← Food Safety Matters
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- [00:10]
A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacey Acheson, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and today the gang's all here. I'm joined by Adrian Blum, our editorial director, Bob Ferguson, president of strategic consulting, and Bailey Henderson, our digital editor. So yay.
- [00:34]
B
Hello.
- [00:35]
C
Yay. Yes.
- [00:38]
A
Bailey's back. Bailey's back. We all love it when we get our whole team together for this special year in review episode to cover the biggest stories of the year from as many angles as we can and peek ahead to 2026 as much as we can. So it's going to be a big one. We all know that 2025 was big packed. First of all, thank you so much to you, you, our listeners, we appreciate you so much. And this show, as is true for everything that we do here at Food Safety magazine, exists to support you with the information that you need to protect the world's food supply. Not a big job at all, right? And this podcast does that in a very special way. So we're very grateful for your continued support. Now on the podcast, we spend a lot of time discussing current news and many times the focus is on food safety, failures, recalls, and of course, worst case scenario, deadly outbreaks. So the other day, Bob reminded me of a statistic about the overall safety of the food supply. So, Bob, can you share that again with our listeners?
- [01:57]
D
Yeah, be glad to. Stacey, you and I have talked about this a few times and you mentioned that in food safety we talk about illness, incidents, recalls, responses, things like that, because our focus is on prevention. And so we, like you said, we tend to look at the failures and less at the overwhelming number of daily successes that food safety professionals have. It's daily, so it's every day. Right? So we wanted to focus on a few statistics and how successful food safety professionals are and what they do, producing safe, high quality food every day. We have listeners from all around the world who are doing this all the time. But I want to focus on a bit of a back of the envelope illustration using the US as an example. So today the US has a population of roughly 340 million people. Again, doing a simple calculation of three meals a day, seven days a week. That amounts to 7 billion meals every week, or close to 400 billion meals every year. These meals are going to have many different food components from fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, other types of food sourced from all over the US and from around the world. So it's very complex. It involves many people, companies. Ultimately, it may be prepared and eaten at Home, it may be a restaurant, might be ready to eat or ready to prepare something like that. It could be a pre made meal from a grocery store, could be takeout, or it could be picked up at a drive through. All of which are under the watch of a food safety professional at some point in that chain. Actually most all the chain. So if you take data from the FDA and CDC on foodborne illnesses, their estimates reported and unreported, and you come up with a success rate of the number of meals versus the number of estimated illnesses, it comes out that the success rate is 99.99% of all those meals are not associated with a foodborne illness. Simply doing the math. Now, people say that word 99.99, and when I came up with that number, I thought I better qualify this. The actual calculation.
- [03:56]
A
I wanted you to do the stats right.
- [04:00]
D
So the actual calculation is 99.987, but rounded up, it's that 99.99, but everybody uses it. I wanted to let you know it was an actual calculation. So. So 99.99% of the time, this is the success rate of everybody listening. So keep that in mind when we talk about this. We talk about the other.001%, but. But it's really overwhelmingly a very successful operation that you're all doing. I think I'd arrive at very similar math that we did the calculations for Europe, Latin America and other regions around the world where our listeners live and work. Food safety professionals are feeding the world with an extraordinary high level of safety accuracy and skill. The expectation is, of course, zero illnesses and there's always more that we can and that needs to be done. But it's also good to take this moment and congratulate food safety professionals all over the world who make this possible and deliver what is probably the overall safest global food supply maybe ever in history. So I think it's a tremendous compliment to everybody listening and we wanted to say thanks and congratulations.
- [05:03]
A
Yes. Yes. Yay. Thank you, Bob. And thank you to all of you for everything that you do. So we wanted to start the show there because sometimes we know you don't always get the feedback and the praise because we're always looking for that continual improvement. And we all agree that illness and certainly loss of life, any loss of life is too much. But these numbers suggest that the industry is doing a pretty good job in food safety assurance. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And please keep fighting that good fight. We also want to thank all of our guests, all the guests that we've had on the podcast this year. Thank you for making time in your busy schedules and for some venturing way out of your comfort zone to be on a podcast. So thank you. Now we start with the frame for today's big episode. We're going to be looking over the top news and trends of 2025. And to help us navigate this, we pulled out six main themes that we're going to review with a look ahead where we might to where we might be headed in 2026 and beyond. We're going to hit these major points. The Trump administration's impact on U.S. federal agencies with oversight of food safety. State and federal moves to address food additives and ultra processed foods. Food safety of infant formula, including FDA's work in this area and a growing outbreak of infant botulism in powdered formula. New research on Listeria in biofilms, particularly in ready to eat processing environments. Ongoing food safety monitoring of avian flu worldwide. And last, the growth of AI applications for food safety. See, already I need to take a breath. Right. We're giving you this outline in case there's certain topics that you want to dig into right away. You can check the timestamps for each theme. Then we've added those in the show notes. So if you want to, you know, bounce around or just, you know, I just want to hear this part today, you know, go for it. We want to make this manageable and informative for you. Oh, and one last thing. Just a quick reminder to everyone that the agenda is available for next year's Food Safety summit being held May 11th through the 14th in easily accessible and affordable Rosemont, Illinois. Early bird registration discounts apply. Plus, as a valued podcast listener, you can save an additional 20% off when you register using code FSMATTERS20. All right, we. We want to see you there. We look forward to seeing you there. Okay, Adrian, let's get this party started.
- [07:52]
C
Yeah. So, looking at our first top story of the year, it's a topic that dominated our news headlines throughout the entirety of 2025, and that's the Trump administration's impact on food safety and the federal agencies that oversee it. Well, so much has happened in such a short time, so it's almost where to begin. Well, all right, let's dial back to mid January after the Trump administration took office. So first we saw right out of the gate a communications freeze that was put into place for federal agencies, including fda, usda, and cdc. And that meant that most information about food safety and foodborne illness tracking wasn't shared for many weeks. Budgets were also frozen for these agencies which hampered the jobs of inspectors, scientists and other key food safety personnel. And Bailey, I know the comms freeze was quite big in our news.
- [08:45]
B
Yeah, I mean the federal news in general was huge. This year it dominated with five of our top six articles of the year relating to news of the administration, which we'll into more specifics in a bit here, but totaling hundreds of thousands of page views for stories about FDA alone. So there's a lot of attention being paid to the space. But it all started with the comms freeze story. That was the most read story of the year. It kind of, it took the food safety world by storm and I think it grabbed the attention of the broader consumer and, and just kind of non industry professional attention as well. I did have a little, I did a little digging in Google search trends as I usually do every year for this and I thought it was really interesting that searches for the term food safety, although they've increased year over year since 2021, they rose sharply in 2025, hitting its all time high since the earliest available data, which is from 2004. So I think that's pretty telling. The earlier, earlier than 2025. The last time we saw a peak in search volume for food safety was in December of 2010. That was even. And it was still 39% less than what we have seen at the peak of 2025. And I think that might have been around. It was around the time FISMA was coming out. So that makes sense. But I just think it's really interesting. Sorry to derail your, the beginning of your story there, Adrian. I know it's a long one, so I'll let you get back into it.
- [10:40]
A
Yeah, I mean I kind of think that's the good news though too. People were paying attention. Right?
- [10:44]
B
Very true.
