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Food Safety Matters
Ep. 205. Black and Gabor: Digital Transformation and Emerging International Standards for Food Safety
01:26:43
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Foreign.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacey Atchison, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and I'm here along with my co hosts, Adrienne Bloom, our editorial director, and Bob Ferguson, president of Strategic consulting. And I want to thank you, our listeners, as always, for including us in your day. So, so thank you. So we want to get started like we do with a sneak peek from Adrian about today's interview.
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Okay, so in today's episode, I'm speaking with Tom Black, who chairs the Codex Committee for Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems, and he also works for the Australia Department of Agriculture. And Dr. Gabor Molnar, who works for Unito, about emerging trends in international food safety standards and regulations and how digitalization and AI are in forming these trends. We also talk about the food safety work priorities of their organizations and the Vienna Food Safety Forum. It's a jam packed interview, so don't miss it.
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B
Yes, another jam packed episode because we have quite a bit of news and we were talking about this before we got started. It's, you know, it's another long one, you guys. I guess the moral of the story is we're okay with that and we feel like, you know, in a world of headlines and blips and blurbs, you know, food safety is a complex topic and we're happy to do deep dives with you. So we, we know that y' all are there listening. So, you know, we're in for where we go in. So we hope that you find value and in our in our long form podcast. So before we get to the news, I want to personally extend our invitation to our podcast audience to join us for the food safety summit May 11th through the 4 14th in the year of our Lord 2026, we will once again return to the easily accessible and affordable Rosemont, Illinois. And I also want to remind you that as a Food Safety Matters podcast listener, you can save big when you register for the summit. Produced by Food Safety magazine, podcast listeners save big 20% off of registration fees whenever you register. But when you register early, that 20% is on top of the early bird discount. So you can see how those things really compound there. So just use discount code FSMATTERS20 when you register to get that extra 20%. Visit foodsafetysummit.com to sign up for updates on the conference. Or you can also follow the Summit on Social and become a part of our growing community. Our agenda is going to be out soon. I keep saying that, but it's really we're like, we're in the, we're in the very finest. We're getting down to that very fine sandpaper. Those numbers, I can't remember, do they get bigger or smaller when you get into the finer sandpaper? It's been a while, I think, I.
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Think, I think bigger is finer, right?
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Bigger?
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Is it finer? I mean, I have to refresh myself now. So anyway, on that, on that knowledge, it's been a while since I've done anything, apparently.
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D
This is not the carpentry podcast. That's for some other podcast.
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It is not the woodworking podcast, although it does fascinate me. But that scares me because I am prone to, well, how did I cut myself? So when I think about a lot of those saws and this and that, it's like, oh no, I don't know. I like it. But I'm afraid. Okay, enough of that. How about some news?
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Adrienne okay, so first up in news as the FDA and USDA digest the public comments that were received in response to their joint request for information on a definition for ultra processed foods, or UPFs, some industry groups have spoken up to discourage the agencies from legally defining UPFs. So there's currently no single authoritative definition for ultra processed foods for the US Food supply. However, the term is commonly associated with the 4 category Nova Food Classification System, which defines category 4 UPFS as industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients, including sugar, oils, fats and salt, and food substances of no or rare culinary use. UPFS are also a topic of focus mentioned throughout the Trump administration's final MAHA report published in September. The report notes that the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans don't explicitly address upfs. Legally defining UPFS at the federal level could allow FDA and USDA to pursue specific rules and policies for the food category. So recently, meat industry organizations including the National Chicken Council and the National Pork Producers Council raised the point that adopting a definition for UPFS that is similar to the NOVA classification, which focuses on processing steps of a food rather than nutritive content, could place meat products like chicken nuggets in the same category as foods like candy, despite their very different nutritional profiles. So in its comments, the National Chicken Council or NCC expressed general concerns about a classification system and suggested that instead of pursuing a classification system, FDA and USDA should strengthen existing frameworks and consumer education. If the agencies move forward with a classification system, though, the NCC urges the use of a uniform, science based approach to characterizing foods that prioritizes nutritional composition and ingredient function over the number of processing steps or ingredients. The NCC also said that FDA and USDA should only develop a classification system in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. Now then, the National Pork Producers Council, or the nppc, also shared its apprehension about a definition for upfs, saying that it could be damaging for consumers of pork products. The group called the NOVA classification system problematic and discouraged USDA and FDA from relying on a categorization system that focuses on the processing of foods rather than their nutritional benefits, as well as categorizing food as ultra processed that contains ingredients to enhance food safety, shelf stability, and nutrient availability. The NPPC also requested that the agencies not define UPFS in a way that conflicts with FDA's standards of identity regulations. Instead of ultra processed foods, NPPC wants FDA to use a term like discretionary foods. And consumer groups such as the center for Science in the Public Interest and the Consumer Federation of America agree on the need to define the category of foods commonly referred to as UPFs, although the groups don't exactly agree on the methods. The Consumer Federation of America wants FDA to adopt a federal UPF definition grounded in the NOVA classification system rather than other factors such as nutritive content. The Consumer Federation of America says that if FDA creates a new UPF definition that's different from the NOVA classification, it would cause confusion for consumers and undermine the agency's credibility. Meanwhile, the center for Science in the Public Interest supports a UPF definition that's scientifically linked to health concerns and more precisely conveys harm. So according to the center for Science in the Public Interest, the term should include processed foods that meet one of six high unhealthy nutrient density, such as excess sugar, sodium, or saturated fat. High calorie density, processed meats, sweetened beverages, processed refined carbohydrates and ingredients that are strongly linked to cancer or other serious health concerns.
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Well, that's a lot.
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D
It is a lot.
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It's a lot. I've never even heard of this NOVA cap, but, you know, classification system, but, you know, that's.
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I believe it's used more internationally than.
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Yeah, it's widely referenced globally by, like, the WHO and whatnot. But it's not something that we have used in the US to legally define UPFs.
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It's just kind of like one of.
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Those things right now where if you think it's a upf, it might be.
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A upf, you know, when you see it.
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Right.
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Well, so I have a challenge for you on that. In reading through this and in getting ready for this, I became really fascinated with this idea that they should be classified by nutritional guidelines, nutritional content rather than processing steps. And of course, you know, I'm always going to think about how this is going to become complicated because none of this is ever going to be simple. But I did find a product that I came across that's a Nova 4 classified classification. Agreed that it's Nova 4 classification. It contains sugars, including maltodextrin, corn syrup, added oils including seed oils, hydrolyzed protein, and maybe even very, very low levels of trace metals. Does that sound like something that should maybe be restricted as an ultra processed food? It describes infant formula.
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I'm waiting for the.
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Oh yeah.
