Dr. Alissa Welsher is Associate Senior Consultant at Elanco Poultry Food Safety. Dr. Welsher received her B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as an M.S. degree in Poultry Science and a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Arkansas. Her area of expertise is molecular physiology, and she specializes in heat stress and gut health. In this episode of Food Safety Matters , we speak with Dr. Welsher about: Why a comprehensive Integrated P...
Oct 20, 2022•25 min
Stephen Hughes is Prevention Coordinator within the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), within the Office of Food Safety at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). After outbreaks and adverse incidents, he runs a systematic process to identify and implement public health interventions intended to help limit or prevent future outbreaks linked to certain FDA-regulated foods. Before coming to FDA, Stephen worked in a public health program in Virginia, in program areas that in...
Oct 18, 2022•41 min
Kimberly (Kim) Livsey is a Senior Emergency Response Coordinator in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Office of Regulatory Affairs' (ORA's) Office of Human and Animal Food Operations. In addition to more than 20 years of federal service at FDA, she has leveraged her expertise in food safety oversight and emergency management at the state and local government levels. Prior to her time at FDA, she was an environmental health specialist with the DeKalb County Board of Health in Decatu...
Oct 11, 2022•53 min
Michael R. Taylor is a member of the board of Stop Foodborne Illness, a consumer organization supporting and representing the victims of foodborne illness and their families. From January 2010 to June 2016, he served as Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He led FDA's implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and oversaw FDA's other food-related activities, including its nutrition, labeling, food additive, dietary...
Sep 27, 2022•41 min
An accomplished attorney and national expert in food safety, William (Bill) Marler has become the most prominent foodborne illness lawyer in America with his firm, Marler Clark: The Food Safety Law Firm, and a major force in food policy in the U.S. and around the world. For the past 26 years, Bill has represented victims of nearly every large foodborne illness outbreak in the U.S. He began litigating foodborne illness cases in 1993, when he represented Brianne Kiner, the most seriously injured s...
Sep 20, 2022•40 min
John Butts, Ph.D., is the Principal at Food Safety By Design LLC and the Advisor to the CEO at Land O' Frost Inc., where he was in the primary technical role for 47 years, having retired in 2021. As part of his succession plan, Dr. Butts founded Food Safety By Design LLC in 2010. Food Safety By Design helps producers of high-risk products learn how to prevent and manage food safety risks. Dr. Butts' specialty is the incorporation of food safety practices into company culture, including root caus...
Sep 13, 2022•40 min
Deborah Blum, Director of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT and the Publisher of Undark magazine, is a Pulitzer-Prize winning science journalist, columnist and author of six books, most recently, The Poison Squad , a 2018 New York Times Notable Book. That book, as with all her recent books, focuses on influential moments in the history of science. She has worked as a science columnist for The New York Times , a blogger for Wired , and has written for other publications ranging from Th...
Sep 06, 2022•1 hr 46 min
Conrad Choiniere, Ph.D., is the Director of the Office of Analytics and Outreach at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). Dr. Choiniere provides executive leadership for a broad portfolio of scientific and regulatory functions including risk and decision analysis, social and behavioral sciences, epidemiology, biostatistics and informatics, education and outreach, and food defense. Dr. Choiniere currently co-leads a core element of F...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 15 min
Gillian Kelleher is President and CEO of Kelleher Consultants LLC, as well as the Chairperson of the Educational Advisory Board (EAB) for the 2023 Food Safety Summit. Gillian has significant, global leadership experience in the food industry and in food safety and quality, having lived and worked in Ireland, the UK, France, and the U.S. She has worked in diverse sectors including manufacturing, foodservice, retail, and distribution. She was formerly Vice President of Food Safety and Quality Assu...
Aug 09, 2022•41 min
Jill Stuber has served on FSQ teams for several multi-million-dollar food companies and food industry support companies, at both the corporate and frontline facility levels. She has defined expectations and programs for company-wide FSQ systems and has been responsible for verifying the implementation of those systems. Jill has led multi-plant teams to clearly define team and individual roles, expectations, and boundaries to more fully integrate and collaborate across organizations. Jill holds B...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Markus Lipp, Ph.D., is the Senior Food Safety Officer at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Dr. Lipp leads the food safety work within the Food Systems and Food Safety Division at FAO, coordinating FAO's efforts to provide chemical and microbiological food safety risk assessments and capacity development to strengthen national capacities for food safety. Dr. Lipp previously worked in various public and private organizations focusing on a myriad of topics related ...