- [10:45]
C
Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, as we'll discuss a little further, further down the line, I think a lot of that not only due to, you know, what we saw with federal agencies and the changes that were imposed upon them, but also the Make America Healthy Again or MAHA movement. So we'll get to that later. But first let's go back and review a little bit of how we got to where we are. So after that comms freeze, which isn't unusual for administrations to do communications pause when they first take office, but we did see this pause is a pretty long and pretty, you know, very thorough one. So that was I think the interesting thing about it and why this got so much attention now Moving to February, starting that month, the Trump administration started initiating mass workforce cuts to the fda, the USDA, and cdc, along with voluntary resignations by key personnel and, you know, kind of retirement offerings for certain personnel. So thousands of employees have been laid off across the agencies, including key staff responsible for food safety, outbreak investigation and animal health. This includes approximately 20% of the FDA's Human Foods Program staff. The CDC also faced mass firings of around 1,300 personnel, with some being rehired days or weeks later. USDA also implemented large scale layoffs, with over 11,300 employees accepting resignation offers. However, the agency then reversed some of these layoffs in an abrupt about face, indicating that some staffers had been fired by accident. The USDA also announced in July that it would undergo a major reorg, which is expected to lead to more reductions in force. We're still awaiting key details on that reorg, by the way. Now looking at prominent personnel changes. Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones resigned in protest over these layoffs and was replaced by attorney Kyle Diamantis. The Trump administration also fired the Inspector General at usda, Phyllis Fong, as well as the new CDC director, Susan Mineras, who had served in her post for less than a month. And I think you saw a lot of traffic around these personnel stories as well, right, Bailey?
- [12:58]
B
Yeah. Interestingly, the story about Phyllis Fong was the second most read story of the. Of the year. Came in shortly behind the comms story and the story about Jim Jones. It was the sixth most read of the year and it was picked up by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and CBS Sunday Morning. So that was, despite the news being a little jarring, was nice for me to see, I guess, the news, my news being televised. But that aside, that was crazy.
- [13:37]
A
Bailey. I'm sorry. We were all just like, oh my God, it's us.
- [13:41]
B
Yeah, on one hand it's, you know, a little, it's a little shocking all the news and it's a little tumultuous. But on the other hand, people are paying attention. I guess so. But yeah, I. Those two stories really grab people's attention. It is surprising for me to see which stories did grab so much attention. I think Phyllis Fong's dismissal was a little dramatic. I didn't necessarily report on the dramatics of it all, but I saw a lot of people talking about that outside of the industry.
- [14:11]
A
So, yeah, I think it was also one of the first things that happened. Right.
- [14:15]
C
It was one of the first big personal changes.
- [14:17]
A
Yeah. So I think that was part of that, too. It was like, you know, and now we're all kind of numb.
- [14:22]
B
And she had just been, she had just been in the news before the Trump administration because of the, the boar's head outbreak. She had ordered a investigation into USDA's handling of it. So her name had popped up a few months prior. And then, yeah, she was ousted. So, yeah.
- [14:45]
C
So anyway, we saw a lot of news and traffic around that. And then we also saw a lot of attention around the Trump administration eliminating two key food safety scientific advisory committees, and that was the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food Foods, or nacmif, and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and poultry inspection, or NACMIpe. The Trump administration also threw out USDA's Salmonella framework for raw poultry, which had been under development since 2022. And in fact, that framework was one of our year in review items for 2024 because it was promising to have such a big impact on the poultry industry and on food safety for poultry products. And then we also saw the FSMA 204 traceability rule compliance deadline extended by 30 months to July 2028. And we also saw a reduction in CDC pathogen monitoring under FoodNet from eight pathogens to just two. And we also experienced the longest ever government shutdown from October 1 through November 12, which forced furloughs of up to 41% of HHS staff, caused massive chaos in government programs, and hampered the ability of key personnel and inspectors at agencies with food SAF safety oversight to do their jobs. And I think it's interesting to note that during the 2024 Year in Review episode, our biggest story about the FDA and any federal agency for that matter was on the restructuring of the Human Foods program. And we noted on last year's podcast with the upcoming change in administration in 2025 and the appointed change in oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It remains to be seen how much of FDA's work plans will be realized in the coming years. So in retrospect, that speculation now reads kind of like a very big understatement. I think, you know, we've seen the rising politicization of food safety as well as greater scrutiny of its role in public health under the Trump administration's and Secretary Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again, or the Maha movement, as we discussed previously. But it remains to be seen how far Secretary Kennedy and the Maha movement will go in changing food regulations and impacting federal agencies ability to ensure food safety and protect public health. And we'll dissect those impacts more in a bit. The full effect of the fda, CDC and USDA workforce cuts and resignations also remains to be seen. But I think we will see the effects down the line as the agencies have lost so many key scientists, experts and support staff this year. So that's a kind of whirlwind summary of how what happened in 2025. And that's, you know, that's leaving out most of the detail.
- [17:32]
A
So we could do a whole, we could do the whole episode just on all of this. I mean, literally we could. But I made some notes here. Like the people that were fired by accident were the authors of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. So sort of a food safety, you know, Bible and public health Bible.
- [17:53]
C
So pause in that for a little bit too. Right.
- [17:55]
A
Yeah. I mean it's, it's also just like PTSD just reading office over again. And that comms freeze. I just want to say, you know, we were putting on our, we do every May put on the food Safety Summit. We have our town hall, we needed speaker. We had usda, fda, CDC set. And we were just like.
- [18:15]
C
Yeah, are.
- [18:16]
A
They going to come?
- [18:17]
C
It was uncertain to anybody about it.
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A
Nobody would. We were just like, okay, well we're on hold. I mean, cue the muzak.
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C
Yeah. We didn't know, you know, up until, what was it about a month before the summit if we would have any of our federal government. Yeah. Representatives there. So it was, it was close call. But we were very fortunate to have those members of the agencies that were invited to speak panel. The, their, their travel freeze was lifted before the summit. So that was very fortunate for us.
- [18:50]
A
Exciting.
- [18:50]
B
It's made reporting on the day to day very interesting. A little frustrating. A little bit of a, the amount of information that I'm getting directly from the source has dwindled a lot. Even though the communications freeze has been, you know, over for the better part of the year now. I mean, the amount of information coming out, the way it's written and what they're telling us is drastically different than it was before. That's just, you know, as somebody who pays attention to these things because it's my job to. I like the constituent updates for FSIS were Friday, every single Friday I would wait for them to come out and they really didn't resume with any regularity until after the government shutdown ended. So it's, it's still up in the air. It's opaque.
- [19:51]
C
You know, I think one of the things that I was, you Know, kind of just personally frustrated about was, you know, when we saw In February the 89 staff members of the Human Foods Program being let go. And that led, you know, deputy commissioner for. Former deputy commissioner for Human Foods, Jim Jones to resign in protest. I feel like Jim Jones was doing a lot of good in that job. He had a very clearly outlined plan, and I really enjoyed interviewing him for that episode 167 that we did back in. Let's see, when was that? April of 2024. And, you know, Jim Jones had only been in that job for a year and a half. Now, I will say that we're very fortunate to also have been able to speak with Kyle Diamantis, who's now in that position, and speak to him at the IAFP meeting this year. And we recorded that with a bonus episode alongside Dr. Conrad Choir, who also works in the Human Foods program. And it's been really interesting to be able to interview these two heads of the Human Foods Program and get kind of their different approaches to it. So. But I, I was sad to see Jim Jones go because, you know, I think year and a half on a job, and same with CDC director Susan Menara. She'd been in the. She'd been in the role for, what was it, less than a month or a little over a month, one of those two. And it was just like, confirmed. Wow.
- [21:08]
A
She's just, she's just been hired. They just announced it this week. She and.
- [21:12]
C
Oh, yeah, I saw that.
- [21:13]
A
Deborah Howley Howy have just been hired by California to. To work with the public health agencies here in California.
- [21:24]
C
Yeah, I'm sure they'll do a lot of good there. So that's, that's good to see, by the way.
- [21:27]
D
That's. That's one of the things I've noticed. Adrian, you were talking about the people who have left and, and whether or not they were called back or what's going on. I am noticing people that I know and work with getting jobs outside of government or in other situations, unlikely to come back. So this is not going to be reversed anytime soon, certainly.
- [21:44]
C
Right.