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So infant formula is one of the most studied from a nutritional standpoint. The seed oils are put in there because of the oils content and developmental processes that you need a certain amount of fats. The hydrolyzed proteins come from milk proteins. But it also helps, my understanding, helps make them stable. And all these other things are put in there to make sure that it has the perfect nutritional profile. Very similar to breast milk is what they're trying to match as close as they can. And then they have versions with children with different types of sensitivities. And this is widely studied. But if you think this is essentially nobody in infant formula wants me to characterize this way. I can't think of a better way to say it, but it's essentially a bit of a shake in a can. If you get the liquid version or the powder that you mix, which if you looked at this in isolation you would say, yeah, there's a lot of steps involved. There's a lot of processing steps. It's a very complicated process. I don't think it's something that people should avoid using. I mean it's a very highly studied. So this con, this idea of nutritional content versus processing steps has some validity when I read through this.
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Yeah. I mean on its face I would tend to agree with that. Right. The part that I just put question marks like I'm confused. The Nova 4 industrial manufactured food products made up of several ingredients, blah blah blah. Several ingredients. Sugar, oils, fats and salt and food substances of no or rare. And here's the word that confuses me. Culinary use. So I can't imagine that there are chefs out there who think that oils, fats and salt have no culinary. Like that's a very different thing than nutrition.
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Yeah. My guess with that is something like titanium dioxide, where you would say, you know, a chef is sitting. Do you have a pinch of titanium.
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Dioxide While I'm cooking this yeah, but that's not salt.
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No, no, not at all.
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That's not oils.
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No.
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Or even sugar.
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I think they mean in addition to those things. So you've got, like, different additives, chemicals, or things like that enhance shelf life. Right. And so not things you would use in your home kitchen or restaurant kitchen, but in addition to the sugar, salt.
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F that.
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So if you've got all these things, then that would make it a UPF under that. Nova 4.
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Yeah. So they like. And then who is it? The national pork producers like discretionary foods. And now I think we're just getting, like, a little cute or something, Right? Like, not necessarily cute, but you know what I'm saying? It's like we're really splitting hairs here. Now, discretionary.
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I don't really know what sounds. What sounds worse. Yeah.
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We're introducing a whole new vocabulary and vernacular around this. Right. Instead of things that people will understand, so. Oh, and Adrian knows this, Bob. I don't know if you know it or not, but I keep a very small. Because just to save space on my desk, a very small can opener on my desk that I can wave around in meetings with people when I think that we've opened a real can of worms here and that we might want to rethink this.
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Worms in a can would be unprocessed, minimally processed. That'd be Nova Group 1.
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Would it be considered a discretionary food?
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Well, it would be for me. I know that.
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It definitely would be for me, but, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot.
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This is going to get more complicated before it gets simple. There's no question about it.
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I mean, I think that. Well, it's a conversation we need to have. And it's. Obviously, it's not. It's not an easy one, but it's one that we definitely need to have. And when you consider, you know, the ramifications of disease, you know, I've heard food, you know, described as food is medicine. You know, most people don't necessarily think of it that way. It's kind of an ayurvedic idea. But, yeah, I'm all in on that. But I still am not giving up my ruffles. I've tried to cut back. I have. I have. But. Or French fries. Sorry, favorite food. It's going to be hard for me. So I don't know.
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There's not much wrong with French fries as long as it's part of an overall better diet. But if It's. If it's 98% of your calories. You got an issue?
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Yeah, I don't think so. I I, it's not as much as I yeah, even I couldn't do that. So.
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Okay, so we'll continue to watch this.
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We know there's gonna be a lot.
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More coming out on this as we move forward with the agencies trying to define this, so we'll continue to keep you updated. Now moving deeper into regulatory scrutiny of the US Food supply, a new coalition called Americans for Ingredient Transparency, or AFIT as we'll call them, has been formed by major industry, corporations and trade groups, with a campaign urging Congress to correct a maze of state by state laws that restrict or prohibit the use of colorants, additives and ingredients in foods. APHIT is led by Julie Gunlock, a conservative policy advocate focused on food and nutrition, parenting and science based issues, and Andy Koenig, a former policy special assistant to President Trump. Many of the coalition members have made voluntary commitments to phase out synthetic food dyes and other additives following pressures from the Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy. So AFIT calls the emerging patchwork of state laws and food additives well intentioned efforts that are increasing confusion. Rather than providing Americans with the clarity they deserve, AFIT advocates for one uniform national standard for ingredient safety and transparency rooted in science. AFIT also wants to work with Congress on policy issues related to the reform of generally recognized as safe or the grass program front of package labeling reform and QR code reform. So although AFIT says it is ready to work with the Trump administration on federal food reform, Secretary Kennedy is best known for his Make America Healthy Again or MAHA agenda, which is cited as inspiration for several of the pending and past state level food laws that AFIT opposes. As of now, the only enforceable bans or restrictions on the sale or manufacture of foods containing certain additives and colorants have been enacted at the state level, beginning with the passage of the California Food Safety act in 2023 and the California School Food Safety act in 2024, before Maha was a household term and prior to the Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy taking office. More recently, Texas and Louisiana have passed laws requiring a warning label on foods containing any one of more than 40 additives, with the bill's SP aligning their legislations with the MAHA movement. West Virginia also passed a law banning the sale of foods containing any one of seven dyes or two additives by 2028, and other states that have banned foods containing certain colorants and additives from being sold in public schools include Arizona, Delaware, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. So following the formation of The AFIT Coalition 84 consumer and public health groups have sent a letter to Congress urging them to oppose AFIT's efforts to to limit the power of states to set their own laws regarding food and food contact chemicals, the letter states. For many decades, the U.S. food and Drug Administration has failed to address the safety of food and food contact chemicals. Most food chemicals enter commerce without a safety review by fda, and FDA does not routinely reconsider the safety of food chemicals once they have entered commerce. As a result, many food and food contact chemicals allowed in foods offered for sale in the US Are not allowed in foods offered for sale in other nations, the letter continues. In response, states have led efforts to address the risks posed by food and food contact chemicals by enacting laws in five states and considering laws in more than 20 states. We understand that Congress may consider food safety legislation as you do so. We urge you to reject efforts to limit the power of states to protect consumers. Among the groups named in that letter are Consumer Reports, the Environmental working group, the U.S. public Interest Research Group, and Consumer Federation of America, among many others.
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So again, I think that this is one of these areas where I get to say, again, this is going to get more complicated before it gets clarified. Adrian, you mentioned West Virginia, which we know is under a federal suit about that legislation that they passed. I think that testimony will come out and that's going to influence this. There'll be evidence is going to come out and there's going to be a lot it's going to be reviewed much more widely than maybe it has. But before there's a lot of the bands that have gone in place that are based upon linkages and associations. People say that there's enough of a linkage and association, but not necessarily causation, but to use, for instance, what's called the precautionary principle, which I think makes sense. But again, once you get some of these models coming out and you look at the toxicology, it's going to get muddier and mainly for toxicologists to sort through then clear as this goes on. So I think we're going to hear a lot about this in the next year or two. It's going to take a while, but we're going to hear a lot about this kind of data coming out.
