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- [00:00]
A
The presenting sponsor of Food Safety Matters is Spectacular Labs, creators of Labina Box, the easiest, fastest and most cost effective way to perform rapid pathogen testing and receive a certificate of analysis on site. As part of today's episode, listeners will hear from Michael Fang, co founder of Spectacular Labs, about how this innovative technology can support your testing needs. You can also visit their website, specifically spectacularlabs.com to learn more. That's spectacular labs.com.
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B
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacy Atchison, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and I'm here with my co host, Adrienne Blum, our editorial director, and Bob Ferguson, president of Strategic consulting. We're here, we're recording this live in our beautiful podcast theater in the heart of the community hub at the 2025 Food Safety Summit Conference and Expo. Well, you guys, it's just so great to be sharing the theater with you today. And we actually have folks here with us. Yay. Thanks for coming. Thank you so much. So I guess we decided that we're going to try and do a little bit of an overview, so I'm going to share some of our impressions of what's been another wonderful event. Thanks in large part to some of our audience members who are contributors, speakers and so on. Support folks, everybody's here.
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A
Who wants to start?
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B
Where do we start? Do we start day one?
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C
You know, I think we start on day one, which when we say day one, we mean our Tuesday because that's when the workshop started. Some folks were here on Monday for our certification courses.
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B
Yeah, and they were great, too.
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C
Yeah, they were great as well.
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B
Some people got to learn HACCP from sar Mortimer.
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C
Yeah, that's pretty impressive.
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B
Yeah, that's pretty good.
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C
I'm sure they learned a lot. But, you know, I think, you know, on Tuesday for the Summit educational program to kick off with that wonderful workshop on traceability, Next Steps, Supply Chain Implementation, where we had so, so many great panelists from industry regulatory. You know, I mean, we, we had I think 12, 12 folks up there.
- [02:34]
B
Plus two from GS1, 12.
- [02:36]
C
So, you know, we had 14, essentially 14 panelists leading this incredible workshop. And of course, we had a session last year on traceability and that at that time, the FSMA 204 traceability rule was still set to go into effect in January 2026. Now, as we know, as of this March, the new administration under, or the FDA under the new administration has delayed the compliance date for that traceability rule by 30 months. And I think that was one of the Things that got incorporated certainly a little later into the session, but certainly looking at, okay, next steps not only in terms of implementation along the supply chain, but where do we go from here now that we're kind of in this gray zone of. Well, some people have already started really preparing and have, are well prepared to meet traceability requirements of that FSMA 204 rule. Some people are not as far along as they'd like. But what are the next steps? You need to take wherever you are, where should you be right now? And then, you know, all of this in light of, well, you know, industry is not going to have to comply with this for another 30 months. But that's no reason to lag behind or to not, you know, be up to your game with traceability and transparency along the supply chain.
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B
I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, industry is going there anyway.
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C
Right, right.
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B
I mean, it's happening.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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D
Well, I was talking to somebody with supply Chain yesterday saying the same thing. Don't wait. There's no sense in waiting. It's coming, you might as well get ready.
- [04:03]
B
Yeah. But you know, we certainly know that for certain, you know, sectors that it's harder. There's a lot of things to be worked out. So I think a lot of people are relieved to have more time to get the implementation together and smaller entities as well.
- [04:20]
C
That was one of the things that came out of that Reagan Udall roundtable discussions about the traceability rule last year was there was a lot of entities, especially smaller and medium sized entities, saying, we're still not totally clear on elements that need to be recorded. We think we need more time. And then when you look at foreign suppliers in the supply chain, they were saying, how do we work with, you know, how do we incorporate this under what we're doing here, you know, from within the US and then I think the retail food service sector also still had some questions, but that was.
- [04:54]
B
They've got a lot of questions, we've got some questions, but I mean, that.
- [04:58]
C
Was one of the cool things the workshop was trying to address. And it was a very interactive workshop. You know, started out with a traceability activity led by GS1, looking at, for example of a product, a tomato. And how does that move through the supply chain? At what points does it need to be recorded depending on what's happening to that tomato. And then we had, you know, some great, great information from the panelists on, you know, where are we and where do we, where do we go from here? They did nice Q&As with the audience throughout the entire workshop. And then at the end, Hillary Tessmar from FMI led the attendees through an exercise that helped them understand how to develop traceability plans. So it was a really comprehensive work workshop. And I mean it. It was definitely a packed three hours, but I think it's a very informative three hours.
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B
Well, and here's the good news. It was live streamed as well. So we can share with our podcast audience. So they can go on demand. They can go to foodsafetysummit.com and then under the main tab, I think the register tab, if you go down there, there's a live stream button. You can register for that along with eight other sessions. So we could probably spend this whole time talking about that. I know that there were a couple. Did you have anything else that you wanted to talk about from the date from the workshops?
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D
No. The thing I remember about the Fismo 204, the traceability one, was you couldn't get in the door if you didn't get there on time because it was such a popular session.
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B
Well, there was another one that you couldn't get in the door if you didn't get there on time. And that was Lone Jesperson's Beyond Compliance Harnessing Psychosocial Factors for a Stronger Food Safety Culture. She was there with Spear Marinakis from Maple Leaf and Kimberly Crawford from Birchwood Foods. And it was a really dynamic session. Lots of sharing and I just had to. I couldn't see the whole thing because I kept having to go get more chairs. But really, really great sharing there. Unfortunately, that one wasn't live streamed. So, see, we're just going to keep adding up all the reasons that y' all need to come for next year. Right?
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C
You know, another. Another standout I'd like to quickly.
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D
Talk.
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C
About from the workshop day on Tuesday was The Mock Trial 3.0, which was deposition training for the C suite. And that was, of course, Sean Stevens, the Food Industry Council, hosting another amazing session for us. Now, he's hosted two mock civil trials for us for the Summit and PASS that were the opening.
- [07:23]
B
He's done a lot of mocking.
- [07:26]
C
He's done a lot. He's done a lot with us, and it's always amazing. He's also, he always holds hosts an amazing session, he and his group. This one was designed a little differently because the focus of it was preparing your C suite and your executives in case they're ever deposed because of a foodborne illness outbreak or a recall or a lawsuit that is implicating your company in these things. And there were three panelists in that session as well. We had Dr. Philip Bronstein from OSI, Jorge Hernandez from the Wendy's Company, and Dr. Steven Lyon from Chick Fil A. And they all had a lot of great comments to share, and there was a lot of interactivity with the audience. But Sean Stephens gave a lot of really great examples through video of Here's a fictional scenario where an executive of a food safety VP is being deposed. Here's the way to not do it, or the unprepared way that you might be deposed. And then here's someone who's had preparation. And I thought it was very, very interesting because that's a window into something that not a lot of people get to see, but something that may be necessary for you to know at some point. So I just really thought that was a fantastic workshop. And in fact, the workshop ended and all the attendees wanted to stay in the room for the next 25 minutes and continue to ask questions. So no one left. It was. It was amazing.
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B
Yeah, I heard a lot of good things. Did you attend that one, Bob? I didn't get to.
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D
I didn't this year, but I have in the past. And the one thing. Adrian, you said this as well. If you've never been through that, it's a. It's not what you think it is. And some of the things you're doing when you're being deposed and in a trial, there's a lot of really sensitive things that he brings out when he does these mock trials, which is great. The other thing was really interesting when they do that is when he has the audience become the jury and you see how the results come out. And it's not tv. It's not like tv.
- [09:17]
B
No, it's not. Well, so workshops the next day was a keen. I mean, Wednesday we could go, like, every session. This is going to be forever. We're just going to.
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D
Well, if I could make one comment about a session that was also on Wednesday was. There's a session that was entitled Sanitation Basics.
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B
Yes.
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D
And I sat in on that because I wanted to listen to surprised me a little bit, because they went over all the basics of sanitation. They went through the fundamentals that you needed to know. But it was several speakers from osi, Kraft and also Hormel, most of which had been with their companies for several decades. And they went through way more than the basics. It was what I learned in 40 years of working in a plant and what you have to look at and what you should see, don't just Walk in and look left and right, look up, look. They went through way more than the basics. And the other thing they've used, which I've seen used before, but they did this in a really excellent way, is they were polling the audience the whole time and getting their answers. And they would say, okay, here's a problem. What's the answer to this problem? And you would see different answers come up and. And they would go, okay, you folks got it right. Let's go back. And they would go and correct what you should have used. It was a really nice tool.
- [10:28]
B
And that just really points out to me the benefit of the workshops, of the workshop day. Some people said came up to me and went three hours, two hours for a session. Like, I'm like, these, these aren't sessions. These are workshops. Those two hours go by hands on, you know, interactive. And we're really committed to that. And I think people get. Get an awful lot out of that.
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C
We had amazing expertise from our panelists to share this year for all these workshops, all the sessions, you know, in fact. But yes.
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B
Yeah, just amazing.
- [10:57]
D
Pretty deep. A lot of content on this.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Well, the keynote and you know, which we kicked off first of all with doing, presenting.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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C
The Distinguished Service award to our 2025.
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B
Distinguished Service Award to Joseph Corby for.
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C
All of his service on this state and national levels over the past, like four plus decades. Well, and so amazing career.
- [11:21]
B
Joe said something that I don't think that a lot of people know, but need to know is that if it was not for our longtime editorial advisory board member and audience member here, doctor, not doctor, he's a doctor. To me, you could. You should be honorary Larry Keener. There would be no Food Safety Magazine Distinguished Service Award. So certainly distinguished service on behalf of Larry Keener because it's turned into this wonderful, wonderful thing for the industry. And to see so many people were so pleased to see Joe, as well as all of our other recipients honored this year. So it was really nice. And he's had just a really long. And he's had a big impact. And it's really nice to be able to honor that kind of impact and recognize sometimes people who aren't always recognized. So very, very important.