- [21:44]
A
Well. And anecdotally, I mean, speaking to food safety professionals as we do, there is, you know, widespread concern about that, and particularly as it relates to cdc, where I've even heard some people saying that they're, you know, they're talking about, well, what can we do to almost like, reconstitute that? I don't know how that would happen or whatever, but it's almost like that kind of a feeling, like, what can we start to fill this gap to make sure. Because as Bailey was saying, opaque is a great word. There's so much we still don't know.
- [22:18]
B
Yeah, I was really enjoying Jim Jones before he left because I thought he was so transparent. He really embodied like that radical transparency where I was getting information, where I was like, am I even allowed to, like, talk about this? Because it just seemed so detailed and it was like, especially when it came to budgets and the. The restrictions that FDA was working with in terms of, like, how they were going to execute their chemical review, like, process and all these different things that they're trying to do, like the resources they had or did not have to do it versus now. It's just I don't have any of those details anymore. So I definitely agree with what you said earlier about. It seemed like Jim Jones was poised to. He was really, it seemed like trying to affect some change or at least be honest about it.
- [23:11]
A
Yeah, he was brought in, I mean, to the reorg. I mean, he was put in place to implement the complete reorganization that was agreed upon. And so I think we were all very excited about that. And built into some of those mandates was some of the questions, questions around grass and around chemical safety of foods and things. So we were starting to see, as you were saying, more transparency and FDA taking up the concerns of the consumer, which is embodied by Maha. But we'll talk about that in a minute.
- [23:49]
C
I also think it's worth mentioning that with a lot of. A lot of the stuff that we discussed that we've seen happen with the federal agencies, there has been a lot of pushback from, from various stakeholders and sectors against some of the things that the Trump administration has done. So, for example, I talked about NACMIF and NAC MIPI being disbanded. So those committees, they were made up of volunteer experts representing industry, consumers, public health and academia. And what they did was provide impartial scientific evidence and recommendations to the federal agencies and on microbiological issues related to food safety and also federal and state inspection program activities for poultry. In the case of nacmipe. Now there were a lot of calls for the reinstatement of the two committees by food safety and public health groups. Now, they've been unsuccessful so far, but we saw a pretty big outcry against that, especially considering that the funding required for those programs, which I believe is what the administration. The reason why they said that they would cut it. You know, I mean, we don't need the proposal. We don't need to have these people. We don't need to spend the money. The funding for these two committees was less than 300,000, if I remember correctly. So it was not, it was not a great cost to the government. So I thought that was interesting. And then when we saw the CDC director, Susan. The former CDC director, Susan Maner was fired after she kind of clashed with Secretary Kennedy over vaccine policy that led to, in protest, kind of like Jim Jones, the subsequent resignations of several senior directors at CDC. And that included Dr. Dan Jernigan, who is the former director of the national center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. And they track foodborne illness outbreaks, zoonotic diseases and antimicrobial resistance. And we saw a lot of protests from the CDC workers and other, other stakeholders as well. We also have seen public health officials and groups call for Secretary Kennedy's resignation in September. There were two separate letters sent to Congress. They talked about the CDC firings and other areas. And there was a joint statement where 22 medical, scientific, public health and patient organizations insisted on Kennedy's resignation. The quote from the letter says, to restore the integrity, credibility and science driven mission of HHS and all of its agencies. And then we had another letter where more than a thousand professionals representing 14 federal public health agencies, including CDC and FDA, called for the resignation of Secretary Kennedy also in September. And I think this is, I think this is interesting because when you have this many public health professionals, scientists and stakeholder groups that are calling for a secretary's resignation on the basis of anti science policies, which was cited in every letter, I think it merits attention. So it's interesting that we saw that outcry not once, not twice, but more than that against some of the policies the Secretary Kennedy has implemented. So that's another thing that we saw. It wasn't all the Trump administration doing things. It was a lot of kind of like fighting back or crying out by stakeholder groups as well, especially including the agencies that, you know, saw a lot of their workforce slashed. So, you know, another, another angle, I think that's important to mention with everything that's happened this year around the Trump administration.
- [27:21]
A
I guess, you know, the one thing that you alluded to as well is that they're still pending on this is the potential reorganization of usda. And I was reading that outline that Brooke Collins put out. I'm sorry, Brooke Rollins put out. It was like a little bit of ptsd. It's like, oh, here we go again. There's a lot on that list that's, you know, concerning, but we'll see. Yeah, so I guess Stay tuned.
- [27:50]
C
Right, right. So we talked about a little bit about Maha in our first topic, but our next major topic for the year is the greater attention that been given by states and the Maha movement to what's in the US Food supply. So states in Maha have been focusing on food additives and chemicals of concern, as well as the generally recognized as safe or grass determination for food ingredients, the definition and perceived harmfulness of ultra processed foods and environmental toxins in food contact materials. It's been, it's been a lot this year too. Right, Bailey, around this topic.
- [28:27]
A
Yeah.
- [28:29]
B
The news about the Red Dye 3 specifically, which happened, the Red Dye 3 authorization was revoked prior to the Trump administration's inauguration. That's actually been the most viral piece of news on our LinkedIn channel all year. It's gotten traffic as recently as this month, which I think is interesting because Red Dye 3 was kind of like the face of the food dye debate for a long time. And I don't know how much credit the previous administration or Jim Jones, who we mentioned earlier, gets for actually working to revoke that authorization. It's something we talked a lot about at the last episode, the last year in review episode.
- [29:20]
A
So there was a lot of pent up. A lot of people were like, well, okay, you know, tap, tap, tap.
- [29:26]
B
Yes, thank you.
- [29:29]
A
This is the very least you could do.
- [29:31]
B
It's something that was actually put in motion before the Trump administration, before the Maha movement was elevated to the status of the White House. I'm not sure if I don't know what the conversation is outside of food safety professionals necessarily, without this insider kind of knowledge. I don't know if people really understand that this is something that was building and building and building and building and is kind of like a wave that's crashing now in this administration. But.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah, well, and largely, I'm sorry, Adrienne. And largely because of the inaction from FDA for years and years and years. Right?
- [30:10]
C
Yeah. And I think, you know, with the food dyes and the additives specifically, from the consumer angle, it seems to be that people, you know, they're worried about what they're giving their kids, they're worried about what they're eating. And they have also probably heard that, hey, some of these are banned in Europe or other, you know, Australasia, other places, but we can have them in the food supply here. And then I think in a, in a consumer's mind too. So like a food safety layperson, right. They go, oh, it's banned somewhere else. That means that, you know, that must Be toxic. It must be poisonous. So that's interesting because one of the things about Red Dye 3 specifically was that FDA said, hey, we're revoking their authorization because there's been a lot of talk about this. You know, it's not used in other places. It's probably time to do this. But FDA said, we stand by our scientific evaluations that show that we don't believe it to be harmful because what those evaluations showed was that it could cause cancer in male rats when consumed. It did not that. That's what we know. So, I mean, you know, when you're talking about human effects, who really knows, right? But it's not authorized for use in other countries. So it seems like, well, maybe we go along with that.
- [31:17]
A
But you know, you're in the upside down when, you know, the broad populist movement is like upset because, well, Europe does it this way. We should be doing it like Europe. It's like the dissonance from, from traditional. What, what. We're kind of used to the traditional battle lines, if you will. Right. Or the traditional lines of information are kind of. Yeah, we're, we're, we're not in Kansas.
- [31:43]
B
Yeah.
- [31:43]
A
Anymore.
- [31:44]
B
One of the big points that, you know, the previous FDA leadership was trying to drive home was also if you want us to review chemicals like Europe does, we need to be resourced and like Europe is and given the authorizations that Europe has. So we're kind of making this where's my can? Right. Like so. Which it's, it's just really interesting to see the approach that MAHA is taking and how they're responding to consumer demands or not responding and framing their. What they're doing, which you'll get into, Adrian, so I'll let you take that away.