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But from a legislative standpoint, it's really. Well, no, not from a legislative for the manufacturers. I mean, that's the part that I am trying to envision. How does this work? I think that the states and what's been happening so far what's been happening for the last couple years with these state regulations coming out, I've largely viewed that before the new administration, before Maha took its seat, so to speak, that it was driving FDA to take action on things that they had not taken action on before. And I thought, okay, this will resolve with some federal guidelines that food manufacturers can operate in. Are we talking about a completely regional food supply? I mean, I don't know what that looks like. Just in this morning, as we started before we recorded Helena Bottmler, EVIC put out a special notification. She publishes a food Fix newsletter, great reporter, and we're happy we're going to have her on in January. So that's going to be fun. There's a senator from Kansas who had tried to strip out Roger Marshall, who tried to strip out the language for the state to retain in a bill that he was working on that would go along with this afit idea of preserving the federal way of legislating this. And he said, I couldn't believe how much pushback that he got and that he added that there may need to be some uniformity, but that he got so many calls that he had to take it out and, and retain the state's ability to, to legislate because he got so much pressure from the Maha moms about this. So I don't know, it's very interesting, kind of layered effect of, you know, where will we wind up?
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D
Yeah, I believe I've mentioned this on the pod years ago, but in my experience working with some of these things in different fields, generally some of these things are solved on a commercial basis. So the example I've used in the past is California, a standard that they put in place for portable gas cans. So 5 gallon gas cans and they had to change what the California type was. The other 49 states did not follow suit, but some of the major retailers said, listen, we can't stock California gas cans and make sure that we don't ship the non conforming ones. So we're only going to sell California conforming gas cans.
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Yeah.
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So these kind of commercial workarounds will also come in place where the pressure will to harmonize will come from other avenues even if the government doesn't do this. So at some point someone's going to say, all right, we're not going to sell foods that are not compliant to most of these states because we can't sort this out. So we'll probably never get to like a regional, you know, here's California Cookies vs New York Cookies vs West Virginia Cookies or something like that. But it'll probably get harmonized either eventually or some other way.
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Well, and on those California gas cans, they're tough, they're hard to use, I will tell you. And for somebody with a tricky back, when you get into those heavier cans, trying to operate that and the handle to get it, and I've just resorted to two gallon cans like that's it. I can't go. I can't do the handle and hold the thing for anything more than 2 gallons. Side note. All right, sorry. I really digressed on that one. But you brought it up, Bob. You started it.
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Well, this is the Carpentry Gas can podcast. Didn't we say that at the beginning?
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We're really expanding our coverage scope.
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We really are. Today we're going for it.
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Okay, so we mentioned that Consumer Federation of America was one of the organizations on that letter to Congress, but we want to talk about them further. And they did a recent survey where they polled fast food workers in California. And I think this is a really interesting survey because what it showed was that nearly half of fast food workers reported witnessing at least one serious food safety problem at their workplace in the past year. And this study was conducted in July of this year with 338 workers at more than 200 fast food locations across California. And it was co sponsored by the California Fast Food Workers Union. So the survey revealed that serious food safety issues are frequently observed at fast food establishments by employees, with 47% of respondents saying that they saw at least one serious food safety problem at their job in the past year. A third of respondents said that they saw two or more serious food safety problems at work in the last year. And regarding specific food safety issues, 29% of respondents reported seeing sewage or sewer water flooding while the store was open, 24% saw evidence of pests such as droppings or bites on food or food packaging. 24% said they lack access to a working toilet or warm water for handwashing or they weren't given enough time for thorough hand washing. And 21% saw cross contamination or foods not being stored at proper temperatures. And then 16% saw expired, rotten or moldy food being served to customers. So among those who reported seeing issues with pests, sewer water flooding toilets and hand washing, cross contamination or food storage temperatures, 53% said management didn't address the problem in a timely manner. Of those 53%, 82% of them said management didn't fix the problem because they didn't take it seriously, said it wasn't important or said it was too expensive to fix. And significantly more than one third of respondents who reported food safety issues at work or asked for changes to improve food safety said that they experienced retaliation for doing so. And a review of restaurant inspection and closure records for California fast food brands supports the survey's findings. Focusing on 20 of the largest fast food franchises in California's 12 largest counties, the review analyzed available health department records from 2022 to 2025, and across all brands and counties reviewed, nearly 250 incidents were identified that involve major health violations or closures at fast food restaurants. Many of the incidents involve multiple major violations of health and safety laws, and over 75% of those incidents resulted in restaurant closures. Another key issue reported by survey respondents included the pressure to work while exhibiting symptoms of infectious illness. 60% of respondents said they or a coworker have worked while exhibiting symptoms of illness such as vomiting, diarrhea, fever, sore throat, or cough. 47% reported to work even though they were sick. And 97% of those who worked while sick pointed to pressure from management, fears of retaliation, not being able to find coverage, or being unable to afford missing work. So in the report, the Consumer Federation of America and the California Fast Food Workers Union proposed several recommendations to improve food safety at fast food establishments, including bringing fast food employers into compliance with relevant food safety and occupational safety regulations, strengthened enforcement of public health and workplace safety laws, strengthening efforts to protect workers from retaliation for reporting hazards and refusing to work while sick, and better training and education for fast food workers on what to do if their employers ignore food safety hazards or pressure sick employees to work. So definitely a illuminating survey, I think, and concerning as well.
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D
The whole time you were talking about that survey, all I could hear is somebody yelling norovirus over and over.
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B
Yeah.
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I mean, we know it's the number one leading cause. And this is the exact reason why this.
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B
Yeah. And that 47% reported that they reported to work even though they were sick. And then they listed all the things, you know, pressure from management, fear of retaliation. And then to me, if you were to break that down, I'll bet the, you know, the winner is unable to afford missing work. So I don't know. These are. Yeah, yeah. Big. These are the questions. Right. And there are a lot of pressures on all of this. And I guess I could say I'm not surprised. I wish that were the case.
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Yeah.
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But not surprised.
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Okay.
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C
And so before we go today, we want to tell you about a recent study out of Austria that has gotten a lot of attention from our audience Looking at Biofilms and water hoses so the researchers in this study looked at hoses used in a meat processing facility over an eight month span and found significant microbial colonization in 14 out of 15 water hoses made of thermoplastic, elastomer and polyester and that were used daily. The hoses were connected to a drinking water quality supply and were used for cleaning and sanitation of the equipment and facility as well as supplying water for food production. The hoses were replaced after each sampling event and a regular cleaning schedule for the hoses was not in place. So a number of bacteria were prevalent in the biofilm communities, including Mycobacterium. Opportunistic pathogens such as Legionella, Pseudomonas and Neoclamydia were detected at low levels. Fungal diversity was limited, but Trichoderma was found prevalently and has been linked to human infections. The detection of spoilage associated bacteria and opportunistic pathogens and even at low levels, highlights the potential for water hoses to act as reservoirs for contamination. And given the lack of a cleaning schedule for the hoses and the observed microbial diversity, the study underscores the need for routine monitoring and maintenance of water delivery systems.