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C
Our keynote discussion, I think, was the feedback that I have heard from attendees was that the most common word I've heard was that was really different. But people are saying it in a very positive way. And I think the thing that was really interesting about Dr. Jason Evans's keynote, which you'll remember I interviewed him for a podcast episode a little while back, and we talked about his upcoming keynote talk at the summit. And the thing I think is that Dr. Evans's experience, multifaceted experience, and then now, you know, working in academia at Johnson and Wales University, he had so much rich information to share about how teams function well and what happens when they don't, and how. Well, the subject of this talk, how to be a leader when nothing is easy, and especially how to be a good leader to your employees when you know that they're bringing to work things like, you know, personal life concerns, financial baggage, you know, concerns about the world they live in, all of these different. And obviously concerns about, you know, what they're doing at their job. Because who's not thinking about food safety when you're working in a food plant? So, so, and I think one of the takeaways that I really liked from that talk, which it spanned so many, you know, incredibly important overarching topics, but was that he said the most important thing you can be as a leader to your employees is first off, kind. And I thought that was really revelatory because we talk about kindness as a concept that's important in our perspective, in our personal lives, our family, our friends. But how often do we talk about it in a context of showing kindness to the people you work with? So, I mean, like, I thought that was really, it's just, it's, it's so simple, but it's so, it was so eye opening, actually, it was.
- [14:16]
B
And I, I, I was sitting there the whole time thinking, I wonder how this is going to land. Because it wasn't specifically food safety. And I think a lot of people were waiting for that. But that kindness piece to, to me is sort of culture before food safety code, like, what's the overall human culture? And to really strip back on that and to see each other in that sort of whole person and know that you're dealing with a whole person here and not, not just expect, I don't know.
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C
Yeah, I mean, just fostering people to do, fostering the means for people to do their job well. And that starts with, you know, establishing relationships with your team. And, you know, if you're the kind of leader where they feel like they can knock on your office door or walk in and talk to you about something they're concerned about. And we always talk about that in the context of food safety. You know, if you see something, say something. Right. And maybe you don't take it to your top leader right away, but your team leader. Right. If you are a person that they feel like is going to be receptive to listening to their concerns, whether that's about their job, about what's going on in the plant, or about a personal matter that affects their work life, their work life balance, or their working life. You know, I mean, that's really important to be able to be that person or to learn how to be that person. You know, So, I mean, I thought it was a really insightful talk. And also I heard, you know, a lot of attendees say, you know, it's. We have so much amazing, focused content on food safety, technical subjects at the summit. This was an interesting, like, kind of almost a break from that, where we go a little bit out of that space and we hear about something that's a little bit bigger picture, larger issue, but that funnels down into what's the culture at our plant, what's the culture at our company, and how does that affect how employees are, you know, able to function. Yeah, able to function and able to. Able to support food safety goals and food safety programs.
- [16:12]
D
So if I can make a comment about his presentation is. And I heard the same sort of comments from a couple people where they said it was, excuse me, where's the coughs?
- [16:26]
B
Graham.
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E
But.
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D
But one of the things is, the reason why it was different is you get a lot of those presentations where they talk about, I'm doing it again, where they talk about what to do and you'll talk about leadership, and here's the next step in leadership, and here's how they're going. What he was talking about that I think a few people may have missed was the why. If you start out with an understanding like he talked about what I've heard called atomization. But the fact is that people are not connected with their communities as much anymore. They're not connected with each other. We're on our phones too much. So we're all becoming little independent atoms.
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B
Yeah.
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D
But if you're going to try to have a leadership program and understand why it's working, you have to understand that that's where people are coming from. And if you, if you think. If you think they're not like that or they're doing something different. Thank you very much.
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B
Thank you. Sharon Beals just rescued Bob with a sip of water here.
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D
But, but he, he gave a lot of lessons in that, in that presentation about the why and how to understand it and what people are saying. Adrian, you said a second ago that you have to remember that people are coming in and they have other things on their mind. And if they're in there for 8 hours or 10 hours or whatever your day is. And it used to be if something happened, you know, you went home and you helped your kid in school or whatever it was, but now you're getting texts and things are popping up all the time. And the level of distraction. And I was always taught in management or in sales type training is one of the things you need to do when you're focused, trying to focus somebody is break preoccupation, because people are going to be preoccupied with those things. But. But these days, he was talking about, we're preoccupied with those things. So at a level that's unprecedented ever. And if you're trying to lead a team and they're off on all these other stimulus. I think that's what he was trying to get across. So now you understand the why, and then you can build on top of that with the what. And I think that's where some people didn't quite hear what he was saying, but I thought it was phenomenal.
- [18:19]
B
I know we've got a lot of ground to cover and we haven't actually blocked out this whole thing. But I kind of want to ask some of the folks in the audience, maybe, what were some of your favorite sessions or what do you. What was a standout for you? If anybody wants to be brave enough to yell something out or slip us a note. Martha Castillo. Oh, the artificial intelligence.
- [18:48]
D
Oh, my God.
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B
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I'm going to try and paraphrase everything that she's saying. We should have had a. Roma should have had a mic. But that AI session and how it's affecting supply chains. I heard that was another standing room only session, so I don't remember. Was that one. Was that a live stream? I think it was.
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C
Yes.
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B
It was great. Taylor Farms was. And Chick Fil A. Yes.
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C
Right?
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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C
Dr. Steven Lyon from Chickfila. Dr. Purnu with Rama Singa from Chick Fil A. And they were both on that session. So they were on the podcast yesterday. The podcast theater live yesterday.
- [19:49]
B
And that was. That was a. That was packed in here. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else have a standout? Sharon, thank you. Thank you. The male allies who showed up for the women in food safety. The power of her voice. I really was noticing that, too. And I went over to thank somebody that I saw in there today. Thank you for coming and being there. Yeah, it was really. It was. Yeah. We do well. And I think. Yeah. And the lily just all. Let's all just be allies for each other in every way that we can, and let's listen to each other and learn from each other about what are the different struggles that we all face as we show up in all the various ways that we do. So those sessions are very important, but they become even more important when we're able to just share and learn together. Yeah. Yeah. So what day were we on? I think we were on day one. Yeah, we might be here for the rest of. Okay, everybody, change your flights. We're going to be here for a while.
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C
Yeah. Well, I think we actually covered the workshops pretty well, so.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And day one, we started with the keynote. Yeah.
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B
Well, it's a lot.
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C
I mean, I will just say that I thought that the session that I co moderated with EABM member Michael Wood, Dr. Michael Wood from Kroger, on achieving sanitation and hygiene success in the retail and food service sectors, was a session. We had great attendance to that session, and we basically did a roundtable panel discussion with myself, Dr. Wood, Dr. Jim Arbogast, Dr. Dale Grinstead, and then Dina Scott, who is from the Wendy's company. Jim and Dale both have their own consulting firms, and we talked about a few things, set out a few essentials for sanitation and hygiene in the retail food service environment, and then also where we can take practices and protocols for manufacturing and translate the. Translate that over to retail and where that application is best used. But then we told the audience, we told the attendees, we want to have this be interactive. So if something pops into your head, you want to share something, you have a question, raise your hand. So right off the bat, basically, like 10 minutes after we started talking, attendees started raising their hands. We heard some great stories from people, heard some amazing examples, lots of dialogue between the attendees and the panelists, and we had questions right up to the end. So that was a fantastic session. And I've had a couple people personally come up and personally thank me for holding that session because they said that they felt like they learned a lot, not only from our panelists, but from the other attendees talking during the session and then networking after. So we always love to foster those kinds of connections and that kind of dialogue, especially in a specific space like retail food service, where you got a bunch of folks who are trying to do the best jobs they can in that sector, and they can all be in one room and talk about it. Right. So that was a cool experience.
- [23:02]
B
I don't think we've had Michael Wood on the podcast, have we? I think we should.
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C
I don't believe so, but if we.
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B
Can try and twist his arm. He's hard. He's a busy guy. But that would be awesome.
- [23:12]
C
That would be cool.
- [23:13]
B
Because I think that idea of it was his idea of bringing that for sanitation.
- [23:17]
C
That was his idea. Yeah, it was fantastic.
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B
You know, we're so lucky to have the EAB represent so many aspects of the supply chain and having more and more attendance across. I think over the years, people have thought of this as. It's manufacturing. It's not just manufacturing that's going on here at the summit. And we're all learning and we're transferring skills and people are moving from manufacturing more into retail and food service. And that's very much needed.
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D
I'm waiting to get to the town hall.
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A
You're waiting to get.
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B
Oh, let's get to the town hall today. I mean, we're recording. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get to the town hall. It was, it was, it was. I was really looking forward to that because we were very lucky. We were on pins and needles up until the end. Well, until like a week or two before the summit. You know, you put invited on there and, you know, usually that's a pretty good thing. And usually that goes away much sooner than it did.
- [24:11]
C
This uncertainty about whether or not the regulatory regulators would be able to travel or even be able to participate. Luckily we were able to sort out the participation, but we were kind of like, we don't have to zoom everybody in because that's not what our attendees.
- [24:23]
B
Really want to do.
- [24:24]
C
But luckily we only had had to zoom in Dr. Megan Nichols from CDC.
- [24:28]
B
And that went really well, actually, to have her. It didn't feel. It felt like she was part of it. So that was really good. But I guess we'll start at the beginning. So we had Kyle Diamantis, Right. From fda, Acting Deputy Administrator of Human Foods. Is that right?
- [24:44]
C
Yeah, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Human food. We had Dr. Denise Ebelin, who's the administrator of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. We also, as we said, had Dr. Megan Nichols.
- [24:56]
B
She's at the CDC, a really long title from CDC. So check the website.
- [25:02]
C
Right.
- [25:02]
B
It's really Alphabet soup. But she also was nice to mention Robert Tox, Dr. Tox, who just retired, retired this last year, who held down the fort. But she did a great job. She really helped. Yeah, she did a great job.
- [25:15]
C
We enjoy working with.
- [25:16]
B
And of course.
- [25:17]
C
And of course, Steven.
- [25:19]
B
Steve Monarchnock from afto, Director of afto. Yeah.
- [25:22]
C
And it was. The whole thing was moderated by our very own eab Chairperson Jillian Kelleher.
- [25:27]
B
So Jillian always did a great job.
- [25:29]
C
Yeah.
- [25:30]
B
Yeah. Well, I think I was reassured.
- [25:34]
D
Well, I was going to say, where else can you go? Where you see that lineup?
- [25:38]
B
Yeah.
- [25:38]
D
You know, the food safety leaders from cdc, fda, fsi, usda, everybody in one place. Steve with afto.
- [25:45]
B
Yeah.
- [25:46]
D
Where do you see that and get that interplay.