- [32:20]
C
Yeah, no, I mean, you're absolutely right, Bailey. How many times did Dr. Calif, the previous FDA administrator, say that, you know, if you want us to review these chemicals, we need the appropriate personnel to do so. So I do remember it's kind of an echo I can hear in my head at this point. But turning back to the MAHA movement note though, you know, we've seen it significantly influence food safety policy by inspiring state level legislation aimed at restricting certain food ingredients and additives, including those synthetic food dyes we talked about, as well as increasing the transparency of food ingredients and promoting healthier food choices. So the original mover on this was California, and we know it passed the trend setting California Food safety act in 2023, followed by the California School Food Safety act in 2024. And we and our guests have discussed this at length on the pod. And a few other states have followed on the heels of the California laws by proposing similar bills. But since the Trump administration took office in January, Maha has inspired the passage of more state laws that require the disclosure of certain ingredients, make bans on specific additives in schools, and require labels that warn consumers about ingredients not recommended for consumption in other countries. Another priority for Maha is closing that grass loophole. So in March, Secretary Kennedy directed FDA to explore ways to eliminate the grass rule. In September, FDA proposed a rule that would make significant changes to GRAs, including making notification of GRAs submissions mandatory for most substances. And that rule has since been sent to the White House for review.
- [33:55]
D
Can I make a minor point on this? That is kind of an interesting way of looking at graphs. I think you're right to call it the graft loophole, because that's how people look at it. But it's actually not a loophole. It's actually the policy, and it's always been the policy that graphs. You were allowed to self certify essentially that something is grass. And I think there's. I know there's thousands, I'm trying to remember how many thousands of different ingredients that are considered grass. But there never was a policy for FDA to approve of any of these. You could self certify. So it's kind of an interesting take on, like what you were saying a second ago, Adrian, about how maybe it's done in Europe versus how it's always been done, but it's just, it's just the policy. So the policy needs to be changed, not some sort of violation.
- [34:37]
C
Yeah. And that loophole language came from the California. You know, the.
- [34:41]
D
Oh, yeah, I know.
- [34:42]
C
Yeah. Right.
- [34:43]
B
So I, I do think it's interesting that a story about how Secretary, Secretary Kennedy was directing FDA to eliminate grass rule ways to do that, that was the top chemical story of 2025, which I think is interesting because usually the stories that perform the best are the ones that pick up steam outside of just our niche audience. And it is wild to me that grass is something that's kind of complicated and people outside of industry are starting to use the word grass or at least have some sort of understanding that there's this mechanism that's allowing food additives to enter the supply without extensive review. I mean, even my dad at one point mentioned it to me and said, I don't understand that grass thing. And I'll be interested, I'll be interested to see how the rule that you mentioned that went to the White House for review, the actual details of it. I'll be very interested to see what that actually wants to do, because right now it's not like, published yet. So if it does make actual changes to the grass rule, it will be interesting to see because I think a lot of what the administration has done so far under the Maha movement has been, oh, we're doing this thing with food dyes. But when you get down to the details, it's really hinging on voluntary industry compliance and isn't actually putting rulemaking into effect, taking, like, tangible, concrete steps to make the things that they're saying they're doing happen. It's kind of just like, oh, look, we're using these, like, terms that the general population and the Maha voters like to hear, and we're making all these big changes. But when you look down at it, like, down to the details, it's not really that revolutionary what's going on. So I'm really interested to see what this proposed rule looks like at the granular level when. When it actually comes to light.
- [37:02]
C
Yeah.
- [37:03]
D
And Bailey, I have to admit, I agree with you. A lot of this is what's the proof is in the pudding type thing. Exactly what comes down. One of the things we talked about a couple of times with a few of the state regulations was, you know, what exactly does this mean if you reverse the grass policy? The other reason why I think about this as being the policy is there are thousands of these files that companies have, and let's assume for a second that all these products are indeed safe and the toxicology has been done and none of this was. Was inappropriate, let's just use that assumption for a second. But if the FDA comes back with a policy that all of these need to be approved, that's thousands of files of products that are in food that are being used. And if they were to say until they're reviewed, they can't be used, that would be a tremendous disruption. And it's a little bit like what we're talking about with all the different state rules and trying to comply with this. If all of a sudden, again, just the idea of reviewing these files, the toxicology alone could take months. So now you're talking about 3, 4, 5,000, whatever the number is. And because they're not registered, I believe nobody actually knows what the number is. If you had to go back through and put was essentially a drug file like the FDA does on all of these products, we could be talking about this three years from now. On the Year in Review issue. So it's. It's something that what they do is going to matter a lot.
- [38:22]
B
That line in the sand, too, I think is going to be like what that line in the sand might be is because things that are grass and what grass was intended for was stuff like vinegar and, you know, salt. Stuff like, you know, we know it's safe. But, you know, people think of grass and things allowed in the food supply because of grass, they think of these chemical concoctions that are unnatural and being made in a lab. But actually, one of the most.
- [38:50]
A
Significant.
- [38:50]
B
Examples of how the grass rule has harmed people was related to, I think it was tapioca flour, which is a tapioca flower. You know, you think, oh, that's, that's not an unnatural ingredient. That's not some complicated chemical that only chemists with, you know, laboratory equipment can make. So what, what would that line for grass be to protect public health without overburdening the fda? Because it doesn't have to be a synthetic chemical for it to be dangerous and harmful.
- [39:26]
C
Yeah. Bailey, you talked about how this, the story on the grass rule, you know, kind of grabbed attention even outside of our audience space of food safety professionals. And I thought it was interesting. And you kind of talked about, well, I'm not sure how much consumers are aware of this, but, you know, we did see a lot of interest around the story. But it's interesting because the International Food Information Council, ific, the International Food Information Council ific, they did one of their consumer surveys that they did in September was specifically asking about, among other things, awareness of and belief in awareness of the grass rule and belief in the safety of ingredients in food and beverages. And that survey revealed that slightly more than half of consumers are aware of the grass rule. And among consumers who had heard of grass, 2 and 3 believed it's effective. So I thought that was really interesting that we did. We are apparently seeing more, you know, kind of the lay consumer audience understanding that the. What the grass rule is and what it does. But, you know, running. Running back to all the things that MAHA has had an effect on this year, they're also looking at water quality standards, including for PFAS and fluoride, although less so on the pfas, more so on the fluoride. With the second MAHA strategy report, as we saw, and another MAHA priority, which we'll discuss much more in depth later on, is reforming infant formula standards in accordance with FDA's Operation Stork Speed, which was announced in March, I believe now also of notice a softer stance that the final MAHA strategy report has taken on pesticide residues in foods, even though this was noted as a focus issue in the initial MAHA report released in May. The MAHA report also points a lot of fingers at ultra processed foods for causing poor nutrition and chronic disease, especially in children. And as we know, FDA and USDA has have issued that joint request for information to establish a single authoritative definition of UPFs. And California actually developed a statutory DEFIN definition for the food category in its October 2025 Real Food Healthy Kids Act. And I believe that we are getting with some things I've seen coming out of the agency as I believe we're getting closer to that federal definition from FDA and usda. So we will keep our eyes peeled for that and of course share any news on that with you. So the public comments on that are still being reviewed, I believe. But it'll be interesting to see how the food category is eventually defined from a federal standpoint and how that ultimately influences things like front of package labeling, nutrition guidance and other policy areas. But when it comes to food safety, there's also some lingering questions about just how much food additives and UPFS can really be considered a food safety concern. And I think, Bob, you had some thoughts on this?