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B
Now I know this is a quick before we go, but I have to say I did dig into all the comments on our social posts, the initial social posts on the article. It was a lot of comments ranging from great, thanks for sharing. This is so important to people going duh, we know this, this isn't news. But then other people coming in and saying yeah, we've known this, but it's really good to be reminded and to refresh. And you know Food Safety Magazine is a global, global media company, so we're very happy to be able to share knowledge all over the place. And not everybody's using the same practices and not everybody has the same knowledge. So what what may be duh for you is a great reminder or even new information for somebody else. But it was great to see that. Always great to see those discussions taking place on our LinkedIn channel. So I encourage everybody to join the community, share your does and great thanks for sharing with us. So as always there are links to all the articles that we've referenced in our show notes. As I mentioned, if you don't already, we invite you to follow us on our social channels, LinkedIn X, Facebook and Instagram. Just search for Food Safety Magazine and then to take a deeper dive and access all of the great content that we offer, visit our website food-safety.com and now it's time for Adrian's interview with Tom Black and Dr. Gabor Molnar. Tom Black is the first assistant secretary of the Exports and Veterinary Services Division at the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. In this role, he's responsible for regulating and facilitating Australia's exports of animal commodities and certified organic products, while also providing the overarching technical food safety framework for both both food exports and imports. Tom leads the Australian Government's bilateral and multilateral technical market access negotiations for these commodities and represents Australia in international standard setting form including the Codex Elementary Commission. He has over 20 years of experience in government and is currently the Australian Delegate to the Codex Elementaries Commission. He also serves as Chairperson of the Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and certification systems. Dr. Gabor Molnar is an Industrial Development Officer at United Nations Industrial development organization, or UNIDO, technically leading UNIDO's food safety work. As part of his responsibilities, Dr. Molnar is designing and implementing food safety capacity building initiatives, mostly in Asia and Africa. He also represents UNIDO in various global forums including the codex elementarius commission. Dr. Molnar is the main organizer of the Vienna Food Safety Forum and specializes in the domain of digitization for food control and safety systems. Among his various degrees, Dr. Molnar holds a PhD from the University Laval and multiple Master's degrees and certifications. So let's get right to that conversation.
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E
So today we're going to hear from Tom and Gabor on emerging trends in international food safety standards and regulations and how digitalization and AI are informing those trends, as well as some updates on the work their organizations are doing to advance food safety.
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C
So welcome to the podcast, both of you. It's great to have you here.
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A
Terrific to be here.
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E
So, okay, you know, looking at a high level view, what are some of the emerging trends in international food safety standards and regulations and how is digitalization informing these trends? Tom, maybe you can kick us off by speaking to that.
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A
Sure, really happy to, and it's great to be here with your listeners today. I think at the highest of levels, it's really, really important that we stress that food safety absolutely has to remain the priority for the global food system. Perhaps it should be a given, but, but it's worth restating that, that food safety has to be the, the ultimate goal. But what we're also seeing right across the globe, both within industry, but also within regulators, is that efficiency is, is one of those things that's, that's also a real pressure point for, for Everyone. So efficiency and effectiveness, but not sacrificing food safety at that same time. So what does that mean? That means that business and governments and regulators are looking for better ways to do things and how they might, in what we are seeing, I guess as increasingly complex supply chains, address those productivity challenges while making sure that consumers continue to get safe food all the time. And that's where the new digital tools potentially can come into it. We want to continue to have a food control system that's based on risk that absolutely is underpinned by best science. And again, that's not a. I don't think that's a new trend. That's something that people have been looking at for a long time. And indeed the Codex Elementaria system has been about risk and setting global food standards that are risk based. But it's. How do we then do that using the best modern tools and create opportunities to more accurately, rapidly and in sometimes real time get continuous flows of information and data that allow us to make great regulatory decisions. It's about how we can then take those tools and direct our resources that are at times shrinking, both for business and for regulators, and direct them where we can get the highest impact, where the highest risk is, and potentially reward low risk or high compliant food operators by not having as much intervention because we're using new tools. And that's where the Vienna Food Safety Forum earlier in the year was a really great, a great and timely opportunity for us to talk across digitalization of the food systems. And it was really exciting to see what industry and regulators were doing across the board.
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C
Yeah, and I guess, you know, that.
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E
Kind of speaks to, you know, what food safety regulators, many of whom I knew were at the forum, you know, how are they incorporating some of these emerging global trends into the future of.
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C
Food safety right now?
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A
Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's a bit of a spectrum across countries and also within countries, if, if that makes sense. So perhaps I might start with some, some general observations and then, and then, then drill down into sort of the Australian situation and give you some examples of the things that we, that we're doing. So, so at that sort of general level, we're seeing efforts to digitize information that's been gathered and shared and used for decision making. And that's obviously a really key foundational element. We're seeing the digitisation of collection of data points that have previously all been done manually. And so that's a, you know, that's a really significant shift where we're seeing at that at that high level, increasingly at the government to government level as well. Electronic certification be able to use to transmit, transmit information about food consignments between exporting and importing countries and providing assurance to competent authorities. So that takes paper out of the system. So that's a good thing in a modern time as well. We're also starting to see countries and business start to experiment with, with AI and machine learning. And obviously AI is a very hot topic in lots of places and is driving some pretty significant economic shifts around the world. But it's a great opportunity to look at the really large data sets that both regulators and businesses might hold and how by interrogating those data sets you can generate narrative and summary information that can help with decision making. So countries are using this process to inform how they speed up regulatory approvals. They might be able to use machine learning to take the data that they would usually get manually from a food business and speed up process which again improves efficiency and reduces costs. We're also seeing countries looking at how they might take dashboards of information collected from industry or through their regulatory systems to spot trends, particularly say in imported food, so that they can better target interventions to improve food safety outcomes and streamline trade. It's really, as I say, it's really important that we maintain that food safety outcome. But we have to make sure that goods move through our borders seamlessly or we have bottlenecks and slow things down and also can't get, you know, product to market quick enough. You want it on the shelf for as long as you can and staying as safe as it can as well. We're also seeing digitization of traceability systems to allow rapid or more rapid identification of movement of food through supply chains. Obviously that's, it's great that we can do that faster than when we're perhaps just using paper based records. And that's an obvious advantage for the food system if you have actually have a foodborne incident. So if you want to be able to move quickly, that's a, that's a great thing as well. In the Australian example we're seeing a bunch of different things