- [25:48]
B
Yeah, it was. I mean, they were measured, but I think that, you know, we were all kind of on pins and needles to wait to hear what everybody was going to say. I didn't feel like anybody was, you know, locked down, you know, didn't want to talk, didn't want to take a question or anything. They were very open. I didn't feel there was any double speak or backpedaling or anything, but really reassuring that food safety was a priority and that they were going to follow through. Now we'll see.
- [26:24]
C
Yeah.
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B
I still say, let's see. There's a lot of. We know there's a lot behind all of that. There's a lot behind the scenes of just saying, oh, yeah, we're going to do, you know, where is. And a reliance on science. Kyle said that, well, that requires that labs be funded. That requires a lot of things. So it's easy to say, yes, we believe in science, but there's a lot that goes into delivering on that promise. Of course, folks did ask, actually, it was a great question from Taylor Farms.
- [27:01]
C
Drew McDonald.
- [27:02]
D
Thank you.
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B
I was really happy that he asked the question. Right now, I couldn't remember his name. Drew McDonald asking about organizations that have dual inspections and dual jurisdictions and what could be done about simplifying that. You know, probably the same answer that we. We've gotten. And, you know, they're going to try their best, but I think a unified food safety agency is probably not going to happen in the next week or two.
- [27:32]
C
No, I mean, it's certainly people bring that up and talk about it as an aspirational thing. I think that logistically that would be a tough thing to accomplish, but it's not. Yeah, it's not out of the realm of possibility. But I think at this point, with all of the changes brought by the new administration, right now the agencies are in a mode where they are trying to get reordered and reassess what's on, going, going on and also just deal with all the changes that are coming on a daily basis. And also, you know, let's be fair, the workforce cuts have slashed a lot of expertise from the agencies. Now, I do know, like, for example, that Dr. Eblin mentioned that they would, that food safety and FSIS work is a. Is considered public health positions and their priority. So she said that, you know, although some USDA folks have been let go more recently, there are still maintained. They want to maintain that expertise by hiring as necessary. So we heard that from USDA during the. I don't think, I don't think Kyle from FDA really talked too much about the workforce cuts at fda. I don't think that was brought up by either him or the audience.
- [28:49]
B
But one of the things that Steve Mononok shared was that basically some of the cuts that had happened under the Biden administration, the 30% cuts for this, for the, for AFTO and for the state agencies that they were going to be working to restore that. So that's really good news.
- [29:10]
D
By the way, I'm glad you mentioned this because I talked to Steve about that afterwards as well. And if you remember, at last year's summit, there was a little back and forth.
- [29:17]
B
Yeah. Between him and Joe. Yeah. It was. It was lively.
- [29:21]
D
It was lively. But you would think that this year, with more emphasis on the budget cuts and things going on, that you would see more of those issues now. But I left that meeting this morning with a lot more confidence that that's not going to happen now with the way they were going through. Now there's going to be some, some restrictions and things they have to. They have to go through, but each one of the people speaking about what they had to do were a lot more confident that they'd have the tools and that they need.
- [29:46]
B
So, you guys, I really hate to do this, but I'm getting, like, I'm, I'm. I'm getting the hook over here. I'm getting the hook.
- [29:54]
C
All right.
- [29:54]
B
Because we got a lot going on in here and we've got to do the raffle and two o' clock soon.
- [30:01]
C
But, you know, we made it through where we are right now, which was after the town hall. So we still have sessions to go today.
- [30:07]
B
We do have sessions.
- [30:08]
C
We'll let you know more about what happened at the end of the summer to next time.
- [30:13]
B
So apparently we're too excited. We're too long winded. But the moral of the story is the Food Safety Summit is great. You'll get to hear all the other interviews that we recorded over the next two bonus episodes. I loved being here with you guys live like this. We'll do this again next year. This was fun.
- [30:31]
C
Yeah, definitely.
- [30:32]
B
All right, thanks, everybody.
- [30:33]
C
Thanks to the audience for watching. Hello, everybody. Thanks for stopping by. To attend our first podcast Theater Live talk with our esteemed keynote speaker, Dr. Jason Evans, who's the dean of the College of Food Innovation and Technology at Johnson and Wales University. If you just attended the keynote, you heard a great talk from Dr. Evans. And in our podcast Theatre Live today, we're going to drill down a little deeper into some of the concepts that Dr. Evans talked about. And I'm Adrienne Bloom, editorial director of Food Safety magazine and also a co host of our Food Safety Matters podcast. So welcome. Glad you could join us. So that was a great keynote talk and we really appreciate you being here to deliver those messages to our attendees today. And I think that the topic of leading in the face of challenges is especially relevant to today's food industry and food safety landscape, particularly in light of all the changes we've been seeing at food regulatory agencies, for example. So how can food safety leaders ensure that their teams are covering the fundamentals, but also striving for that continuous improvement you talked about in your keynote speech in an environment of uncertainty and challenges?
- [31:57]
E
So, first of all, thank you for the opportunity. This has been a ton of fun for me, but I think all that, all that I put into that presentation is really about making sure that the people in your organization are fully engaged with the organization, that it's not just the leader who's keeping the organization as the priority, but they're inspiring their teams to do the same thing. Engaged also means, though, that we are finding ways to sort of put our person personal lives and our personal stressors aside. And I think it's the boss's job to set that culture. That work is almost a respite from life. This is a place where we feel like a team. We're all pulling in the same direction. There's a culture of kindness, there's a culture of respect. So I think that that's fundamental. That's. First things first. If we're really going to mind the store on the things we have to get done every day, no matter what's happening out in the world and how uncertain it is, it's even more important that we're engaged and attentive and at work when we're at work. And I think that that just takes leadership.
- [33:09]
C
Yeah, I really liked what you said during the keynote talk, by the way, about the importance of kindness as a leader and having that in a leadership role and showing that to your team. We talk about kindness a lot in our interpersonal relationship, our family, our friends, and how important that is. But it is also so Important in a working environment. You know, as we talked about and, you know, I mean, food safety, a lot of food safety leaders are facing issues with worker disengagement and disconnection. And I guess this kind of ties into, you know, maybe some leadership behaviors, but, you know, other reasons why this happens. You know, leader. How can leaders address this challenge? Yeah.
- [33:49]
E
So I actually, I've watched so many leaders in my life who are trying to do the right thing, and they think that maintaining that wall between the boss and everybody else is just how it has to be. That if you're going to respect me and carry out the decisions that I make, we can't mix and mingle personally. We can't actually have a relationship that goes deeper than boss and employee. I think with the modern workforce, that's exactly the wrong thing to do. They're bringing their personal lives to work with them anyway, and we're not going to stop that from happening. So I think if in this organization, if at work, there's a feeling that I am around friends, I am around people who personally care about me, especially for the young worker that matters as much as what they're making in their paycheck, that I trust the people who are leading, I trust my colleagues. My leader has made it very clear how I do my job, how I get ahead, how I promote, how I have stability. But that level of trust, I think, requires first that you actually like me, that I have worked at a personal relationship. And at the end of the day, how great is it when your team, they want to get ahead, they want to do the right thing, but they also don't want to disappoint you. I love being in that position as a leader where the people who work for me are guided by that to some extent. They don't personally want to disappoint me or their bosses or whoever else is in charge. It's a dynamic that I think fruits.
- [35:35]
C
Productivity and, you know, so aside from making that personal connection with your employees and obviously the value of kindness that we talked about and that you spoke about in your keynote, what are the few. What are a few of the other top qualities that a strong food safety business leader should have?
- [35:54]
E
So at the end of the day, of course, the winners and losers conversation about maintaining the sanctity of the organization means sometimes that kindness has to be paired with setting expectations and expecting people to meet them. So I've got to pair this trust relationship with respect, right? That if we fall flat on a job related to protecting the sanctity of The American food supply. People will get sick, people will die. If we're not serious about food safety culture in our restaurant and hospitality and food service organizations, people will get sick, people will die. So first of all, the leader has to live that right, that this is why this organization, organization and my role must exist. It's to keep people safe and healthy, and that comes along with expectations. I think it's possible, though, to be a leader who has earned the personal respect of your teams, of your employees, but also respect for the hard times when you have to enforce decisions and you have to make sure the team is doing the very serious things that they do to keep people safe.
- [37:16]
C
Yeah. There's, you know, this balance between, I think, bringing yourself to work, making sure that you're having honest conversations with your team about what needs to be done, why it's important, what you expect of them. And then also, you know, that element of, you know, the personal connection and kindness that you talked about while. All. While trying, trying to get your work done. Done. But also, you know, the importance of fostering a team environment where people want to come to work, they want to come to work with each other, and they want to come to work with and for you. Right.
- [37:52]
E
It's. It's not easy. It's not easy at all. I've personally been in situations just in the last couple of years where in my immediate circle, so that the directors and assistants. Assistant and the assistant deans that see me every single day, they are some of my best friends in the world. I trust them with my life. I trust them with my organization. And they know they can feel the same way about me. Having tough conversations with those people is tough. But what I like to think is that because they have connected with me personally, they know my intentions. I'm never coming down hard on you just to do it, just to be fairly right. I'm not. I'm not going to be vindictive in any way, but we are going to have tough conversations if something that you're doing is moving us away from the improvement and the. And the sustaining of the organization.
- [38:56]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:57]
E
It's not easy.
- [38:57]
C
And it's a skill too. Right. Learning how to be able to be a leader. Learned skill.
- [39:02]
E
I think it is a learned skill. But, you know, I would also say too, that if you're personally that involved with your team and these relationships matter to you, the downside of that is that I think you have more of a tendency to bring your work home with you that these people who your decisions are impacting and hurting. You bring that home with you if you're a leader who prioritizes culture and kindness. So I think ultimately to be successful at it, there is a little bit of compartmentalization that you have to do in your life.
- [39:39]
F
Right.
- [39:40]
E
Work stays at work. I've got to still actually enjoy my life because if, if I'm miserable at home, I'm going to bring that into the workplace too. And I think that as a leader, that's the quickest way to kill the culture, is to bring your own hang ups into how you do that job.
- [39:58]
C
Yeah, yeah. And so I guess, you know, wrapping all this up a little bit, let's talk about the value that a strong food safety team and a strong food safety team leader brings to a food business and especially to the culture of that business.