- [42:19]
D
Well, yeah, we've talked about this before. I like the idea that rather than focusing on the processing so you're talking about ultra processed foods, that food should be classified by nutritional benefits, not just by the processing steps. Because, and we've used this example before here, infant formula is probably one of the most studied foods and also a very highly processed food. One of the definitions of highly processed foods, ultra processed foods is does it look like what it was before it was made into a food? So a head of lettuce still looks like a head of lettuce when you get it. So it's not particularly processed. But infant formula doesn't necessarily look like any of the food ingredients, but it's highly nutritious, it's highly studied. It's, we're going to talk about some of the issues around contamination, but the formula itself is well formulated and safe. But it is, Halsey, highly processed. Is that something that we want to exclude? You know, I don't, I don't think so. I thought of another example and I used this a second ago. But you know, a head of lettuce, if, if you were to find a head of lettuce in the grocery store that has been gone through a processing step, some sort of disinfectant to reduce the microbial load on it from the farm and then have it shipped under temperature control. Or you could buy it from a roadside stand where nothing has been done other than cutting it. Which one is safer? One's been a little bit more processed, probably has less chance of having pathogens on it. The other one is whatever was on it when it was picked. So does that processing step make it less safe from a food safety standpoint? Also not true. And I've been reading a bit. Well, we were that as we record this, some of the things with SNAP restrictions with, I think we're going to talk about a little bit later, we're talking about what is included under snap, what's not included because some things are processed. And several people made the point that if I go down one grocery aisle and I get cupcakes in a package, they may not be under SNAP benefits because they're considered ultra processed. But if I go back to the bakery section and buy cupcakes, I can pay for those with snap and I can do that. I'm not sure that this is going to be an easy thing to define. It may be one of those things like you know it when you see it, I guess. And everyone's going to have a slight difference in what the definition is. But I think the overall nutrient and content of the whatever the food is should really be the main concern. And also there should be some nod towards the overall diet composition because again, if you're going to have a cupcake and somebody considers that ultra processed, but the rest of your diet is sound and not. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. If your dinner is cupcakes and your desserts, cupcakes as well, that's a different story. And so the overall quality of your diet is probably more important than any one particular product. I hope that can be considered. I'm not sure how they pull this off with a, with a definition that fits all that in.
- [45:14]
A
Well, I looked up California's new law defines ultra processed foods as products high in saturated fat, added sugar, sodium, and containing specific industrial additives like colors, flavors, thickeners, emulsifiers, et cetera. And you point that out, Bob. I mean, as opposed to. They also say that it must contain high amounts. Well, high levels of nutrients must also contain high amounts of saturated fat added. So that one's a little confusing for me. So Google, I don't know what you're doing to me here now, but the nutritional value is important. But when you speak about is it foods, is this a food safety issue. If you talk about having to reformulate food around using things like thickeners and stabilizers and emulsifiers, I think people will be shocked about what that means. And then you mention this gets into economic issues as well. So you get into fresh foods and what you can do with whole foods versus what the average or let alone people who are living in poverty can afford. And I do think that imposing some of that, which has been done for years, as Bob pointed out in a. Some internal roundabout that we had about SNAP and stuff, that they've restricted sodas and things like that over the years that frankly the public writ large. Remember when New York wanted to outlaw sodas, I mean, people went crazy. So reformulating would create the food safety issues. And then just like, I don't know, we've talked about this, aligning it too with, with the smoking campaign. Right. We've reduced unhealthy behaviors around smoking by educating, by label warnings. But it seems to me, and this is where the dissonance for me around many of our core philosophies, if you will, as a country about freedoms and choices and things like that, I think we need to educate and be more aware. But by and large I think it's good when people start asking questions about their food like where does it come from? What is it made of? And trying to make more informed choices. And yes, sometimes we're going to choose, as I have often admitted, ruffles my ruffle addiction, which I found out are not ultra processed. It's just corn and some salt and some oil. But albeit not healthy. Right. If that was the only thing I ate, that's not a healthy thing. So I don't know, there's just a lot of dissonance here for me.
- [48:07]
C
I think it's also really interesting when you look at, you know, the agencies and states and others, you know, trying to, trying to define, okay, what is an ultra processed food? Because you talked about, we talked about, you know, how is California defining it for their purposes of their legislation that they passed. Now the. We've also talked about how the NOVA classification system, which is used in other countries and regions, that looks at it from a different angle too. Bob, you talked about looking at nutrient quality, right? So the NOVA classification system is a little different. They're really looking at the processing more than the nutrient content. The nutrient content is somewhat taken into account when you look at the four different groups that NOVA classifies food under. But by and large it's really a categorization system that's based on the extent and the purpose of industrial processing. So you know, from unprocessed, which is group one, that's your leafy green vegetables and nuts and beans that haven't really had much done to them at all, to ultra processed, which is, you know, they define it as industrial formulations made mostly from food extracts and additives, also designed to be hyper palatable and convenient. So the NOVA system is yet another different way of classifying it. And I believe that, you know, there's been argument from stakeholder groups when FDA and USDA sent out that RFI talking about we need to define UPFs. There's a lot of acronyms there, but you know, how do we do that? And you know, some saying, well, maybe we use something kind of like the NOVA classification system. And then other groups, specifically industry groups, saying like, no, because if we do that, then you ignore nutrient quality. You're not talking about how good the food is for you, you're just talking about what's been done to it. So a lot of interesting debates have been raised by this particular question and I think we're going to continue to see it.
- [49:52]
D
Adrian, we made the point before we talked about Novo, one of the early pods, that in the high process category you would have infant formula. Also if you went and looked at the supplements that people take because they're having a hard time digesting, that would be an ultra processed food. That would be suspect. Different types of other supplements, which we may open a can of worms and another debate on all that, but all of those type of things would all be in that category. Is that an appropriate thing for them to be in the category or not? Or is that the same thing as a, you know, a high sugar, high saturated fat bakery good or cupcake or something? I just, I think they have quite a challenge ahead of them.
- [50:31]
B
It was interesting reading the comments from different stakeholders in response to the request for information about the definition of ultra processed foods. Because you had on one hand like the National Chicken Council, I think was like, hey, you're gonna, if you, if you go off of the NOVA definition, which is what typically people are talking about when they talk about ultra processed foods, you're gonna be putting chicken nuggets in the same category as soda. And like chicken nuggets have protein and they do provide nutritional value despite their processing. And then on the other hand you had some consumer advocacy groups and.
- [51:09]
D
Non.
- [51:10]
B
Food industry representatives saying, well, if we waffle on the definition of ultra processed foods and we start excluding categories, then it's an ever moving goalpost. And we're going to start confusing people. So but even in the Real Food Healthy Kids act, the definition that they created for ultra processed foods departs from, you know, the NOVA definition, as we said, because it mentions nutritional content. However, the point of the Real Foods Healthy Kids act is to remove certain foods that are harmful to children's health from public schools. And in the definition of UPFs is only half of that law. It also sets a task force for people experts in California Department of Public Health, I believe to research foods within the ultra processed definition and define ultra processed foods of concern to Target in schools. So even by defining ultra processed foods, California is recognizing that not all ultra processed foods are necessarily harmful and need to be removed from all schools because kids just shouldn't be eating them. So I think, should we define ultra processed foods? It would be interesting to see, well, what is the legislation around that or the rulemaking around that going to look like? Because you can't. I mean, it's such a broad category, like the science. There's a lot of science out there that I'm reading and have covered on. It will have unintended consequences if you just start regulating an entire food category because you're gonna accidentally be restricting or demonizing some foods that have beneficial nutritional value for people.
- [53:00]
D
So no question. Yeah.
- [53:03]
A
And I don't know how where we are in the flow of all this, but I don't want to move on without noting for folks that Adrian had a couple interviews with attorney Brian Sylvester last year and again just recently on the complexities of state laws around food additives and so on that I would highly recommend because I think they get, you know, down to the nitty gritty of where things are, you know, for food processors, some of the, some of the legal implications that may be facing. So that's episode 162 from January 24th. And then, well, actually our last episode, episode 207, that, that dropped on December 9th, just in case you guys want to do any dives on that.
- [53:49]
C
Yeah, thanks for mentioning those episodes, Stacey. We know that Brian Sylvester's first episode was one of our most listened episodes and we were happ so happy to have him back on the podcast to talk about everything that had happened since the passage of that landmark California Food safety act in October 23rd.