happening. We're seeing some stuff happening at the sort of smart farming level. We're seeing people use smart farming geospatial information to highlight areas of potential risk for food safety. So that could include for example in the Australian situation where a land of droughts and flooding, rains, so we can have drought and then we can have floods. You might see changes in ocean temperature. All those things might have an impact, potentially on food safety. And we're also seeing remotely captured images be used and experimented with in terms of whether you can make regulatory decisions around compliance in food chains. We're also doing a little bit of our own experimentation with some of our specific export commodities and we're looking at how we can, how we too can pick up some of those digital tools. So in the dairy, seafood and egg space, the department that I work for, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in Australia, has done some work to look at how we can use data collected from export establishments to inform a risk based approach to regulatory intervention. And in particular we're keen to see how we can reduce obviously regulatory cost and burden and allow us to in some instances reach really remote sites and operations in a, in a much better way. So if you think about Australia, it's a pretty big continent. Some of, some of our operators are in some, some fairly remote places, but you can also use that in the context of potentially fishing operations operating on the high seas. So I might talk about that a little bit more as we go along. But what we're trying to do is evolve our system to one that largely, from one that largely involved site audits for compliance, which has always been the, I guess it's been the basis of compliance for food systems for a long time. That, that, that physical audit to one of, where we are more of a verifier and an assurer, if that makes sense. So we want to consider operational and third party assurance data that we have that we're working with, with businesses to upload to the department. And this includes unstructured data, video photos that we can then assess using an AI tool that we're developing to see that and train it to identify compliance issues. We think this is a pretty novel approach and can present some pretty good efficiency gains for regulators and also for, as I mentioned before, those low risk operators that have a good history of compliance where you're doing the right thing if you don't need to be intervening. Well, perhaps we should be doing that. Excuse me, that doesn't mean that you don't go back and look. You have to. But can you look less and can you draw on different tools to do that as well? There are a number of considerations that we've taken into account and I'll go back to my first and foremost, we won't compromise on food safety. Australia is an exporting nation. We're also very focused on making sure that our own consumer base is safe with the food that they eat. But we make sure that we meet the requirements of our trading partners. So food safety is a given, so we won't compromise on that. We also look at the inherent compliance risk of individual establishments in terms of food safety. So, you know, if it's a higher risk operation, they're still going to be regulated by site audit at this time. But where it might be a lower risk operation, if it's a cold store, for example, where the risk is much, much lower and recognized, I guess, within the food system as being much lower, we think we can use this tool and then we look at the frequency of the data that we can get from the establishments. So look, we think that there's lots of opportunities there. It's early days for us in that regard. We're still working through it, but, but we think we can really realize some significant benefits in that regard. It's probably now that I should talk about the opportunity on the high sea. We think that there's a great, we can use this tool for some of the audits that we used to do on some of our fishing boats that fish many, many, many hundreds of kilometers away from Australian shores. And rather than having to bring those boats back to Australia for a physical side audit, if we can get these streams of data, video material, we can actually see, one, see the boat in operation, which is not something that you see when it's pulled alongside, and two, we can see it in real time. And so we think that there's some really strong opportunities there as well. Again, it's early days, we continue to work on it, but it's something that we think is a great, a great opportunity for us.
- [45:04]
C
Yeah, I just want to say one.
- [45:05]
E
Thing in response to some of the things that you said is, you know, lots of exciting technologies and tool, technology applications and tools that you're exploring. And I just wanted to point out, I really like what you said about how things like AI tools can assist in decision making, not replace decision making, because obviously that competency part and the human element is still so important for ensuring food safety. So, you know, helping with the effectiveness and efficiency piece. Absolutely. But assisting is what we're looking for, you know, from AI right now.
- [45:38]
A
So it is absolutely true that AI is a tool that we should use to assist us, but it doesn't replace from, from that human intervention in terms of decision making. And, and we're certainly not moving into that space. We're looking at how we can be as efficient as we can be. But it comes down to then, you know, decision makers can then rely upon the information that's put in front of them, but they're still a decision maker, if that makes sense.
- [46:09]
C
Yeah, exactly.
- [46:09]
A
The other example, the other example that I thought I'd just touch on in terms of the Australian context is some work that is being undertaken in the Australian red meat processing area. We're a pretty significant producer of red meat and we export to many, many markets around the world. World. We're working in collaboration with an organization called the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Some people might know that by its acronym csiro. This work that we're doing is using, again, using machine learning to analyze a large data pool to identify data patterns related to food safety hazards. It's looking at food safety data in meat establishments and a whole host of external data collected from, for example, weather conditions, travel time, road conditions. So again, Australia is a big continent, we bring, we have to move animals to processing facilities and weather conditions both in the winter and in the summer can be varying levels of extremes. This data is being collected by our industry. So this project's very much a joint piece of research with industry and the csiro. The work's identifying connections between these external conditions and food safety outcomes and is allowing us to, to look for process adjustments to address increased risks. And they could be things like slowing the processing chain, increasing interventions at certain points, potentially adding more human resources, potentially altering the order of processing, increasing end product testing, or perhaps don't even process certain classes of livestock at a particular time, depending on what you've seen beforehand. I think it's a good example of how bringing different data sources together from disparate locations across the supply chain and by using these AI tools we can generate insights into risk based interventions and greater assurance for food safety. And the industry indeed spoke about this at the Vienna Food Safety Forum, highlighted the work that they're doing. So again, it's very early days but, but it's something that we're pretty excited about. And I guess the other thing that's probably really, really important just in terms of, I guess the global situation is that while countries are off trying different things and businesses are off trying different things, the global food safety system is recognizing that we've got to look at how we can provide some guidance so that we don't go in a thousand different directions all at once. And that's where Codex comes in again. And so the Codex committee that I chair, CCFix, has been looking at guidance for the globe on electronic certification and indeed has completed guidance on electronic certification, remote audit traceability, and now even has a new piece of work that's looking at the broader how do, what guidance can we provide to members around digitalization of their national food control system? Again, that's a very new piece of work. We're just at the beginning, but it's pretty exciting in terms of the shift of where some of these international standards are going.
- [49:38]
C
Yeah.
- [49:38]
E
And I know we're going to touch a little bit more on the work with Sisyphix too, but I wanted to ask Gabor, you know, so we're talking about some of these big global trends and themes and also driving down into specific applications, you know, looking at how regulators and countries and regions are driving these trends. And you know, we know that industrialized nations are largely, largely driving these trends. But I guess, you know, from a United nations perspective and a UNITO perspective, you know, how are developing countries dealing with them and you know, how are developing countries responding to our emerging guidelines.
- [50:15]
C
And standards for food safety?
- [50:17]
E
You know, what challenges and solutions to adoption are they experiencing?