- [40:15]
E
Yeah. So I mentioned in the presentation how we have so much room for innovation in and around anything related to food or hospitality. And again, I think that any of us who have had hospitality experiences in the last however many months or years see we've got a lot of room for improvement. And mostly it is because people are not paying attention to what they're doing. They're engaged in their personal lives, they're engaged in the stresses that they're feeling all day long. And it sells the experience short at a hotel, at an airport, at a restaurant, at a whatever. The same is true in operations where we really have to pay attention to process. I really have to care about whether I'm heading, handling that food properly, whether I'm really being careful about temperature recording and logging and that the food is where it's supposed to be and not where it's not supposed to be. Imagine the amount of focus that that takes in certain jobs to get all of that right. Focus and engagement is what we're missing. So the role of the leader, first and foremost, again, is to make sure that team, team wants to be there. They feel that they have a personal stake in the organization's success. That's the starting point to them in those daily tactical things, those minute tasks. They are paying attention and they're focused. And that's really what food safety is. And I have seen that firsthand even at Johnson and Wales. I mean, we have on The Providence Campus 45 Kitchen or Bake lab spaces that are running every single day, each of them with 18 to 20 students in them, a faculty member, each of them dealing with very different ingredients, very different menus, very different processes. Something can go wrong every day that makes the food coming out of those Labs not safe. And that makes it dangerous. I know that firsthand. In fact, the day that this presentation was due to Food Safety magazine, my slide deck, the night before, for the first time in my life, I had a foodborne illness. And I know that that sounds too cool to be true. It's entirely true. Food came down from one of our labs, ended up in the dean suite in the refrigerator. Didn't know anything about it, didn't know where it came from. I ate it, shouldn't have eaten it. So that's now got me thinking, good Lord, we're pushing food out of 45 different spaces on one campus every day. What's the risk that that's happening? More than I even know it's happening because the 18 students in the classroom are thinking about something completely different from what's right in front of them. Or they skipped a step on our checklist process or on a sanitation process process. It takes focus and engagement more so than in just about any other industry or any other job function. You know, I think a lot of people at their jobs take comfort in saying something like, if I make a mistake, at least nobody's going to die. You cannot say that in food service establishments. And I think history proves that that's true.
- [43:36]
C
Yeah. And, you know, I think that we talked about, about establishing that personal connection for employees to the importance of food safety. And I feel like when people are really engaged and they know their job matters because they are in charge of other people's health with the products they produce or the products they serve, that's a way to combat some of that distraction that they are bringing to work. Because, you know, as you talked about in your keynote, we know what's going on in the world, in people's lives, and you know, with technology and how all of that funnels into people bringing, you know, distraction, a lot of things to work that used to not really be there. So we didn't have some of these things, especially, you know, the distractions of modern technology. But, but having that personal connection to the why of food safety and then with good training, the how of food safety, but people being feeling personally responsible for other people's health by producing safe food, I think that that is also a way to combat some of that.
- [44:41]
E
As I mentioned, I think you have to create an incentive structure where those members of your team who are engaged are focused, they're making the right decisions, they're doing the right thing. I think you have to reward that. I mean, our entire economy is an incentive based system. But I Think the modern employee really craves professional development. I want to grow. You don't need to necessarily slap more money onto my paychecks, though. That would be great, too. But how can we work together and personalize a professional development itinerary or plan for you so that you're learning what you want to learn? If you really want to grow just in this organization, let's think about where we need to send you and who we need to put you with to make you even more focused. So I think professional development is a way to take those team members that are doing what they're supposed to do, use it as an incentive. It's like Berkshire Hathaway doubling down and investing in companies that have proven they can turn a profit. I'm investing in employees that have proven they can do the job and move this company toward the general welfare. But, you know, what you said is incredibly important, too, as a leader. Every time I have a conversation with my employees, if it's a food safety organization, I think it's incumbent on the leader to remind them of the larger mission, how important this is. It's no different than in academia. Every time I'm the team and I are working on tactic for how to get something done, the top line of that conversation is, why are we doing this? It's about students. And if what we're trying to do doesn't improve the student's experience, make it easier for them to access education, or make them more successful when they get out of here, we're probably not going to do it. I will tell you personally that because we've all, as a team, gotten into the habit of that conversation. It's fruited in so many other ways. It's compelling to donors and alums. Right. When they know that the leadership team, the faculty, everybody in the organization, their talking points are authentic. And it's about students. Same thing in food safety. It's about how essential everything that we do is to keeping this the safest food supply in the world.
- [47:09]
C
Absolutely. I think everyone here would agree with that statement as well.
- [47:12]
E
They probably would.
- [47:13]
B
Yeah.
- [47:14]
C
But I want to thank you, Dr. Evans, for being a guest on our podcast Theatre Live, and for that amazing and insightful keynote that you just gave. Thank you for. And I want to thank you all for coming and attending our first podcast theater live talk we're going to have. Our next talk is going to be with Brian Ronholm from Consumer Reports, and that'll start at 11:30, so feel free to stick around or go check out some of the booths and come back at 11:30. But we appreciate you being here and thanks for your. Thanks for your attention.
- [47:44]
E
Thank you so much.
- [47:45]
C
Yeah, thank you. All right, well, welcome back folks, to our podcast Theater Live. And we're about to do another interview and looking forward to this one because Brian Rollenholm, director of Food policy from Consumer Reports, is one of my favorite people to talk to. And you know, it's good to see you again and to have you at the summit. And we last spoke on episode 164 of the Food Safety Matters podcast back in February of last year. And at that time we talked about a whole lot of then current events from a consumer advocacy point of view. Yeah, we talked about the FDA Foods Coalition, Heavy metals and baby foods, FDA's actions on food additive regulation, USDA's proposed Salmonella Rule for poultry, which has since been withdrawn, and other topics. And it feels like we're in a very different climate right now with the many changes made by the new presidential administration to the agencies and to regulatory actions between that time we talked in the podcast last year and now. So what are your thoughts on how the recent changes to the FDA workforce and structure will impact the agency's regulatory function and capabilities?
- [48:59]
G
Yeah, well, Adrian, thanks for having me on again and for inviting me to be on. I will say that we're still all in the process of trying to figure out what this all means. You know, we've had this initial wave of chaos and destruction with the deep cuts with two resources to deep cuts of personnel, understanding that, you know, some of those folks have are being brought back, but it's still not clear kind of where the gaps are in terms of the infrastructure, both at FDA and usda. So I think all stakeholders at this point, we're still trying to figure out where the gaps are going to be, what infrastructure and capacity they will have going forward. So there's still a lot of elements and variables that are unclear at this point.
- [49:49]
C
Okay. Now you're also speaking on a session tomorrow on ensuring chemical safety and food processing. And as I mentioned, this is one of the topics we discussed on your podcast interview last year. And we've recently seen not only changes to FDA's regulatory approach with the new administration, but also increasing state legislation that is tackling additives and chemicals in foods. So as a food safety advocate, what are your thoughts on the current disparity between federal and state approaches to food additives regulation, particularly regarding the generally recognized as safe or grass designation?
- [50:29]
G
Yeah, it's been a pretty steep disparity between federal Action or inaction, if you will, compared to what's going on recently at the state level. And you have to remember that a lot of the activity that's been going on at the state level is a direct result of the frustration toward the FDA and their kind of long inability to really address these issues in a meaningful way. And there's a lot of reasons for that. The fda, especially on the food side, has, we all know, has been chronically underfunded when you look at the jurisdiction of the food supply that they have. And so they're chronically underfunded when it comes to really regulating and providing meaningful oversight. And as a result of that, there is this culture that's been established where a lot of these issues that deal more on the chronic side and not on the acute side kind of gets pushed to the back burner. So like food chemicals, additives, food dyes, the grass system, there's this culture that have been established like, okay, we're going to push this aside, we're going to focus on the more immediate issues just based on our resources and capacity. And so states became very frustrated by that inaction. And that's why you've seen a lot of them try to step up and address these issues in a meaningful way and respond to consumer concerns. And you know, grass is a perfect example of that. This is a system that has gotten out of hand where you have this so called secret GRAS process that allows manufacturers to introduce ingredients and chemicals in the marketplace without any thorough review by the fda. So when you talk to consumers about that, it's really troubling from their vantage point. Say, wait a second, I thought the FDA has the authority to review everything that goes into food and come to find out that it's not true. And so that's one of those issues too that the states are taking up that you've seen where there are these bills that require some disclosure when it comes to seeking micrograss. So yeah, ultimately it's trying to respond to, you know, consumer interest, to public health interests when the FDA hasn't been able to.
- [52:53]
C
And you know, as food safety professionals, how best can, you know, the folks that are attending this conference and working in industry collaborate with state and federal regulators to address some of these shifting food additives laws.
- [53:07]
G
Yeah, you know, it's a matter of monitoring what's going on at the state level. I think one thing you will see when you look at all of the bills that are being worked on in the various states, there's a common thread. You know, there is A common list of chemicals that they're all trying to address. So from the industry standpoint, you take a look at that and think, okay, clearly there is a most wanted list that consumer groups, public health groups are working on. What is that list? And do I have a product that includes that? And maybe it's time to think about pivoting away from those kind of most wanted chemicals that are on these lists and trying to figure out what are the best alternatives. In a lot of cases, we like to make the argument that a lot of those alternatives already exist. Exist and they're just as cost effective. That may not be right and certainly, you know, willing to have that discussion. But yeah, I mean, I think it's a matter of monitoring those lists that are at the states because there is a common thread and it might be best to try to move away from those.
- [54:15]
C
Yeah, and I mean, you know, when you think about, we talked about a patchwork of state legislation that that is emerging when it comes to, to additives and chemicals in food. So not only are manufacturers having to be concerned about formulations of products, but you know, then we're seeing things with state movements toward, you know, some of these extended producer responsibility and, you know, programs and recycling content, things that are required. And so that affects your packaging. And you know, your packaging obviously is something that protects the, your food. So we've got lots of different angles that are coming at manufacturers that they need to incorporate and they're going to need to consider, you know, how are making our products, what are we putting these products in to be able to deliver them to consumers? How are consumers going to react to that?
- [55:06]
G
Yeah, no, Adrian, that's, that's a very fair point and certainly understand from the perspective of industry that it is difficult to try to navigate the patchwork system that's going on the state level. But at the same time, you know, there is a common thread with the list of chemicals that we're targeting. And same with food packaging with BPA and pfas and phthalates, plasticizers. So understanding that the patchwork system can be difficult, but there's clearly a list of chemicals, additives that are being targeted. And if, if consistency is kind of that critical, I think it behooves the industry to figure out, okay, where are those? What are the common thread among what all of the states are looking for? And maybe look into whether it makes sense from a cost perspective to try to move away from those.