- [54:05]
A
And now I'm going to step on you again, Adrian, because before we move on, I also want to say that our next episode, well, not, I mean our next regular episode, because we're sneaking in a really hot bonus episode for you on December 30th is going to be an interview with Helena Bottmiller Evic, who is the author of the Food Fix letter and, and a MAHA expert. She's done a deep dive on all of that. So you and Adrian and she will be doing that Maha deep dive in the next episode.
- [54:40]
C
Yeah, we're looking forward to that too.
- [54:42]
B
Before we move on from Maha, can I go back to one earlier point just about pfas because I think it unrelated to the ultra processed foods, but that's a, another thing that's in our drinking water, in our food and everything. And I think it kind of gets like steamrolled and like left out of the conversation with all these other like flashy processed foods, blah, blah, blah, when like PFAS has a tangible health effects. But you mentioned it, you know, earlier that it's something that is part of the MAHA orbit. And you know, they've said that they want to address these things and these chemicals in, in our water and our food, in our environment.
- [55:23]
C
It was that first report they mentioned PFAS wanting to address FIFAs like more than a dozen times and pesticides. In the second report, by the time that came out in September, they, it was a barely a squeak on those two topics.
- [55:37]
B
I wanted, I wanted to bring it up because we, the previous presidential administration, EPA had set drinking water standards for significant PFAs of, of concern that are known to be pervasive and cause harm. And the, one of the things that the current administration did earlier on in, in the, in the year was roll those back and now they're, you know, reconsidering and we don't know where we're going to end up with these, these PFAS limits. So I just, I wanted to go back to that because I didn't want to like just totally brush by it because I think it's just an important thing. And if people are so concerned about what they're eating and what they're drinking, I think PFAS needs, needs to be a bigger part of the conversation. And it's something that we've just dropped the ball on, I think.
- [56:31]
A
Well, and chemical contamination is squarely within the purview of food safety and those.
- [56:36]
B
Are real, real chemicals that are contaminating things.
- [56:40]
C
And you know, chemical environmental contaminants was one of our top news, top Trends for the 2024 Year in Review. So we definitely paid a lot of attention to, to it now or we definitely paid a lot of attention to it then. I think this year with all the different MAHA food policies that have happened and the fact that pfas and pesticides were kind of dropped from that second report. I think that, I think we've all a little bit lost the thread on it, except for probably the scientists that are working on and studying this. But, you know, as a, as a, as a, as a whole, I think it's, there's been so many other things that we've needed to pay attention to that, that it's, it's hard to juggle everything at once. Right. Especially when you're, you go from juggling three balls to about 27 balls at once.
- [57:26]
B
So I think it's just sad that things that have like, so much importance and we're actually seeing progress are being like, scaled back quietly and all this other noise. It's like people cannot pay attention to everything. Like you said, Adrian.
- [57:41]
A
So that's a strategy.
- [57:43]
B
Yeah.
- [57:43]
C
Yeah. Now, we talked a little bit about infant formula, and Bob alluded to should that be considered a UPF because it's so processed. So infant formula is another one of our top stories for the year, and specifically infant formula safety. And the FDA has been trying to tackle this through its Operation Stork Speed initiative that was launched in March. Now, the aim of strengthening the resiliency of the infant formula supply is a carryover from the Biden administration, which was in Office during the 2022-2023 Chronobacter outbreak in infant formula associated with Abbott Nutrition and the resulting widespread supply shortage. Now, as we know, this incident was one of the factors that led to the Reagan Udall Foundation's independent review of the FDA's human foods program and the HFP's eventual restructuring from October of 2024. Now, the Trump administration's Operation Stork Speed comprises a series of actions like increased contaminant testing to better ensure the safety and adequacy of the US Infant formula supply. There has been some skepticism over the FDA's ability to deliver on these initiatives given the significant cuts to FDA's budget and workforce. So we've also seen infant formula back in the news in a bad way with the onset of a multistake outbreak of infant botulism illnesses that quickly became linked in November to Buy Hart brand powdered infrastructure infant formula. There were at least 51 confirmed cases associated with Biohart across 19 states as of mid December. And a broader set of more than 100 infant botulism cases is also under investigation by state and federal agencies, although no other brands have been implicated in the outbreak. So FDA is co investigating this outbreak with the California Department of Public Health's Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program. It's the only one like it in the country. Now, Clostridium botulinum has been found in unopened cans of Biohart formula. And the FDA has released inspection reports for the company going back to 2022 that shows a history of food safety and hygiene violations at its production facilities, including issues like mold, dead insects, recurring roof leaks, and a finding actually of Cronobacter sakazaki that caused by Hart's facility in Reading, Pennsylvania, to be shut down in 2023. Also, lab testing revealed in December that infants started becoming ill with botulism linked to Bihart Formula between December and July of 2023, setting the timeline for the outbreak back two years earlier than expected. And so this has been an ongoing problem that's now just being uncovered, apparently. And in related news, and maybe somewhat awkward timing, in mid November, just as the Bihart outbreak was ramping up, the Reagan Udall foundation published a report with insights from stakeholder discussions held in September on ways to improve US Infant formula safety and regulation related to Operation Stork Speed. Now, as we mentioned in our news discussion on episode 206, these discussions focused on the three priority areas of nutrient review, contaminants and heavy metals, and labeling and marketing claims. But they didn't consider microbiological contaminants like Clostridium botulinum and Cronobacteris Akazaki. So the Bihart botulism outbreak seems to suggest that pathogenic contamination of infant formula should be a priority in any infant formula formula safety discussion. And it's kind of bad press for the infant formula industry. Operation Stork Speed and the Trump administration, which as we discussed, has curbed several food safety guardrails and capacities from federal agencies in an effort to downsize government size and budget. Certainly those overseeing the safety of infant formula need to be able to do their jobs and we need the people there to do those jobs.
- [61:25]
B
I think Operation Stork Speed is another example of giving, taking a topic that Baja voters and the public at large care a lot about, giving it a flashy name, saying we're going to do these things to improve the safety and security of this important commodity, but while actually rolling back important, you know, people staffing and resources and things in place that, that are there to ensure the safety of the food supply. And this focus on infant formula is something that started years ago after the Abbott recall and the shortage. So FDA has been putting out strategies and trying to make a concerted effort to pay attention to infant formula and improve their oversight of it up until the Trump administration. And so now they're kind of just repackaging things that have already been in the process of being done, calling it Operation Stork Speed and at the same time rolling a lot of the things that was going to allow these things to be done. So I just think it's just another example of, of an interesting trend that I've noticed. It's kind of a through line for me throughout the whole year when I have to read press releases and plans coming out of FDA and hhs.
- [62:48]
C
I think it is interesting, though, with these stakeholder discussions that were held in September that the Reagan Udall foundation was reported on, one of the things, and this isn't so much food safety related, but that the stakeholders agreed on, was the need to really comprehensively update FDA's nutrient requirements for infant formula. That hasn't been done since 1998, not in a comprehensive capacity. So that's, that's really interesting, I think. But I also think it's interesting when we're talking about heavy metals that the stakeholders said, you know, we need to expand the Closer to Zero initiative and we need that to include infant formula, because right now Closer to Zero is looking at infant foods for infants and young children. So those things that are purees and baby foods and things, not so much that powdered formula. So I thought that was interesting as well, because we don't want metals in these things either.
- [63:41]
D
The thing about this, I feel like I'm going to be the Zen person here. All my answers are going to be somewhere along the lines of it depends or we'll see. We'll see what happens here.
- [63:50]
A
But listen closely, grasshopper.
- [63:53]
B
In a. On a positive note, as we were sitting down to record this, I got an email from FDA that the ongoing outbreak of infant botulism is slowing down. Since the last update that they put out, they haven't reported or found any new cases. So, hey, that's good.