- [50:20]
F
Thank you very much. And I think it's very important to touch upon the topic, the topic of industrializing or developing countries because very often when it comes to the implementation of food safety standards and international guidelines, they have really difficulty to put those best practices into work and make their system more robust. And this is not different when we are talking about digital innovation, artificial intelligence or even different type of public private partnerships. And when we are talking about digital innovation, it's very important to mention that we require a large amount of data, the so to say, big data, right? The velocity, volume and variety of data which is required in order to actually feed those algorithms to create recommendations to regulators, to businesses, to optimize systems. And it's very important to remain opportunity driven to also see what is outside and how we could use solutions for new challenges. And food safety is an interesting world because food safety regulators are looking at challenges always as opportunities. If you are looking at different outbreaks, we are always trying to actually improve our system and make it more robust using scientific evidence and risk based principles going back to emerging countries or emerging economies. It's very important to mention that firstly, it's important to take them along in this journey of standard setting because they can become the champions of those standards when it comes to developing nations and actually support the other. So we can create twinning by basically just bringing them along in the journey of standard setting. On the other hand, it's also very important to mention that indeed developing countries are facing with tremendous amount of resource lack and right now this shortage of resources of course reaching also developed nations, which drives us to think outside of the box. And the first example, what comes to my mind is the voluntary third party assurance related approach where regulators realize that we are not able to actually inspect all food business or food business operators. We have to tap on data in order to optimize our system, reduce the frequency on those who are the, so to say, good guys, look at data trends and at the same time see that how we can make our system more robust. At the end of the day, in addition to that, it's also very important to develop for developing countries tailored capacity building solutions. And this is where the United Nations Industrial Development Organization is coming in. Because very often the standards and technical guidelines are available, but there is a issue with the interpretation. And in this translation we can come in, we can develop a tailored solutions to nations, to regions in order to put those international guidelines and Codex guidelines into practice. For instance, we have been working for the past couple of years on remote audit and inspection with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestries of Australia in the ASEAN region in order to develop a regional guideline for ASEAN countries so to harmonize their practices when it comes to remote audit and inspection, which can actually reduce transaction cost because they will know what to expect, what to do, how to prepare and at the same time also create a win win situation when it comes to food trade. But of course very often we have to actually teach or we have to show how to fish, so to say. Right. And not to give the fish. And this is our job at the end of the day.
- [55:07]
C
Great.
- [55:07]
E
Well, thanks for that background. Now Thomas, you mentioned that you're the chair of the Kodak committee for Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification systems. That's a mouthful. So Sisifix is kind of a good way to shorten that. And you mentioned a few of your work areas and different things that the committee is focusing on. I'd like to do a little bit of a deeper dive into some of those things you mentioned. Can you elaborate on some of the things that SISFIX is focusing on right now?
- [55:33]
A
Yeah, for sure. And look, it's a great honour for me to have the opportunity to chair Sisifix. Australia has hosted CCFIX since its inception so nearly 230 odd years now. And we think it's a really formative committee in terms of the work that the Codex Elementarius does. And it's just so important in terms of providing guidance across the globe in terms of setting up national food control systems. And I was really pleased to hear Gabor, just talk then about some before I get into the new work, some existing work, some work that CCFIX has done that they are now using and rolling out and working with economies across the globe. So the remote audit piece that he was talking about is a great example of some really, really fast work. And that sounds sometimes a little odd when you talk about global standard setting bodies to move super quickly. But with the global pandemic, CCFIX was able to come together and develop the guidance around the use of remote audit, but actually really quickly. I think it was like an 18 month process. And we've seen, as Gilboa has mentioned, economies using remote auditing both through the pandemic and then beyond quite regularly. Now it's something that we're all still learning. It's a challenge, there are challenges with it, but people are doing it and that's only a good thing. It means less people moving around the world to do these audits. You can do things faster and use these modern digital tools and the guidance that the community developed. The other piece that he mentioned was third party assurance. And again, that's another existing piece of guidance that CCFIX worked on over a number of years, work that was led by the United Kingdom, but with many, many members participating. And it's great that again, we're seeing that rolled out and seeing how economies might use that guidance to supplement their food control systems. So what are we currently doing? Well, we're doing, we have a really, really full work program at the moment and that's a good thing, but it also is a challenging thing because it means that we need to, we need to work pretty hard and work pretty hard intercessionally. So we're in the, we've got another year until our next meeting of the, of the full committee which will be held in Perth next year. And what are the things that we've been doing? So at the heart of CCFix, one of the concepts that's just so very, very important is that different specific measures can be applied in different national contexts, but they can all result in the same food safety outcome. So that's that equivalence piece and where you can show that you get the same outcome. We want to see how people, how countries, our members can adopt that. There are a number of existing equivalence texts that have been in place for a number of years now and we're going through a consolidation process. So we're bringing some guidance that was developed in the 1990s together with the most recent guidance that was finalized in the early 2000s trying to bring it together into one document and go, okay, let's have it in modern terms all in one place and a much more easy thing for people to interact with. Saying that is easy, doing that is a harder thing to do. And so it is a challenging piece of work and I commend members for the efforts that they are making in doing that and really keen to see that we continue that work and can hopefully finalise it in a year's time when we get to, when we get to Perth. The other piece of existing work that we've been working on for a couple of years now is in relation to food fraud, which again is pretty topical and topical in lots of contexts. We're working on guidance to produce to guidance on food fraud prevention and control at the systems level. It's an issue that we're seeing increasingly discussed around the globe in many forums, including the Codex Commodity Committees, not the horizontal committee like Sisifix. And so it's really timely that we, we that we work on this. And again, I'm, I'm really confident that with all the efforts of members that we'll find a consensus outcome in a year's time. I guess while it's, while it's, it's my job to, to shepherd us along as chair, it's up to members to find their way through and to find that consensus points. It's one of the really interesting things around Codex standards is that it's member driven and absolutely consensus based and I'm really confident that we'll get there. You know, there's some hard issues, but that's the job. We work through them and we find compromises and we find a way to work through that. So that's exciting. We're also working on traceability. I mentioned traceability is one of those things that we're seeing in the digital digital space. We're modernizing the guidance that already exists to consider things like interoperability and data standards so that we can support countries as they consider moving towards more digitalised traceability systems. We want the guidance to retain flexibility for countries and also that minimum requirement of one step forward and one step back in food traceability that will be so familiar, hopefully to your listeners in terms of food systems. What's exciting though is that we've also got four new pieces of work which gives us seven. So it's quite a bit, it's quite a work program for one of these committees. And so the first, the first piece is this digitalisation of national food control systems. We're looking at developing guidance that will incorporate likely the themes of interoperability, scalability, data governance, international food control systems at that principles level to allow flexibility into the future. Again, it's very early days. We're trying look the a well, I'll be guided by members, but the aim is not to be too prescriptive about what a digitalised national food control system looks like because we also don't want to stifle innovation. We want people to be able to, you know, we want people to be able to try things. So it's about providing some guiding principles that will support countries is to innovate in different ways and exploit available data to further food safety outcomes. We want to encourage the international community to recognise different innovations to support safe food. And these principles should also work hand in glove around the principles of equivalence that I was talking about a little bit earlier. So again, an exciting piece. Looking forward to seeing where the working group that's developing that work gets to over the next year and where we can get to in our deliberations at plenary next year. There's also a piece of work that's being looked at in terms of establishment listings, and