- [55:59]
C
And it's interesting because a lot of these targeted chemicals that we're Talking about are chemicals that, for example, are banned for use in food in Europe and Australia, New Zealand. So. Yeah, yeah.
- [56:12]
G
And that's what's. That's. What can be frustrating from a consumer standpoint is that understanding that there are some colors and additives and chemicals that are allowed here but are banned elsewhere in the world or severely restricted or requires a label. So when you're looking at those products, okay, why. Why is it that the versions that are less toxic, that pose a lower risk are being made available in other parts of the world, but kind of the inferior version remains here in the U.S. yeah.
- [56:43]
C
And so how do you think the consumer attitudes toward food, chemicals and additives are changing? And, you know, how should industry be preparing or go ahead and adjust to accommodate these changes?
- [56:56]
G
Yeah, I mean, I think we've seen this coming down the pike for several years, probably over the past 10 to 20 years. You know, it's a movement that began long ago as consumers became more focused on natural products, organic products. And so that's. I think it's part of that trend where it's evolving from that to getting into, okay, what. What are these ingredients? Why am I not able to pronounce them? And why am I, you know, why do I not have any idea of what they do? Now, that's not to say that they're all bad, because clearly there are some additives, chemicals that. That serve a critical role in terms of being a preservative, that sort of thing, and maintaining the safety of the product. But for the most part, you know, you're looking at a lot of ingredients that you can't pronounce, and that becomes frustrating to a consumer. And so I think that's been part of the movement. It's like, okay, I'm looking for more foods that are kind of natural, organic, what have you. To shifting toward, okay, what are these chemicals? What purpose do they serve if they're bad? Clearly some of them are bad. Why can't we get rid of them more effectively as we do in other parts of the world? So I think it's. You know, there are certainly a lot of companies that have been at the forefront of that thinking of, okay, have saw this trend, began phasing them out long ago and. And saw this train coming, if you will, and, you know, they may not publicize it. I think a lot of companies just, you know, for a variety of reasons, as we all understand, they don't. They. They don't want to publicize anything and just kind of do it quietly, which we totally respect and certainly would encourage industry to do if that's their best option.
- [58:45]
C
And I want to throw out a bonus question to you. And we were talking about this just before we went on stage and started this interview. But so the theme of our opening workshop yesterday was about traceability and the next steps, especially in light of the 30 month post postponement to the compliance date that was announced in March by fda. So my question for you is, you know, given the fact that we know a lot of food companies have been preparing to comply with the rule with the FSMA 204 original compliance date of January 2026, again, that's moved been moved ahead by 30 months and some hadn't been quite as far along in their journeys. What do you think that this 30 month delay is going to what opportunities are companies going to seize on with this? And do you, do you think that industry is going to keep moving toward compliance with FISMA 2 or 4? Or do you think that there's going to be more people, more folks that are going to say, well, maybe we can wait and what would you like to see?
- [59:53]
G
Yeah, it will depend on the industry and clearly the bigger, the bigger businesses have more resource to invest. I'm really concerned about what the 30 month delay will mean. I, I'm worried that it's a thinly disguised attempt to ultimately try to kill the traceability rule. So I had some very, you know, significant concerns when that announcement was delayed because I know it's, it's just a small segment of the industry that is really trying to put push to, to kill this rule and I fear that, that they will use that 30 month period to develop additional excuses as to why it can't move forward. But what's reassuring is there are a lot of companies that are already moving ahead with compliance. They already have a system in place to comply and come up with a meaningful system for traceability. I hope that this delay doesn't stop that from continuing to happen because clearly there's technology available when you talk to folks and there are probably some in this room that have the technology to help companies put together a great traceability system. So I hope that that delay is used to really leverage that knowledge as opposed to trying to develop new arguments as to why it's not necessary.
- [61:16]
C
All right. Well, Brian, I want to thank you for sharing your perspectives and insights with our guests here and it was great to kind of catch up on some of those topics we talked about in your last podcast interview that we did, food Safety Matters back in February of Last year. You know, I think where we were then and where we are now is, you know, it's been many, many changes since then and it was interesting to get to chance to talk to you about.
- [61:40]
G
No, I appreciate being on. Thanks for having me on, Adrienne. I think for consumers, it's really going to be a difficult time trying to figure out what food safety oversight is going to be in this new administration after all of these cuts and staffing and infrastructure to the ability to conduct kind of basic, meaningful food safety oversight. So thanks for the opportunity to talk it through.
- [62:03]
C
Absolutely. And thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll be doing interviews throughout the rest of the exhibit hall hours. I'll be doing another interview with some folks from Chick fil A at 1 o', clock, I think, so make sure you come back here for then. And we'll also be talking with some of our solutions providers. My colleague Bob will be doing a couple interviews. So thanks for listening and appreciate it.
- [62:25]
D
Welcome everybody. We're here with the podcast theater at the Food Safety Summit and I'm here with Michael Fang from Spectacular Labs. Hi, Michael, how are you?
- [62:32]
F
I'm doing good. Thanks for having me here. This is great.
- [62:34]
D
You and I have talked a few times and I know a lot about your, your products. I know about Spectacular Labs. But first off, I love the name of the company. Your customers have to be saying, who do I work with? I work with Spectacular Labs. Of course you do.
- [62:47]
E
Yeah.
- [62:47]
F
So it's very spectacular. There's actually a story about that behind that. I can talk more about that later.
- [62:52]
D
Okay. All right. All right. So we had a conversation yesterday and we were talking about how the technology works and you, you started talking back, telling me more about how the technology works. I said, you need to save that because we should talk about it on the podcast. So tell me a little bit more about the technology, how the instrument works, how your system works, and give me a little bit of background and we can talk about it later.
- [63:14]
F
Yeah, absolutely. Would it be more helpful to go through a walkthrough of the, like what the product actually does before diving down to the technology?
- [63:20]
D
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
- [63:21]
F
So I can show. For the folks that are watching right now live, it's, it's fairly simple. But for people who are listening to the podcast, you can check out our website, spectacularlabs.com There's a very short video, 10 minute, sorry, a one minute video that you can more or less follow along. But the, the general workflow is very simple. We have a base Station over here. And then we have cartridges that we sell, we have a cartridge for, for the different pathogens. So listeria, E. Coli, salmonella, whatever the sample that you want to test, let's say it's environmental swap. You would, you would take it and deposit into this cartridge. This cartridge contains everything. It contains the enrichment media, it contains the lysis solution, it contains the reagents, everything that you need. You don't need to do any mixing, any sort of sample prep outside on the lab bench. Everything is inside this cartridge and you insert the cartridge inside this base station and then you close the door, you hit play and you walk in away and everything happens automatically. So you only require, it only requires about a minute of touch time from the operator's end. But once you close the door, getting into like how it works, the magic happens inside this box. This is where we get to work, right? So at the detection level, we're using lamp, we're using loop media, isothermal amplification. Some of you could be familiar with that. Neogen has the molecular detection system that is based off of lamp. It's a well regarded technology. USDA for example, is using it for their own example purposes. But it's, it's, that's only one part of the story, right? That's kind of the theme I think of what we're talking about is that we have a detection technology, a really good, amazing detection technology. But that's not really the whole story of the, of the product. What really makes this, you know, in our opinion, really amazing and why we are really sold in this idea of integration is that everything that needs to happen is inside this cartridge. So the lysis solution is inside the cartridge. The reagents for the primers is inside this cartridge. The, the enrichment media is also inside the cartridge. So everything is prepackaged. There is a microfluid fluidics device that sits there and the, the base station affects all the fluid transfer internally within the hermetically sealed cartridge. So once it's there, fluid flows from the enrichment chamber to the lysis chamber, then to the reagent chamber. All the heating, all the control, temperature control, timing happens, is controlled by our essential lab in the box. So it's very easy to use. But once you use it, we get to work and we take control of everything automatically, right?
- [66:04]
D
So one of the things I hear when I do the interviews that I do for the magazine is people want something that's easy and easy to run, doesn't require a lot of steps. And when you talk about a cartridge and for everyone listening, you should go to the website and take a look at what the cartridge is. It's completely contained and it's bio contained. So like you said before, once it's sealed, it stays sealed and then everything that has to happen in the reaction happens in the cartridge. And it's all controlled by the instrument.
- [66:28]
F
That's correct. Absolutely. Absolutely. We spend a lot of time making that happen. There's a lot of patents that came out of this, so it's something that we tried really hard to make happen. And it's, you know, a lot of what we build is from feedback that we get from people that we talk to, customers. Feedback from people, industry experts like yourself. Right. We talked about this a couple of times. Your input has been incredibly helpful. People really love to. People want to do testing in house, at the point of production to save them on money, time, cost of transportation. But they were incredibly afraid of any sort of contamination, any risk of doing enrichment in house or doing testing in house. Right. So the design decision to fully automate this, to have everything happen inside a fully sealed container cartridge, is to essentially eliminate that risk. Right. So there is no fluid transfer, there is no mixing, there is no incubation that you have to do by hand. Everything is taken care of by us inside the sealed container. So that was really important. It was not easy to build. And we built this because everybody wanted this to be addressed.
- [67:33]
D
That was always the number one issue is how much manipulation do you have to do? And now I have this enriched sample. I don't want to drop it on the floor or get it on my lab coat and things like that. The other thing I hear all the time, of course, is because people aren't working with pathogens as much, they've actually gotten rid of their lab or they have a more rudimentary lab, which also means that we don't have people that are used to doing these kind of steps. But the way you just showed that they don't have to do a lot of the steps. The cartridge and the system does it for you.
- [68:00]
F
Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely. And this really opens up a number of opportunities for us.
- [68:05]
C
Right.
- [68:05]
F
I think this is something that we have talked about extensively. That's something that you, you essentially, as long as I can tell for the food safety industry, kind of coined the whole idea of lab deserts.
- [68:14]
D
Right, right.