- [64:13]
A
There we go.
- [64:14]
D
Yeah.
- [64:14]
A
What. How about your moment of Zen? Well, what's your moment?
- [64:17]
D
So. So it seems like every answer I'm coming up with here, every comment is, well, it depends upon what it is. And that's probably going to be my opinion. But one of the things Adrian mentioned was stork speed is going to have a series of actions, including increased contaminant testing. I can't tell you how many food safety experts will tell you you can't test Your way to safety. It's about actually having a program that works. So I'm just going to use this.
- [64:41]
A
Food safety is manufactured according to Larry Kane.
- [64:43]
D
That's exactly. And I was going to mention Larry because that's who probably whispered it in my ear. Exactly. So you can't test your way to safety. But when you look at the violations in that Redding plant, you have mold, dead insects, recurring roof leaks, other hygiene violations. Increased testing is not going to make a difference there. So you can say that, but that's one of the things that I think non food safety experts automatically go to is what we need to do is test more of these products. You can test some of these products depending upon what they are forever. And it's not what's going to make the food safe. It's the process that makes the food safe. Then the testing is to verify the process. Process.
- [65:17]
B
That was an interesting moment of transparency from FDA when they just released all those inspection documents. I know that Congress asked them to. I don't think that they necessarily had to, but there were some Congress people asking them to. And then I just like one day was like, boop. Here you go. Here's all the inspection reports for by heart from 2023 on or whatever it was. So I just, I was like, oh, well that's, I guess, you know, it's nice to see the transparency. But what inspired that was, I think it's hard.
- [65:48]
A
I've been trying to talk to when I have the opportunity to talk to people who do this for a living and regulators and so on. I mean, how do you get to that? There's so many audits and so many inspections and these reports and where are they living and who does them and who has access to them? Because when you look at the history on this, it's hard for me to believe that with GFSI and with maybe even company sanction audits and so on that none of this came up. It's sort of like with the boar's head, things like, okay, this was well documented. I, I'm really left scratching my, my head a bit. But I, I wanted to on this topic, also bring up the fact that one of the last things that's happened or one of the most recent thing that's happened is that fda. And it was also a big story this week. Week FDA issued a letter to industry describing firms reminding them of their legal obligations in case of recall because they sent at. They did 4,000 retail checks nationwide and discovered that the recalled formula was still in 175 locations across 36 states. And so they. They sent, you know, letters to some very prominent retailers, Walmart, Target, Kroger and Albertsons, all while also rolling back traceability for another 30 months.
- [67:17]
C
Right. And we also saw in that letter, FDA talked about, in some cases that consumers had seen the recall announcement, returned the formula to the store, and then it was restocked at a discount. So selling at a discount on the shelves.
- [67:35]
A
I didn't hear that.
- [67:35]
C
This is a real lack of coordination and I really don't think there's a good excuse for that for many of you, these retailers. Wow.
- [67:42]
B
Yeah. I saw Bill Marler post something on social media about it. It was like, are you greedy or just stupid or. It was, you know, something like that.
- [67:53]
C
Yeah, well, FDA mentioned it in the letters. FDA mentioned this in the letters they sent to the various firms for those firms that they had discovered that practice had occurred and said, don't do this. Which is good advice.
- [68:07]
A
Well, I think that we can point once again to a lot of problems with this recall. I mean, with this incident, the way the companies handled it. And then now we're seeing this extenuation of these ripples just be really, really poorly, poorly handled.
- [68:27]
C
So, moving from infant botulism to listeria, another one of our big topics of the year, and I think it deserves attention, was the food safety threat of listeria, and specifically listeria protected by biofilms, and especially as found in ready to eat food environments. And I think with this topic, what was interesting was that we saw a multitude of scientific studies this year led by university and government researchers in the EU and the US that looked at listeria presentation and proliferation in biofilms, as well as the efficacy of various sanitation methods against listeria. So because listeria has the ability to cause such deadly and debilitating disease, and because we know listeria can be protected by biofilms that grow in food processing environments, I think it's really encouraging to see so much new research being focused on this pathogen and especially its presence in biofilms. And we saw our audience paying heavy attention to these studies, as Bailey can attest.
- [69:27]
B
Yeah, I mean, I. One of the things I like to do the most in my coverage is communicate the different science developments and communicate that to the public. So I. This definitely noticed a large amount of news around listeria, listeria and biofilms compared to previous years. That being said, our audience definitely paid a lot of attention to these stories as well. They were the most, one of some of the most viral, quote unquote, Viral pieces of news that we put on social media, especially the video I made. We made. Started making some videos this year, in case you didn't know.
- [70:10]
A
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna run you off the road here because, because I, I should have done this at the very, very, very, very top of the show when I said. And our digital editor. And I just say that, like, everybody knows what a digital editor is and they don't. Bailey Henderson writes all the news that you see most. I'm sorry, there are times Adrian also gets involved with that. So I don't know, short shrift there. But day to day, Bailey's responsible for writing up our news. She's responsible for our social posts, which are dynamic and fantastic. She's also responsible for. And the author of our Food Safety 5 video series, which is. Are always worth watching. So she posts those on social. They're also on our website. So. Bailey Henderson, DIGITAL editor.
- [71:00]
B
Well, shucks, thanks, Stacey. But yeah, The Food Safety 5 videos talking about listeria and these different scientific studies on listeria really popped off, as the kids would say. I don't know if the kids are saying that anymore, actually.
- [71:20]
C
But.
- [71:21]
B
But yeah, so tens of thousands of views across our social platforms, excluding YouTube, which, by the way, we have a YouTube channel at Food Safety Mag where you can find these videos as well as our website and our social media. So I'm also, I also always write a top 10 kind of story at the end of the year summarizing all the most read scientific developments and studies that I covered throughout the year. So half of that list almost is these kinds of stories. So look out for that. But yeah, that's, that's what I had to say on that.
- [71:58]
A
I think I derailed you.
- [72:01]
C
One of your videos, Bailey, that you did featured that story that came out, came from a study out of Austria and that looked at biofilms and water hoses that were used in a meat processing facility and that found like pretty pervasive microbial colonization. And, you know, that kind of reaffirmed the concerns about hoses as reservoirs for pathogens and leading to cross contamination. And that one, I know that story specifically got a lot of attention because, I mean, how many food processing facilities use water hoses? Most of them, unless you're a dry facility. So, you know, I thought that was really interesting, was certainly we saw our audience pay attention to that. And then there was another study that came out of Austria, said the Austrians are really concerned about with listeria in biofilms this year, but that looked at Listeria's ability to colonize and survive and grow in pre existing multi species biofilms within hours and persist over time without disrupting the biofilm structure or its composition. That was a really interesting study, I think gave a lot of interesting scientific perspective on what happens when you have Listeria in a biofilm and how it is protected and how it can be very profane, pervasive in the food processing environment. There were a number of other studies, but I remember those two as being kind of wow factor stories indeed.
- [73:20]
B
One of the ones that I thought personally was super interesting was an evolutionary study where I'm. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce this right, but. Vog vagen.
- [73:32]
C
Wagoning. Wagoning in.
- [73:33]
B
There you go. Thank you. Research.
- [73:35]
C
How I say it, I don't know if it's right.
- [73:37]
B
Researchers there did an evolutionary study where they, they forced evolution, I guess in different listeria strains and actually looked at like the mechanisms genetically what causes strong biofilm formers versus not that to me was personally one of the more fascinating ones, but that's just an aside from me.