this is about updating an existing standard to elaborate on how establishment listings might be used where necessary and based on risk, as a means of assurance for imported food without creating unnecessary barriers to trade. So that might be where a particular country requires a list of all the meat establishments, for example, that might be exporting to that country. Again, the idea with this works not to be prescriptive or to instruct current countries to use establishment listings. Not something that Australia does. We don't necessarily think that, but if you're going to, it's about providing guidance on how best to do so if a country decides to use this tool. So it might be just one part of the necessary assurance that they have in place. Importantly, in terms of digitalisations, it is expected that the guidance will also deal with the need for systems to be able to speak to each other, removing duplication of efforts by importing and exporting authority. So again, a efficiency is a bit of a focus. There's another large piece of work which is looking at the representation of sanitary requirements on certificates. And I know that this is pretty detailed and for some it might be taking into a new space, but this works. Developing principles and guidelines for best practice representation of sanitary requirements on certificates that are shared between Covenant authorities. The idea behind the work is that there's a enormous diversity in the way essentially the same requirement might be captured in export certificate attestation. Now, so different countries just effectively describe the same thing using different language. And that diversity makes it difficult for us all to move to full electronic sanitary certification for food trade. So we're trying to standardise that language as best we can. So the work will not necessarily create a list of agreed requirements, sanitary requirements, rather it will present a framework for best practice representation of a requirement. And this should help to encourage construction of attestations that are amenable to use in electronic certification and hopefully should encourage harmonisation over time. I think it's a pretty important piece, building on earlier work by the committee that was around paperless trade and electronic certification that's already been incorporated into the guidance on design, Production and Issuance of Use of Generic Official Certificates. Really interestingly, the group that's looking at this work, so the working group is also seeing how they might use AI to rapidly test and validate their approach to drafting the guidance. So another use of new technology, even in the standard development phase, to help us do things quicker. So really exciting to see how that piece of work evolves. Again, it's only pretty new, but I'm pretty excited about where that will take us. And then we've also got a piece on guidance on appeals mechanisms for rejected imported food. This is again elaborating on an existing standard to encourage transparency in the operation of such mechanisms. So there's huge amount of work happening, really exciting work program. I know that there are many working groups with many, many members actively participating and have been over the last year. I'm checking in pretty regularly with the different teams that are doing that work. But I encourage all Codex members to have a look at what is happening and if they've got some views, to put them forward through the various consultation mechanisms so that we can have a really good discussion in Perth later next year.
- [66:54]
E
Yeah, well, that's great. And thank you for talking about all of these different work areas, and especially these seven focus areas for SISFIX and. And all of the emerging solutions and ideas that are coming forth about updating, reviewing, revising, creating international guidance for food safety. And also that piece about how digitalization and AI are being integrated. So really exciting stuff and looking forward to hearing the outcome of the meeting in Perth next year as well. Now, I'd like to move now to talk with with Gabor a little bit about UNIDO and its role in food safety work. Maybe you could explain a little bit, Gabor, for listeners who maybe aren't familiar what the UN Industrial Development Organization does You know why its work is important. And then also about the new approach.
- [67:47]
C
To food safety that's dubbed Food Safety.
- [67:50]
E
2.0 that Unito has adopted.
- [67:52]
F
Thank you, Adrienne. Unido is is a specialized agency of the UN framework that promotes sustainable industrial development. Our mission is to help countries build industries that create jobs, drive economic growth and do so in a way that is environmentally responsible. We work in areas like industrial policy, so policy development, technology and knowledge transfer and standard compliance, including food safety. Why is this important? Because industry is a key driver of development. And if there is no industrialization, what we see in agri food systems that basically people are moving from one informal sector to another. So for instance from agriculture to just lower value adding jobs in the food systems, particularly food service sector. So that's the reason why industrialization is playing a key role. At the same time, it also helps country to untap economic opportunities, for instance, when we are talking about market access. So by complying with food safety standards, improving food control systems, becoming more robust, basically they can also start to trade. And it's proven that trade has one of the highest impact when we are talking about international development in terms of uplifting the lives of people. With regard to our food safety approach, we published our first approach about 10 years ago in 2016. And after 10 years we felt at the beginning of the year, it's time for an update. We had a pandemic, we have artificial intelligence. So many things are happening around us. You heard also a lot of great work, what Sisyphix does. And in addition to that, the global landscape of food safety is also changing. There are new partners coming in, some of them are disappearing. So we thought, okay, it's time. And basically we followed pretty much the same approach in terms of structure like before, where we realized the fact that we are industrial development organization. And in food safety we are talking about shared responsibility, where indeed the industrial industry is playing the key role to ensure that the safe what they produce, the food, what they produce is safe for everyone. So in the middle pillar, or the first pillar we put ensuring safe and resilient food business operations and supporting them with tailored capacity building solutions. On the other hand, we also know that these businesses require an enabling environment. And when we are talking about food safety, of course it's very important to talk about food control systems. But on the other hand, it's also very important to talk about quality infrastructure systems. It's a very complex area, but an area which UNIDO leads globally when it comes to technical assistance and development projects. For low and middle income countries. As part of this project, of course, UNIDO helps to establish accreditation bodies, standardization bodies, metrology institutions, as well as conformity assessment services. And since agriculture and food systems provide most of the jobs globally, and there was a study from FIO in 2023 saying that that half of the global population is linked to the food systems in terms of incomes. Basically it's given that low and middle income countries like to start the work in terms of quality, infrastructure and food control systems with their own industries. In addition to this, of course we talked a lot about partnerships and I think it's very important to add and a bit linger on, that public private partnership is playing a more and more important role today than ever before. And if we want to talk about data, we talk about the VTP approach where basically food safety scheme owners are sharing data with regulators. And this requires tools and solutions, advocacy and partnership. And this is what we do as part of our work. And this also actually motivated us to organize the Vienna Food safety forum in 2022 and bring it back with the support of Australia as well as other partners like the Standards and Trade development facilities and FSSC foundation in 2025.
- [73:22]
E
Well, great, thank you for that background, Gabor, and also for explaining UNIDO's approach to Food Safety 2.0 and all of that, what that entails. Now you mentioned the Vienna Food Safety Forum and that's the topic of my next question. So you both participated in the forum this past June. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about who participates in the forum? What were some of the major learnings to emerge from this year's event? And also, you know, I guess a little bit about the origin of the forum as well.
- [73:52]
F
Yeah, I think I would say the Vienna Food Safety Forum is a an open space for thinking and collaboration. Our original motivation was to provide an update to the world when it comes to most recent trends in food safety. The first Vienna Food Safety Forum was organized back in the time when China went through a major reform due to the melamine crisis and they published their new food safety law back in 2015. Then in 2022 we felt that with the pandemic, so many things has changed and it's important to again bring together stakeholders to discuss about this new emerging solutions and technologies. And in 2025 we repeated and we are ready to go again. Basically we have academia, regulators, industry leaders, food safety service providers coming together and discussing about this, sharing new ideas, which helps also regulators to think a bit out of the box and see that how the future of food safety regulation and international guidelines might change given the most recent trends challenges. And we were also very happy in this year that besides the typical food safety stakeholders, we also brought in technology providers. We actually had Big tech representation talking about from their perspective, talking about trusted data space, how we could create a trusted data space and actually work on public private partnership among different actors. And in addition to this of course the usual suspects, so to say, like the digital traceability solutions where there are a number of service providers in the this regards on the other hand, it's always interesting to see what is their lessons learned, how they see the scaling of the technology which is always a challenge when we are talking about developing nations.