- [68:15]
F
So there's places where there's a significant amount of food production that happens, but there is relatively low amount of third party labs to service that. Right. Where just very remote areas like you were talking about yesterday, Aleutian Islands in Alaska. It's going to be incredibly difficult to set up an economical. To set up a fully fledged testing lab on higher microbiologists to be somewhere so remote. And the nice thing about what we have built is by automating everything and requiring zero intervention in between, you can deploy this anywhere on Earth. Right. You can deploy it in the middle, in a truck, in the middle of transit. Right. So without needing any sort of intervention or trained personnel, this can happen. And this is what we have seen the most significant interest Right. In this area, in more remote areas where people don't have that type of facility.
- [69:08]
H
Yeah.
- [69:09]
D
It's amazing to me that in the United States, there are a number of states where there simply is not an accredited commercial lab available. So your samples tend to get sent. Things can happen in transit, but it also takes more time. And if you're in that situation, this is something where you can do the pathogen analysis process yourself and. And do it right there on site.
- [69:29]
F
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
- [69:30]
D
So the other thing we talked about yesterday was this is now AOAC validated for several of the pathogens, right?
- [69:37]
F
Not yet. We're in the progress in the process.
- [69:39]
D
Okay.
- [69:39]
F
With the process. Yeah.
- [69:40]
D
Right. The other thing you mentioned to me is that Spectacular labs is a 17025 lab. And the. And the data from this, when it's operating at a plant level, goes back to the labs and you get a 1717025 validated result in a COA if you need that.
- [69:56]
F
Absolutely.
- [69:57]
D
Okay.
- [69:57]
F
Absolutely. That's something that, you know, we're also really proud of. This is something that, as far as we can tell, is a fairly unique offering. It is a unique offering. Right.
- [70:07]
E
The.
- [70:08]
F
For people. For listeners who are less familiar with ISO 17025 accreditation, at its core, what it really involves is a lot of record keeping, a lot of record keeping, a lot of calibration. Right. Most of the time, this is done in a traditional lab. It's done by lab technicians. People write down the temperature that the incubator was at when they took the sample out. They write the ph of the sample. They write down exactly for how many minutes they did the incubation, how long they did the enrichment, they did the lysis, etc. They will write down the. Write all of this down on a lab notebook. And then once a year or twice a year, when the auditor comes in, they can show all this paper trail. What we're doing is because we have a fully automated device and all this data, all the Telemetry data, all the testing data gets streamed to our portal, to our system, our database, which is very securely kept, HIPAA compliant database and data infrastructure.
- [71:08]
B
Really.
- [71:10]
F
All of this is essentially record keeping, right? As long as we can demonstrate this entire chain of custody and also telemetry data that comes from our testing, this fulfills the requirements of ISO 17025. We actually talk to people, talk to accreditors and they actually like this better than traditional labs because the record keeping is very consistent. As long as it. Once we have one unit, every single unit will be taking data exactly the same way. So consistency. They're never going to miss something, they're never going to have a typo or write something incorrectly, make a mistake. They're never going to forget writing down a number, taking a temperature. And all this entire stream of data gets kept safely capped and is actually more reliable and much, much less prone to human error.
- [72:00]
D
Okay, so if someone might want to use this in their plant and they want to have, let's say their environmental samples and they want to be, get the results back quickly, have it done it, no trans, no transit back and forth to a lab, right? They can get that and use their environmentals that way, get their environmental results that way, but they can also take product samples and have it sent to your 17025 lab and get a COA back that says here's an independent lab result that's validated because you've got the data from, from the instrument on site.
- [72:27]
F
Yeah, no, that's a good question. That's. We initially started as we started as a 17025 accredited testing, but the idea was to use this automation technology that we have built to power our own lab to do testing. We realized that that was not something that we wanted to do. It was not something that we were very competitive, relatively speaking. It's not very economical. Right. So the reason that we want to do this is we want to, to extend, we want to scale up our testing capability. The difficulties in setting up in a standard traditional testing lab is that you're generally limited by geography, right. With going further, much further than your local geography. You know this well, that's the whole idea why you have lab deserts in this first place.
- [73:10]
D
That's exactly right.
- [73:11]
F
That's exactly right. And what we have is, you know, one of the really nice things about this is it's very, very scalable. Having built one device, having programmed one device, having set up the, all the automation, we can mass produce it and then deploy it in various locations throughout the country throughout the world. And they will do testing exactly, exactly the same way. Actually, earlier we were talking to a lot of producers in South America. Right. This is actually before last year. I think this might be more exacerbated what's going on right now. But a lot of people are worried about having to clear fda, USDA and selling into this country. And one of the things that they struggle with is getting the same level of standards the USDA or FDA requires. We happen to be a, you know, a US testing lab and we have something that fulfills standards, international standards, but standards of this country. And we deploy this device to South America, nothing changes.
- [74:08]
D
Right.
- [74:08]
F
It's the exact same product protocol, is the exact same testing, and we enable testing, you know, in places where it was not possible.
- [74:15]
D
That's really interesting. I like the way that that network idea that you're putting together, I think is fascinating. You and I have talked about that before, but I think that's a fascinating tool for people to have.
- [74:25]
F
Absolutely.
- [74:26]
D
Yeah. So, but this is different, say than sending your sample off to a lab and then having to get the data back, enter the data back into your system. You have a software package that also runs. So if people are trending their environmentals or they want to keep track of this, all that data also stays within their control. So they can use it for their own systems. For their own.
- [74:46]
F
Yes, absolutely. This, you know, we talked about earlier, we have a online portal. All the data gets streamed to our online portal. We could provide the data analytics for larger companies who need their needs of data on their own own LIM system or to be connected with the bill lading, for example, or their own database. We provide API access. This is something that can. Where we have set up with customers in the past and we're happy to work with other people. We're very AI, native company and distinct, can hook up to whatever the, you know, the data need of our customers are.
- [75:21]
D
Okay, how does this help producers with their, their supply chain? So as far as being able to, to keep track of that and working through their supply chain, how does that enhance that work that they have to do?
- [75:32]
F
Yeah, that's a really good question. One example of customer that we have dealt with in the past, so I'm not going to obviously name them, but they sell to Costco. Right. A lot of large retailers, they require CFAs from their suppliers before they are able to take the product. And it's always, it's really important for them to get that CFA in time for them to ship the product. Right. Any delay in receiving that CFA is a delay in sending off their shipment. So we are working with them because they want to have testing on the important stuff. At least they want to get results when they need them. Right. We have a fully automated system. It is very easy to use and it's reliable. Right. Usually when you send it to a lab, there is a queue that you have to go through, there's other people sample that the lab needs to go through. There's a whole logistics. You're laughing. You know about this. Once it gets to the lab, usually you have to do an enrichment one shift, then you have to do the. The actual testing at a different shift. So there's a different technician who's in charge of doing. You know, you have at least two technicians who are in charge of the same task and you maybe have a different person in charge of the data entry. So by the time that you get your cfa, it's quite many, many days later. And it's not even the. Just the time delays, the uncertainty associated with it. You don't know if you're going to be getting it in two days, three days or seven days. We have something that is fully automated. You get it exactly within a shift. At least for E. Coli, we'll get it within eight hours. And that's consistent. On the data part, it's not only does this data live within our servers, not only can our customers access it, this data can go towards various stakeholders. So, for example, their buyers, people who would need to know. And we're working on integrating this so that it happens automatically, syncing up with their bill of lading. Okay. So they can press a button at home at 5am when the test is done. If you're in charge of doing this and it gets sent to the person who, who's in charge of driving the truck to, you know, the buyer and sending it off to whoever needs your CFA in real time.
- [77:41]
D
So it integrates right into their supply chain and right into their controls.
- [77:44]
F
Absolutely.
- [77:45]
D
Wow, that's fantastic. One of the things I hear with these type of technologies, particularly because it's so fast and what I mean by these type of technologies, things that are simple to use and much faster than what you get from. From a commercial lab. Exactly. What you have here is that people tend to say it enables them to do more testing. So whereas I would take samples and I might take so many environmentals, but I have to wait for them to come back. Do you find that people are saying, well, wait a minute, I can do more samples, I Can have a better environmental program. It also enhances that kind of data gathering.
- [78:20]
F
Yeah, no, we actually hear that that's actually kind of surprising, right? You would think that if people. There's always a conception that people don't want to do testing, like people don't want to do testing, it's not a fun activity. It's not something that directly supports, you know, sales.
- [78:36]
D
Right.
- [78:36]
F
So that's something that you hear a lot. But we have heard from a lot of our customers that if we make it easy for them to do testing, we make it fast for them to do testing. They actually want to do more testing because they're able to get more information. This is something that we talked about earlier, right? People do testing not for the sake of doing. Doing testing itself. It's not fun for people to testing. People want to do testing it because they want to get information to help them to make a decision, help them act, right? So the more. The better information, the better data that you can give to your customers, the faster that they can make decisions, the better decisions they can make. And when this is easy for them to do, and this is easy for them to make that decision, they like that, right? They like that. They like. Like to pay a small amount to do another test so they have more information. So they feel more confident, they have more confidence in what they're sending out. Right. Or to make whatever corrective action. To take whatever corrective action they need to take.
- [79:33]
D
Right? The scenario I hear about all the time, which I think this fits in pretty well with, is, is we found a contamination event. We found a hot spot in the plant somewhere. Now we want to clean and go back and test and clean it back and. And test. I don't want to go back and clean, send samples out, wait two days, and then go back and clean, because I may have to clean again. Even if the samples come back. Not as a hotspot anymore. I don't know what's changed in two days. But if I do this and get results back in a shift, or if I get this and do the result, I can have that iterative back and forth and get that solved.
- [80:04]
F
Absolutely. Absolutely. That. No, that's the exact. That's the exact scenario that we. We hear about another scenario, just to put it out there. We work with some dairies. They have to. They test their cows, right? They test the cows for mastitis and it spreads, right? So the. The faster you can catch this, the faster that you can isolate the cow that. That is sick, the faster that you can deal with it, the less that it spreads. Imagining if you wait a day with two days and it spreads to other cows, well, it's too late now. You have to, you know, corner offer or just get rid of a whole, whole section of your, your herd.
- [80:36]
I
Right.
- [80:36]
F
So that's something that, that is also really important.
- [80:39]
D
So what's next for Spectacular? What happens next? What are you looking at next with this? What should customers need to know? If they wanted to find out more, if they wanted to see more about this, what's next?
