam as the engineering and operations manager responsible for the safety and quality of automobile safety products. Lone holds a Master's degree in mechanical engineering from Syd Dansk University, Denmark, a Master of food science from the University of Guelph, Canada and is presently pursuing her Ph.D. on Culture Enabled Food Safety with Dr. Mansel Griffiths at the University of Guelph, Canada.

Lone currently serves as chair of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) technical working group on Food Safety Culture, a group dedicated to characterizing and quantifying food safety culture across the global food industry from farm to fork. 

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

• Her time at Maple Leaf Foods when a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak claimed the lives of 23 Canadians.
• Moving forward and how Maple Leaf Foods transformed their entire food safety approach.
• The elaborate 4-tier food safety program implemented at Maple Leaf Foods.
• Elevating the importance of food safety culture within a business.
• How trade associations can help to enforce the impact that food safety really has.
• Her involvement with the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
• The Food Safety Magazine 2017 series on food safety culture and how every sector within the food industry can benefit from reading the series.
• Food safety maturity of culture
• Balancing food safety with other business goals.

Related Content:
The Supply Chain and Food Safety Culture: Distribution (June/July 2017)
The Supply Chain and Food Safety Culture: Primary Production (April/May 2017)
Supply Chain and Food Safety Culture (Feb/March 2017)

News Mentioned in This Episode
CDC: Raw Milk, Cheese Cause Almost All Dairy Foodborne Illnesses
No More Appeals for Former Egg Executives
Study: Effective Handwashing Does Not Require Hot Water
FSMA's Foreign Supplier Verification Program Rule Now Final

Sponsored by:

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Food Safety Pixels to Pictures: Sharpening the Food Safety Picture with Actionable Data, this webinar will provide a step by step review of the importance of building a foundation with accurate data, a trusted lab partner, as well as how data management solutions can bring all the data into focus. It will also include a real-world application to show how this is being used to navigate the new regulatory landscape. 

Sign Up for the Food Safety Pixels to Pictures Webinar

Christopher Waldrop, M.P.H., is a Senior Health Scientist in the Division of Public Health Informatics and Analytics at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (FDA’s CFSAN). In this role, he leads cross-agency workgroups to advance FDA priorities on nutrition, food safety, and biotechnology issues. He also helps identify and assess emerging consumer research and educational needs, advises CFSAN leadership on potential and emerging issues, and assists in prioritizing activities in FDA's food program. Mr. Waldrop holds a degree in advertising from Texas Tech University and an M.P.H. degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Vanessa Coffman is the Director of the Alliance to Stop Foodborne Illness. She comes to Stop Foodborne Illness with a diverse background in food safety and sustainability, with a focus on environmental exposures across the food system. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a M.S. degree in Global Public Health and the Environment from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bill Potter, Ph.D. is a Technical Advisor at Elanco Poultry Food Safety. Dr. Potter received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Poultry Science from the University of Arkansas, as well as a B.S. degree in Animal Science and an M.B.A. from Texas A&M University. His areas of expertise include food safety, food quality, and pathogen intervention technologies.

Nikki Shariat, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center in the Department of Population Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia. She holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Vanderbilt University and a B.Sc. degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of East Anglia in the UK. She is listed as an author or co-author on more than 40 published scientific papers, and is also the author of a book chapter in Salmonella: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology).

To get a taste of the discussions that were happening at the 2023 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Deb Kane, Vice President of Food Safety, Quality, EHSS, and Regulatory at J&J Snack Foods Corp; Sandra Eskin, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); and Ann Marie McNamara, Vice President of Food Safety and Quality for Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Commercialization at US Foods. We also heard from Brian Barr of ABB and Andrew Lansinger of QAD Redzone.

To get a taste of the discussions happening at the 2022 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Michael (Mike) Taylor, J.D., Board Member Emeritus at Stop Foodborne Illness and the 2023 Recipient of Food Safety Magazine’s Distinguished Service Award; Steve Ardaugh, CEO and Founder of Eagle Protect; Mindy Brashears, Ph.D., Professor of Food Safety and Public Health at Texas Tech University; and Harshavardhan Thippareddi, Ph.D., John Bekkers Professor of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia.

Angela Anandappa, Ph.D. is the Founding Director for the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation. She has researched and worked in food safety and genomics for over 20 years, having established the Food Systems Innovation Center at the University of Kentucky with the goal of providing resources for local food businesses. She is also a board member of the Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative.

Sally Powell Price is MilliporeSigma’s Regulatory and Public Health Expert for Food and Beverage Safety Testing in North America. Previously, she served as Director of Lab Operations at a biotech startup in Boston and was the Food Lab Supervisor at the New York City Department of Health Public Health Laboratory. She holds a B.S. in Biology from Hamilton College, a M.S. in Microbiology and Immunology from James Cook University in Australia, and did continuing coursework in public health and foodborne disease at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She is a member of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) and AOAC International. 

Justyce Jedlicka serves as the Food and Beverage Regulatory Liaison in North America for MilliporeSigma. Responsible for engaging with influencers in the food and beverage industry to align initiatives with regulatory compliance and promote best practices for food safety and quality testing methods, Justyce has been serving the food and beverage industry since 2013. She received a B.S. in Chemistry and an M.B.A. from the University of Missouri in St. Louis. She currently serves as the Food Sciences Section Chair and Executive Board Member of the American Council of Independent Labs and is a member of IAFP, International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT), and AOAC International.