Jul 12, 2022•1 hr 26 min
Tim Stubbs is Senior Vice President of Food Safety and Product Research at the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. He leads the Innovation Center's Food Safety Committee, an active group of food safety expert volunteers from processors and academia that shares best practices across companies, produces guidance documents, and conducts training. He also coordinates and funds dairy foods and food safety research projects at universities. Mr. Stubbs has more than 30 years of food research and developm...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 15 min
Dr. Charles Hofacre is the Principal at The Southern Poultry Research Group, a private contract research company, which he established with his wife in 2013. Previously, he worked in industry for a number of years before becoming a professor at the University of Georgia in the Department of Population Health and serving as Director of Clinical Services for the Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center. Dr. Hofacre also served as the Executive Vice President of the the American Association of Avian ...
Jun 16, 2022•29 min
Marc Cwikowski is Founder and Managing Director of All Food Consulting and Co-Founder of World of Auditing . He has worked for more than 30 years in the food and beverage industry and held various senior global leadership and executive positions in companies including Unilever, The Coca-Cola Company, and Danone. His former functions include audit process manager, director of quality and food safety strategy, director of supply chain capability development, food safety center director, and vice p...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 13 min
To get a taste of the discussions that were happening at the 2022 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Hal King, Managing Partner at Active Food Safety and John Zimmerman, Vice President of Quality Assurance and Food Safety at First Watch Restaurants; Mark Moorman, Director of the Office of Food Safety at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (FDA's CFSAN); Mikael Bengtsson, Industry Principle for Food and Beverage at Infor; Steve Manderna...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 17 min
Joe Stout, R.S. is a leader in quality and sanitation with over 40 years of experience in the industry. He founded Commercial Food Sanitation (CFS) in 2010, which provides strategic consulting, training, and solutions to address food safety, hygienic design, and sanitation challenges for food processing plants worldwide. Previously, Mr. Stout spent 30 years at Kraft Foods. While there, he held a variety of positions related to operations, quality, and sanitation, ultimately leading to his role a...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Dr. Guangtao Zhang, Ph.D., is the Director of the Mars Global Food Safety Center (GFSC), where he leads an international team of experts who are driving progress in several areas of food safety, including mycotoxin risk management, microbial risk management, and food integrity. Dr. Zhang has contributed to over 40 peer-reviewed publications and five patents that are advancing capabilities in food safety science and application. He has also shared insights at several international conferences in ...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Hilarie Warren, M.P.H., C.I.H., manages the OSHA Training Institute (OTI) Education Center at Georgia Tech, one of the first OTI Education Centers in the national network of occupational safety and health training organizations authorized by OSHA. Jenny Houlroyd, M.S.P.H., C.I.H., has worked as an industrial hygienist with the OSHA Consultation Program for 16 years, providing onsite OSHA compliance assistance for businesses throughout the state of Georgia. She serves as the Manager of the Occupa...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr 16 min
Kathy Gombas is a recognized food safety expert with over 30 years of experience in the food industry—specializing in preventive controls, supply chain management, food safety auditing, and regulatory affairs. Kathy is the founder of FSMA Solutions, a consulting group that provides food safety solutions to the food industry. She works with large food companies in conducting corporate food safety system gap assessments to identify vulnerabilities and assists small- to medium-sized businesses in d...
Mar 22, 2022•1 hr 11 min
Jeff Hahn, Principal at Hahn Marketing & Communications, is a crisis communications expert with 30 years of experience in communications and public relations. He is a specialist in the food and energy sectors and is the owner of a family of integrated agency brands including Apron Food & Beverage Communications, Hahn Public Communications, the Predictive Media Network, and White Lion Interactive. He also served in the U.S. Air Force, where he completed his associate degree in administrat...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Shawn Stevens is the founding member of Food Industry Counsel, the only law firm in the world that represents the food industry exclusively. As a food industry consultant and lawyer, Mr. Stevens works throughout the U.S. and abroad with food industry clients—including the world's largest growers, processors, restaurant chains, distributors, and grocers—helping them protect their brands by reducing food safety risks, complying with FDA and USDA food safety regulations, managing recalls and defend...