- [80:53]
F
Yeah, a very good question. First thing is that we are in the middle of our early access program. So this is not quite out on the market yet. We have a couple, a number of people lined up and we're. If this is something that is, this is interesting to you, this is, think this could be useful to you. We would love to talk to you, we'll love to bring a unit on site and talk to you and think, talk to you about how we can help you with your testing needs. This is, you know, I mentioned at the beginning all of the work that we have done, all of the improvements, the development that we have put into this comes to directly from our customers and industry experts. Right. So this is something that we strongly, strongly value. We want to work with our customers to co develop the product. We're not going to be out there and build things because we think it's cool. So that's really important. That's not the grand vision that we really want to do. We really want to take with this is also mentioned at the beginning is to have a fully automated and full, fully integrated platform for doing foodborne pathogen testing. This is something that again we discovered funny thing, we're called spectacular because initially when we started, co founder and I, we worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. We were doing a lot of stuff on spectral microscopy.
- [82:10]
D
Okay.
- [82:10]
F
And we thought that the technology in hyperspectral imaging has applications in food safety and we were able to build a really, really powerful detector. And that's why it's called spectacular, right. Spectroscopy. But it didn't really solve the problem for people because the problem that people have is not a better detector. That's not the problem. The problem mentioned earlier is they want to make decisions faster. Right. So if we don't solve the entire pipeline, right. We don't take them from A to B and they have to get off at some point, see and walk a little bit, take the next. That doesn't really provide the full value that we can provide. So right now we have Something that takes you from sample to actionable data within one step. Right. And that's incredibly important and we want to continue with that. Right. There's a strong data play that comes with this. We mentioned this, alluded this a little bit earlier. You can do trending, you can do data analysis. The more data that you can pull from this, the more useful it is to, let's say, an industry a whole more than just the data from coming from a single producer. One thing that you, you hear about not just here, but everywhere. Now, you know, three years after ChatGPT, everybody is talking about AI, right? Like literally everybody is talking about AI traceability, blockchain and all that. I actually come from an AI background. I was working on building hardware for accelerating deep learning. And one of the things that is, it is something that everybody in the industry knows, but I think it's maybe less known outside, is that when it comes to building a product or any sort of AI solution, the most important thing is not the algorithm, is not the, the deep learning model that you're training, it's really the data. Right? So like an example, we're talking about ChatGPT GPT4, it was already two years old. It's so powerful only because they had 50 trillion terabytes of data, compressed text data, that they were able to train that on, to get that, to get that model and very well labeled, well categorized text data on Wikipedia, Reddit, on everything. Because we've been collecting that, we have the data infrastructure. We do not have a fraction of that amount of data, good usable data when it comes to food safety. And we don't have the data infrastructure for that. And part of what we're doing with this is we want to contribute towards building that data infrastructure structure to make, to collect good data so people can again get actionable data that they can take with what the output of this.
- [84:35]
D
Is and make that trending make sense.
- [84:38]
F
Make that trending makes sense, make it accurate, right? Make it generalizable across industries.
- [84:44]
D
I like what you said before about actionable data because a lot of times you'll see a new technology and someone says this is the greatest technology and the next question is, okay, so what? And right, I don't have that answer. I'll get back to you. But you, you have that answer is it's faster, it's on site, it enables you to do other things. That's the, that's the real plus here.
- [85:03]
F
Exactly, exactly. We tell you when to ship it, when we give you a C of a get that you get the things that really, really matter fast.
- [85:10]
D
So it makes sense to me with what we've discussed with environmental monitoring, doing product sampling having a faster result. It's easy to use. But you mentioned your early access program. Any food company can take advantage of this. But what would you say is an ideal food company to take advantage of your early access program? Or who's the first person that fits on this? Who's I'm looking for?
- [85:34]
F
Yeah, we never say no to anyone.
- [85:36]
G
That's a smart move.
- [85:37]
F
That's a smart move. What we have seen the people that this resonates most with are I would say mid market food producers, manufacturers generally if it's too big, you have. You're slow moving relatively Right. People you'll be interested in seeing this. And we are in conversations with some really large companies and there are value to provide for that. If you're too small, you generally that's not the top of the list when it comes to your business and that's okay. But we also have very small customers. But generally we see the most traction in the midsize food producers though are they are considering setting up options of in house testing and they don't really have a lab yet generally. Right. So this is perfect. You need minimal setup cost. One is that. The other is you know, food producers in food deserts. Right, sorry, sorry. Lab deserts.
- [86:30]
D
Right.
- [86:31]
F
We talked about this. Where you don't have just do the geography access to good testing within the United States. States and even without. Right. And there is also perishable products where testing.
- [86:41]
D
Yeah.
- [86:42]
F
The time to result is really important. So let's say dairy, meat, poultry, etc. So that intersection is where we have seen the most interest. But again if this appeals to you, we would love to talk to you no matter what you're doing.
- [86:55]
D
Yeah, it's one of the things I know we talked about yesterday is this idea of lab deserts. If you're not close to a lab, this is something you can take advantage of and you would have, you would be close to a lab because you would have it in your plant. The other thing I speak to people all the time is they're not so concerned about working with non pathogens. If I'm getting a bioburden test. But they don't want to work with pathogens because they don't have the kind of protections that you have in the chip that you have. But cartridge, I should say cartridge because it's not a chip. It's a chip.
- [87:21]
F
It's not a cartridge. But yeah, we call it a Cartridge.
- [87:23]
D
Yeah. But they wind up getting their own bioburden test, but they're waiting for pathogen tests to come back. So they've got trucks on the dock waiting to ship products, and it's all being held up because they can't do something like this.
- [87:35]
F
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. At the core of this, we want to help people ship products. Right, Right. We're doing testing. We're doing testing. But we realize that what people really care about, Right? This going back to actionable data again, getting them to. To be able to ship their product as soon as possible and making it as easy to operate, minimize the set up cost as much as possible.
- [87:55]
D
Yeah, Easy way to put a lab in place and get actionable data, just like you said. And something you can actually do something with.
- [88:01]
F
Yeah, absolutely.
- [88:01]
D
That's fantastic. Congratulations on putting this together. This is really excellent.
- [88:05]
F
Thank you. Thank you. And again, like a lot of input from you really went into the other agencies as well, so you should be very proud as well.
- [88:12]
D
Michael, very good talking to you. This has been excellent.
- [88:15]
F
Thank you so much.
- [88:16]
D
Thanks for joining us on the podcast.
- [88:17]
F
Thanks for having me here.
- [88:18]
D
All right, thanks, Mike.
- [88:19]
F
Thank you.
- [88:20]
C
Well, hi, everybody. Welcome back to our podcast theater Live. Thank you for joining us here for this discussion. And there's popcorn over there, so I feel like you need some popcorn. I see some of you already have popcorn. Watching this interview. All right, that's great. So I am here today with two esteemed guests. I have Dr. Steven Lyon, the director of food safety for Chick Fil A. And I also have with me Dr. Purni Wick Ramasinga with food safety and restaurant solutions for Chick Fil A. So it's great to have you both at the podcast theater. And thanks for being here with us at the summit too. Now, you're both speaking on a session this afternoon about how to leverage AI tools for food safety applications. First question, we know AI is here and it's not going away. So for those in the food industry who don't have that much experience, experience with using AI tools or even what AI tools are available, what are some of the broad advantages of AI's ability to aggregate and analyze large data sets to help them with their work.
- [89:23]
H
Yeah, I'll go first.
- [89:24]
B
Yeah.
- [89:25]
H
Just from a high level perspective, where we see the value is all these data streams that we have, whether it's from the supplier in the restaurant, whether it's the process of which chicken flows or the process of which lettuce flows. Team member, health and hygiene. We've got all these Data points, but we don't know exactly where to always act on the data. We don't know exactly always how to magnify or quantify the risk in certain situations. So I think for us it's how do, how do we take in all this data, the data that we think is really, really good, and leverage it so that the people in the restaurant, the people in charge, or those making the decisions, that they're fully enabled and empowered to make a confident decision very quickly given the data that they have available to them. Capernaum, I don't know if you want to go in a little bit more.
- [90:15]
I
Yeah, no, I'll add on. I think part of it is it's complex data. Food safety. For somebody who's not in the food safety space, feels like it's pretty easy. Cook your chicken to 165. You, you keep things below 41 degrees if it needs to be cold. But those of us in the industry, we understand it's a fairly complex system. Complex systems come with complex data. And Stephen and I, or any of us as good as we are with data, analyzing big data quickly to make very confident decisions is not easy.
- [90:54]
C
Right.
- [90:55]
I
So AI becomes that tool that equips us to be able to bring all of the data together, make sure the data talks to each other, identify patterns, make a decision, and then validate the decision that AI helped you make. And then you bring it to whoever your end client is. So it gets you to be fast, it gets you to be fairly accurate. It equips, helps you with the tool to tell the story you need to tell.
- [91:23]
H
Yeah, well, I like that about the complexity, right? Because we know that the more complex a process is or a product or whatever, there's more risk involved, Right. And then you got more risk involved within the magnitude of the decisions made around how do you mitigate that risk or how do you control it? That becomes extremely important. So again, it's just all this data, all this complex things, just empowering, really good decision making, safety decisions, right. And doing it quickly and effectively and with really high confidence.
- [91:59]
C
And that kind of leads right into the next question I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, one of the topics and AI applications you'll be discussing during the session is risk assessment. And I'm wondering if you could share a little bit preview of what you're going to be discussing of where you see AI being most helpful in the area of risk assessment.
- [92:19]
I
Yeah, I can take that one. There's a few ways you can apply AI. I think the first Thing I want to clarify, at least a lot of my friends, when they hear AI, they immediately go to ChatGPT, right? As in a large language model.
- [92:34]
B
Right.
