Steven Mandernach is the executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), which unites high-level regulatory officials, industry representatives, trade associations, academia, and consumer organizations. Prior to becoming executive director in 2018, Steve was the bureau chief for food and consumer safety at the Iowa Department of Inspections. He is a past president of AFDO and current co-chair of the Association’s Laws and Regulations committee. He has a J.D. from Drake University Law School.

Ernest Julian, Ph.D. is chief of the Center for Food Protection for the Rhode Island Department of Health, a position he has held for the last 30 years. Prior to this, he was with the Connecticut Department of Health for 14 years. He is president of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) and he has served as AFDO’s representative to the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s FSMA Surveillance Workgroup. Ernie is also an adjunct assistant professor of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at Brown University.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Steve and Ernie [26.51] about:

• Current efforts to improve recall notifications and outbreak response at the retail level
• The need for additional funding to conduct more laboratory work and more epidemiologists
• What it means to shift resources to improve food safety
• Physicians' ability to test for foodborne pathogens, and how is helpful during an outbreak investigation
• Food safety culture as an issue for regulators, not just industry
• Programs that teach retail level inspectors how to conduct environmental sampling, regardless of whether or not an implicated, contaminated food is still on the market
• Figuring out how to deal with emerging trends (online food selling, meal delivery apps, etc.) before they become widespread
• Pinpointing the exact risks associated with home meal delivery kits
• Creating distance between sources of contamination and ready-to-eat foods at concentrated animal food operations
• The change in food safety culture needed at the farmer's level after decades of using manure for fertilizer
• Rhode Island's process of investigating individual cases of listeriosis

Steve Mandernach's Articles in Food Safety Magazine
Keeping Food Safe in the C-Store Environment 
Unsung Heroes: State and Local Public Health Officials Innovating Outbreak Investigations
Responding to Harvey and Irma: Rapid Response Teams Take Action  
Building an Integrated Food Safety System One Brick at a Time 
Integrating the Nation's Food Safety System: What You Need to Know 

Ernie Julian's Articles in Food Safety Magazine
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: RRTs in Action
Creating the Rapid Response Road Map: Collaboration Points the Way Forward

Resources:
AFDO Retail Webinars (Hepatitis A and Norovirus)

Bob Ferguson's Food Safety Insights [16:35]
Bob joins us to discuss his article featured in our February/March 2020 issue:
Food Safety Priorities and Plans for 2020: Part 2

Want more from Bob Ferguson? Find more of his articles and podcast segments.

News Mentioned in This Episode
FDA Approves Costco as First Participant in FSMA's VQIP [8:24]
FDA Warns Jimmy John's and Sprouts Unlimited After Outbreak [10:24]
U.S. Welcomes Imports of Previously Banned Brazilian Beef [12:00] 

The 2019 n-CoV Coronavirus Is Not a Food Supply Threat  

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.