- [76:15]
E
And that's really interesting that at the forum that you had representatives from Big Tech there and I think that kind of leads into my next question about.
- [76:24]
C
You know, what are some of the.
- [76:25]
E
Potential dangers and questions challenges that are being explored with the application of things like AI agents and the integration of AI into daily work and especially as it pertains to food safety work. As we're discussing here, maybe you could.
- [76:41]
C
Share some of the perspectives that we.
- [76:43]
E
Heard at the forum, some of the lessons learned and Tom, maybe you have some observations from your own work as well, all these work areas, areas you mentioned.
- [76:51]
A
Yeah, yeah, thanks. Might I start by one congratulating Unito on putting on the food Safety forum. It was a brilliant event and as Gabor mentioned, it had, it had people from right across the spectrum but you know, there were 300 participants from over 80 countries. Ministers, regulators, researchers. As Gabor said, it was a really, a really great opportunity and Australia was thrilled to be part of the, I guess the, the organizing component of, of, of the thought of the forum and, and, and it was great to be there and we look forward to continuing that partnership. In terms of some of the key takeaways for me, a couple of things. Digitalization, new technologies, AI, large data sets. Really clear that they're transforming food regulatory practices and powering risk based prioritisation globally in different ways. So that was really clear and it was great to hear from lots of different actors in the space around their experiences in there. Some common challenges are definitely emerging in relation to data quality and data sharing and it's pretty clear that they're going to need to be addressed to harness the full potential of digitalization. I guess I'm not a digital native if that makes sense. So, but, but you can kind of see that there's going to be some challenges there and how we work through that is definitely going to be, going to be interesting. It was also clear that there was, I guess, a spectrum of digitalization and that it was quite large. And there was really significant and really healthy debate about whether this, the shift that we're seeing and the speed of the shift that we're seeing will actually see a widening of the gap in capabilities. And Gabor's talked about developing nations and being really mindful of you've got developed economies and developing nations and where do they sit on the spectrum? What was really, really interesting though was that some in the room were also saying that, that that divergence and gap actually presents an opportunity for emerging economies potentially to leapfrog. And I'll explain it in the context of Australia is grappling with the current systems that we have, IT based systems that we have and some of them have been around for a little while and they're expensive to maintain, they're expensive to renew, but we need to keep, we need to keep building on them. They're also reflective, I guess of the current system or the existing system of food safety control. And there might well be an opportunity for some economies to leapfrog in front and not go, well, that's the system that economy's got now and I'd like that. But what is the modern system that we're going to need in 30 years?
- [79:57]
C
What's the next paradigm?
- [79:58]
A
What's the next paradigm? Rather than going I want that one and I want to build that, it's can I use these new tools and actually go to another space completely now? Again, I think that's a really, it's potentially easier to say than do, but I do think that there is an opportunity there that rather than those that have already got it and built it are going to struggle to shift to the new one and it's going to probably be expensive. How do we, how do we do that? So there's a, there's an incredible opportunity there. It's a challenge. But I'm really, really interested to see how, how that might work through over the next period of time. Again, I just reflect on how rich the conversation was bringing so many different parts of the system together. It was really good to have big tech there. It was really good to have regulators there. It was great to walk into a room where there were many friends from across the globe. But people were really eager to explore the issues and potentially and to do so in a way that was. No one really had all the answers. It was like, how do we work through this together and what are the common challenges that we're facing. So I think that's where multilateralism, for a better description, is really powerful. And I hope that the committee I chair can play a role in helping to guide and develop material that helps economies and industry grapple with some of the challenges that were certainly put on the table in Vienna earlier in the year.
- [81:37]
E
And Gabor, any impressions that you wanted to share from the forum this year and also tell us us what we can look forward to with the next edition of the Vienna Food Safety Forum?
- [81:48]
F
I think everyone is very, very much interested in the topic of artificial intelligence. And Tom rightly pointed out we already see the first studies from MIT and other big universities talking about the challenges of multinational companies, companies to actually integrate AI into, into their systems. And on the other hand, we also see with startups who are building their structures on AI from the beginning, they are functioning perhaps a bit better than the multinationals who are trying to change their structure. And this might be also the the point what Tom said, when developing nations can leapfrog because they actually have to build a completely new food control system and they can integrate it from the beginning instead of shifting it from an existing one. And of course the whole topic of AI is huge. And we touched a bit on, on the issue of data readiness this year and the issue of data quality, trustworthiness, data sharing, all these elements are fundamental for AI systems. On the other hand, I think we also have to linger on data literacy. So how we can actually empower regulators, how we can empower businesses, is to use that data for better decision, better informed decision making and to be able to verify and control the recommendations which might be provided from an AI. And this is also another dimension where we see that we might require some thinking on how we are assessing the risk related to the different technologies we are integrating into our daily life and what challenges and risk can emerge like over reliance on the recommendations or biases or the hallucination of the AI and how we can overcome fine tune and have a better functioning food control system at the end of the day. So this is I think will be something which we want to actually linger on during the 2027 edition of the Vienna Food Safety Forum. We would also love to have you there, Adrian, and the Food Safety magazine and actually involve more and more stakeholders and showcase it to the world what the Vienna Food Safety Forum offers.
- [84:53]
E
Well, fantastic and thank you for the invitation. We would certainly love to participate if possible and looking very forward to to the 2027 forum and all the topics to be explored here. But this has been a fascinating conversation, you know, looking at all of these emerging themes with international guidelines and regulations and how digitalization and AI plays roles in that. You know, the work of Unito, the work of Sisyphix and Codex Alimentarius. We've got so many exciting things on the horizon. And I think, you know, as Tom said several times, it's early days, but we're looking at, you know, some pretty revolutionary things that we're going to be able to do. So it's been great talking with you both. I think our listeners are really going to appreciate hearing your international perspectives as well. So thanks so much for taking the time to be on the podcast. It's been great having you.
- [85:42]
A
Thanks very much. It's been absolutely terrific to be with you today.
- [85:45]
F
Thank you very much.
- [85:47]
B
Thanks again to Tom Black and Dr. Gabor Molnar for joining us on the podcast today. And of course, thanks to all of you for listening. You know that we love hearing from you, so please never hesitate. Send us questions or suggestions to podcast food-safety.com or post a note on LinkedIn, X, Facebook or Instagram. We're always excited to hear your feedback 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 liked it. It only takes takes a moment and it's good for everyone. And that's it for us today. Our next regular episode will post on November 20eigth. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves and those around you. We'll talk to you then.