- [92:35]
I
That is not all of AI. That's just one type of method in leveraging AI. There's all these other kinds of models, whether it's advanced machine learning models like neural networks or more simpler versions like a regression model. So these are all different types of applications of AI. And how you think about it, at least how we think about it, is in four different ways. We think about it as something that can diagnose, knows a problem, something that can help explain the historical context for that problem, something that can help predict outcomes based on the problem we've identified and the variables we've identified that impact that problem. And then finally something that will help us prescribe solutions to address that problem. So it's four different ways and multiple different models that you can apply. I think a really good example from a risk assessment for those of us in microbiology, I at least see one of my friends who's in microbiology is sometimes you see all you get this data around some product being at whatever temperature. And I'll use an example of chicken. Let's say it was held at 45 degrees. If there's no context on how long it was held for right now, 45 degrees, it doesn't really mean anything. But if you know the time, the temperature, the ph of the product, the environmental conditions, you can bring all of that together to say, hey, if this Chicken was at 45 degrees for two hours, not a big deal. Salmonella growth is fairly manageable and non existent. But you can leverage primary and secondary modeling to do that. And then if this chicken was held for, let's say, say six hours at 45 degrees, that risk is drastically different to that product being held at two hours for two hours at 45 degrees. So that's, if you think about risk assessment, that is a very simple risk assessment. You're saying two hours later this chicken was fine, but maybe six hours later it's not. And you're leveraging a model to be able to predict that. And that is as simple as it can get. But all that to say is that you can leverage large language models and more complex machine learning models to be able to analyze even bigger data sets to assess risk and then make data informed decisions. And I think we're very cognizant about seeing data informed because we want to be informed by data, not just driven by data. We want to carry that human context and the expert knowledge to be able to understand, hey, this data is telling us this, what is the true risk? How does this compound into our risk threshold for our business? And is this really that big a problem that we need to solve right now? So that's sort of how I would set it up.
- [95:27]
H
Yeah, yeah. Only thing I would ask, you know, besides, you know, looking at it as a modeling for a food process, we think there's opportunities as well for people safety. Right? So a lot of good studies done by Winnie Fannesell and Steven Duray at FDA on risk models with norovirus outbreaks in a restaurant. And what would happen if the situation interventions were done here but not done there. But if we can use AI to really kind of predict a sick team member comes in, doesn't wash their hands, is working in this area, produces or handles this much amount of food, could go out to X amount of customers, you know, what happens with the risk? You know, how can it be controlled? And if it is controlled, how much do we think it is controlled? It really can help us to tell a story, a really good narrative as well, especially if it can be modeled and mapped out. Think of biomapping, right? We used to do biomapping and you would kind of show what would happen to a process control disrespect. But if AI models can also show that and show it a little bit more clearer, it could tell a really good narrative that would also help people buy into food safety.
- [96:40]
I
What he's referring to is a simulation. So you would run a simulation of one situation that you think you could happen with all variables accounted for. And if you were to remove one variable, what's the impact to the outcome versus two variables? What's the impact? If you think about it in a business context, say, I want to go influence my business partner to say, hey, like we, we need to really install this thing to be able to manage food safety risk. Now, if it's just a cost center, maybe there's some pushback. But if we can prove out, hey, this is our exposure right now, if we were to remove this variable and this variable by installing this item, then we will mitigate our risk by the this person. So we're not just guessing anymore. We are actually telling a story that has business impact, leveraging data. I think at the end of the day, that is the goal based within Chick Fil A and in the business context of it.
- [97:33]
C
Well, that's great. And, and I appreciate you explaining, you know, some of the ways that AI can be applied to Risk management. And, and you know, like you said, when we think of AI tools, sometimes, you know, the average person might think, oh, chat GPT. But there is, there are so many applications that are important for our industry and large language models are not the only thing out there with AI. So, and that, that connection you talked about between people and AI and we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But, but one, one thing that I know is, you know, a part of your supply chain at Chick Fil A is produce. And of course, you know, safety is an important part of produce because it is, you know, in many, most cases, ready to eat. We're also seeing some AI applications in produce safety. Where in the supply chain are these types of tools being implemented?
- [98:27]
I
I think there's a couple examples not specific to Chick Fil A, but just as an industry whole from wedding new suppliers. So understanding which suppliers have what control points, critical control points, how many outbreaks are associated with suppliers, unfortunately, that will allow you to set you up for success at the beginning of it, right? You can vet your suppliers, leveraging data that's existing and is available to you after that. I think a lot of applications in cold chain management, so being able to say, hey, this is the distance my product is going to travel to get from point A to point B. And then the temperature at which this product will be held is at this temperature, the humidity is this amount, all the other factors, the weather factors that play into it, traffic patterns that play into it, you can actually figure out what is the true risk of your products spoiling. So if you can see an increase, for example, in your spoilage in your core chain, that is you saying, hey, there's, there's something going on, let me understand what's happening. And then you can lean into specific variables. You think as a human, as a person that could be feeding into this and identifying what variable it is that gives you a unique perspective in solving that problem. Right? So that is a big application that we are seeing. And then on, on our end, once we receive it at a restaurant, we store it before we use it. So if you think about romaine lettuce, I don't know, I keep picking on romaine lettuce. But if you were, if I'm receiving my romaine lettuce and I don't know what condition it was maintained at, and once it gets to my back of house, how do I make sure I leverage the data I can gather, whether it's received? Temperature, cold, holding temperature, the unit temperature to be able to say, hey, I had about seven days of shelf life based on all these things I'm seeing, maybe my shelf Life is actually 5. What is the decision I can make based off of that? So that's, that's how I would think about it. Like I said, this is not unique to Chuck Fly. This is like what I've, the patterns I've seen in industry, I think. So I think we'll have some friends who can speak to it a little bit better than me on what specifically they're leveraging today.
- [100:46]
H
Yeah, I think about certain commodities, one of them being produce, fresh produce or even meat. Meat as well. But you know, look, weather patterns have a significant effect on pathogens, right? So you know, can our supply chain, can suppliers, processors, growers, can they take in the weather pattern data and associate that with a specific lot or a crop that may have been impacted by a bad weather event and really flag that as hey, this is a high risk harvest, right? And then there's more attention, focus on looking at that lot to make sure it's safe or maybe it's diverted and sent somewhere else. But it's the power and awareness that hey, this lot, due to historical data patterns, weather, so forth could be flagged as a specific high risk. Putting the appropriate priority and attention on that to make it safer and even. Same with portioning of meat products, right? So for us and others that buy portion meat, the size of that meat is critical on how it's cooked and how our operation is set up. Right. So AI can really come in and ensure that meat is cut a certain size shape and is done in a very tightly done way to ensure that we're getting the product that we, that we paid for and it's going to cook properly.
- [102:11]
C
That's interesting. So you know, talking about different AI applications along the supply chain to ensure food safety but then pruning, you also talked about a little bit about, you know, when you know there is a problem using the data analysis with that AI tools can provide to basically help with root cause analysis.
- [102:28]
I
So yeah, I think it's a, it's moving away, hopefully in the future moving away from being reactive to being proactive because I think food safety, if we can stop one outbreak situation, that's great.
- [102:44]
D
Right?
- [102:45]
I
So we want to lean into data to be able to identify patterns, to get proactive and leverage real time monitoring as well to be proactive as opposed to being reactive at the end of the day and be like, oh, we could have done this and this and this to solve this and this and this. But the thing that needed to happen had already happened. So I think that's the other piece of it.
- [103:07]
C
Interesting. And so you alluded to this earlier, Purni, but you know, we know that AI tools can aggregate and analyze vast amounts of data, but we as humans still need to own and oversee these processes in order to ensure that they work the way we want them to. And they're just giving us the data that we need and the analysis that we need and helping us know how to apply that in the ways that we need. So how are human decision making skills necessary to realizing the value of AI tools for food safety applications?
- [103:44]
I
I'll preface this. The goal of AI is not and should not be to make humans more dependent on AI. I don't think that should be the goal. The goal of AI should be to enable more complex thinking in humans. Right? So it's a tool, it's an infrastructure you're continuing to build that'll equip you, him, me, all of us, to be able to be faster, better decision makers. So at no point can AI exist without the human interaction. That means we get to decide what we need to build a model for. We get to decide what model we should build, we get to decide what kind of data we want to put in the model, we get to decide how to tune the model. And once there's an output from the model, we get to understand, hey, what's the true risk here? How does it break into and cut into our risk threshold or expand our risk threshold? And then we get to, to react to whatever that outcome is. So at no point in any of these sentences are humans excluded. The entirety of the decision making process includes humans leading and leveraging AI to make that decision. I think during our talk, we'll talk a little bit more into it. And that's how we at Chick Fil a think about AI. It's a tool, it's an infrastructure. It's not meant to make me or you or him dependent on AI to make our decisions. That is not the goal.
- [105:15]
H
Yeah, I mean, we don't see it as replacing human workforce whatsoever. It's really enabling better decision making and giving and really empowering those that need to make the decisions to feel confident again in making the right decisions. But like Bernie said, humans have to build it. Humans have to set a threshold, humans have to analyze the data and ultimately still make the decisions. And we used to talk about data driven decisions, data driven decisions, and now we're more data enhanced, data influenced. Because at the end of the day. People will still run the business and people will still make the decisions for the business and that should not go go away due to AI, right? Humans will still have a huge part because the humans need to know the business, they need to know the culture. And this is really all about helping enhancing culture and not eliminating the human workforce.
- [106:15]
C
Well, thank you both for your insights. This was a really interesting interview. And again, that session is later today. What time is it?
- [106:23]
H
2:45.
- [106:23]
C
2:45. Okay, so go to this session at 2:45 and listen to Dr. Lyon and Dr. Wick Ramasingha. Thank you. Talk about more about this subject along with their fellow panelists. So thank you both for being here today and being on the podcast Theater Live. And it's great to talk with you both. Have you both at the summit and thank you the audience for sitting in and listening.
- [106:48]
B
Thank you.
- [106:49]
H
Thank you. Our pleasure.
- [106:54]
A
Thanks again to Dr. Jason Evans, Brian Ronholm, Michael Fang, Dr. Steven Lyon, and Dr. Purni Wick Ramasingha for joining us on the podcast today. And of course, thanks to all of you for listening. A very special thanks to our presenting sponsor, Spectacular Labs, creators of LabinaBox, the easiest, fastest and most cost effective way to perform rapid pathogen testing and and receive a certificate of analysis on site. Visit their website spectacularlabs.com to learn more. Now, you know we love hearing from you, so please don't hesitate to send us questions or suggestions to podcastood-safety.com or post a note on LinkedIn, X, Facebook or Instagram. We're always excited to hear from you. And to make sure that new and bonus episodes magically appear in your podcast player, all you have to do is click that Follow or Subscribe button in the player of your choice and presto, bingo. All the episodes appear. And while you're there, throw some stars our way by rating the podcast, especially if you enjoyed it. It only takes a moment and it's good for everyone. And that's it for us today. Part two of our Live from the Summit bonus series will air this Thursday, May 22nd. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves and those around you. We'll talk to you then.