Feb 22, 2022•1 hr 13 min
Erik Mettler is Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy within the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In this role, he serves as advisor to the Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs on the full range of ORA's activities including partnerships, implementation of new laws and regulations, and overall strategic planning and prioritization. He is responsible for providing long-range strategic direction for ORA policies and programs includi...
Feb 08, 2022•53 min
Adam J. Kuszak, Ph.D., is a health scientist administrator in the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) and the director of the ODS Analytical Methods and Reference Materials (AMRM) Program. Through AMRM, he works with stakeholders involved in research, industry, and regulatory affairs to support scientific resource development and promote biomedical research on the mechanisms and health effects of dietary supplements and natural products. In addition, he provides scientific expertise and analyses...
Jan 31, 2022•31 min
Jennifer McEntire is Chief Food Safety and Regulatory Officer at the International Fresh Produce Association. Prior to the merger of United Fresh and Produce Marketing Association, Jennifer was Vice President of Food Safety and Technology at United Fresh Produce Association. A food microbiologist by background, she has always worked in the Washington, D.C., area, bringing a scientific perspective to food safety regulatory issues. She was previously vice president of science operations at the Gro...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 9 min
With 2021 in the rear-view mirror, the Food Safety Matters team, along with Bob Ferguson of Strategic Consulting, sat down to discuss the big food safety stories and impacts of 2021, and peek ahead at what's in store as we begin 2022. Topics discussed in this episode include: Regulatory Changes New Era of Smarter Food Safety PFAS COVID-19 Supply Chain Food Market Changes Food Safety Culture Sponsored by: Michigan State University Online Food Safety Program Online MS in Food Safety Program Curric...
Jan 11, 2022•55 min
Mark Wittrock is the Director of the Food, Agriculture, and Veterinary Defense Division within the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this role, he oversees the coordination and integration of the Department's food, agriculture, and veterinary defense efforts across DHS, the federal interagency, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, academia, and the international community. His DHS focus is largely on mitigating the p...
Dec 14, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Sally Powell Price joined MilliporeSigma in 2020 as a Regulatory Expert for Food Safety Testing for North America. Previously, she served as Director of Lab Operations at a biotech startup in Boston and was a Food Lab Supervisor at the New York City Department of Health - Public Health Laboratory. She has a bachelor's degree in Biology, a master's in Microbiology & Immunology, and did continuing coursework in public health and foodborne disease at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She...
Dec 02, 2021•32 min
Mitzi Baum joined the team at Stop Foodborne Illness as the Chief Executive Officer in May 2019. Prior to beginning her tenure at Stop, Mitzi cultivated a 23-year career at Feeding America beginning as a network services representative rising to the senior level position of managing director of food safety. Mitzi holds a Master of Science in Food Safety and a certificate in Food Law from Michigan State University. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Bowling Green State University, Bow...
Nov 23, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Kerry Bridges is Vice President of Food Safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill. In this role, Kerry oversees food safety standards, quality assurance, and procedures. Kerry joined Chipotle in January of 2019 and oversees a team of individuals who are committed to enforcing Chipotle's zero-tolerance policy and industry-leading processes, focusing on supply chain, in-restaurant practices, food prep, and employee training. Prior to joining Chipotle, Kerry oversaw supplier food safety for the world's larg...
Nov 09, 2021•40 min
Dr. Brittany Campbell is the Director of Technical Services for the National Pest Management Association (NPMA). NPMA is a global association supporting the pest management industry and its commitment to protecting public health, food, and property. Brittany earned her master's degree in Entomology from Virginia Tech and her Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Florida. In this episode of Food Safety Matters we speak with Brittany [20:49] about: Overview of National Pest Management Associa...
Oct 26, 2021•59 min