- [74:01]
C
Yeah, that was a deep science story. Very interesting now. Yeah, yeah. And you did a wonderful job of writing it up, baby, as always. So another SOP story that has carried over from 2025 is the ongoing food safety monitoring of highly pathogenic avian flu, or HPAI, H5N1, specifically in poultry, cattle and other species, including some human infections. So USDA and FDA testing programs for milk and dairy products have reinforced that pasteurized milk and dairy is safe to consume and, and free of active avian flu virus and pathogenic bacteria, but that raw milk and dairy is not. In fact, the CDC has issued specific warnings on not consuming raw milk due to the slight possible presence of avian flu. And we did see outbreaks continuing to be reported in dairy cattle herds as well as poultry flocks, especially during the seasonal uptick in avian flu detection in bird populations in the autumn and winter. Now, the federal oversight of avian flu has suffered the consequences of workforce reductions. However, USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APIs, which has oversight of bird flu response, has been hard hit. However, USDA has also granted 1 billion in investments for biosecurity, vaccines and other efforts to combat the ongoing avian flu outbreak. Now, internationally, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United nations or the FAO has encouraged all countries to monitor for H5N1 spread to cattle. And the EU has also released guidance on avian flu prevention as it continues to monitor the spread of avian flu in US Dairy cattle. Poultry vaccines are also under development. However, epidemiologists and scientists do continue to express worry over the possible mutation of H5N1 into a virus that can be transmitted from human to human. Past bird flu outbreaks in human populations, mainly in Asia, have resulted in very high mortality rates rates. So this is definitely an area for public health and food safety personnel to continue keeping an eye on.
- [76:04]
D
So Adrian, one of the things that you mentioned is this idea of human to human trans transmission. I think that's one of the key things to keep an eye on right now. It's really a risk to a lot of the, the flocks and the availability of, of food and, and chickens and poultry. But the, the one that we have to watch for, of course, is if it ever does jump species like, like we've been keeping an eye on. So that's, I think that's one of the things that's dramatically important. The other thing is it's going to really affect the food supply. But most of the things so far have not been something that's, I'll call it a direct food safety issue as far as consumption other than the raw milk and some of those things.
- [76:46]
C
And.
- [76:47]
A
The disastrous loss of floods.
- [76:50]
D
Well, yeah, I mean that's, it's definitely going to affect supplies and those type of things. Absolutely.
- [76:55]
C
Yeah. And you know, when we talk about food safety, we don't talk about animal food and pet food and feed all that extensively. But one of the things we have seen with avian flu monitoring is we, we saw several pet deaths from raw pet food contaminated with avian flu in the US and other countries. And so what that did was led the FDA to announce in January that raw pet pet food manufacturers have to consider H5N1 avian flu as a quote, known or reasonably foreseeable hazard in their food safety plans. And that's in compliance now with the FSMA preventive controls for animal food rule. So that was an interesting new direction from FDA that came out of this. And that kind of takes us to our last theme for the year. So the growing. Yes, I know we're all the way at the end and it's only been about an hour, hour and 20 minutes actually. So let's see how long we go after we cover this last main theme for 2025. But we couldn't, we couldn't, we couldn't end 2025 without giving a nod to the growing development and application of AI technologies, specifically in the food safety space. So we've seen technologies like machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and predictive analytics being used to analyze large data sets, identify patterns and predict potential risks to food safety. These technologies are being applied in areas like pathogen detection, contamination prevention, and supply chain monitoring, among others. So AI driven tools can also enhance lab testing efficiency, with one example being better detection of mycotoxins in foods. AI tools can also improve inspection accuracy, enable real time environmental monitoring through sensors and IoT devices, support traceability through blockchain and RFID systems, automate compliance updates, and assist in developing early warning systems for emerging hazards. And in the US the FDA is scaling the use of AI internally to help with things like pre market reviews, post market surveillance, review validation, and inspections and compliance. Internationally, the FAO and Wageningen Food Safety Research issued a technical publication that provided the first global synthesis of AI applications across food safety domains, from laboratory testing and inspection to border control and regulatory efficiency. And amid a number of articles and columns discussing how AI might support food safety efforts and regulatory compliance, which you can find links to in the show notes, we have all the stories we've discussed. It's busy. Everything else else there? We've had two interesting podcast interviews on this topic. So first we had episode 193 with food safety expert Christian Ararat about the possibilities and pitfalls of AI applications for food safety. And then not too long ago we had episode 203 with Tom Black of Codex and the Australian government and Gabor Molnar of Unito on how digitalization and AI are informing trends in international food safety standards and regulations. AI, as we know, is a really dynamic and developing area in the food industry. But I think a key principle that defines this application in food safety is that AI assists human decision making. It doesn't replace it. Let's hope that principle remains a fundamental tenant of AI applications for all industries as we continue to develop these technologies in an increasingly digitalized world.
- [80:26]
A
Well, I was digging through some of the articles and notes that Adrian was kind enough to supply all of us to get ready for this. And you know, we've talked a lot so much about FDA and what they've done. Back in May they announced an aggressive timeline to scale the use of AI internally across all FDA centers. They wanted it in May, they said, we want it in place by June. Can you imagine? You know, okay, anyway. But then in early December they rolled out a new agentic AI tools to help staff handle more complex tasks like pre market reviews, review validation Post market surveillance and inspections and compliance. They're also launching an internal challenge for employees to develop and promote their own agentic AI solutions as part of a bigger push to improve efficiency and modernize operations. You know, I think, I think even here at We All Work for Food Safety magazine is owned by BMP Media. You know, we're looking into AI. We're all being affected by AI, certainly in media. We see that a lot with the new AI Google searches and on and on, but all of us in our personal world, so I'm learning so much, but I was really kind of like, what is agentic? So I always like it when I'm driven to the dictionary or to, I guess Google in this point, at this point is autonomous AI systems, so that it's more proactive as opposed to reactive, which is, which is very interesting and there's a lot of very interesting information there. And I think that the, the big takeaway I think we're all finding this is it can be a great help. It can also be gibberish. So, you know, more help, less gibberish is what I certainly advocate for. I think that it can, you know, repetitive things, this proactive idea of again, it's all how it's written. Like as we know, right? What's it being tasked to do and how well is it doing those tasks?
- [82:38]
C
Well, a lot of people who are authorities on AI, you know, say that. But it is so important that while we're developing these tools and figuring out how they can be applied and to what extent is to not lose sight of the human oversight that really is required to ensure that these tools are being properly applied, that the results that come out of them do make sense and are what we're looking for. And that again, going to drive this home. It does not replace human decision making. And across all industries, I think that is very important that we continue to keep that in mind. And just as kind of an aside, a little fun thing related to AI. So if you go to the food safety magazine website and you see on the top right, the search bar underneath that you're going to see a button that says ask Food Safety AI. And that is a really cool little tool that we introduced a few months ago. And if you click on that button, it'll take you to a page that says ask our brand anything. So if you type in something you want to know about food safety, let's say something like, like help me design a HACCP plan or tell me more about antimicrobial resistance in food animals. With veterinary drugs or something like that. Right. Not only will the AI tool give you a nice summary of the information and the content that we have on this topic and tell you a little more about it, tell you what you need to know, but it will also give you resources from our content library that will point you in the direction to read more. I think it's a really cool little AI tool. I have played around with it a lot myself and so far I found it to be accurate and very helpful. Yeah, we'd love anybody's feedback if you're playing around with the AI tool.
- [84:21]
A
Yeah, we want your feedback.
- [84:22]
C
We'd love to hear from you.
- [84:23]
A
Because I tend to, I'm not the best Googler. It's all about asking the right questions. So I think that it's even more important when you get into AI as well. How are you asking it, what are you asking it? And so on. And I did want to point out one other thing that you had provided in your notes. Notes Adrian, which was a technical publication from FAO and Wageningen. Did I get it? Okay. Food Safety research on the global synthesis of AI applications across food safety domains, from laboratory testing and inspections to border control and so on. They underscore three core areas of development, scientific advice, inspection, border control and operational activity activities and use cases, from pathogen detection to import sampling, prioritization and the use of language models for regulatory data. They underscore persistent challenges, data scarcity, capacity constraints and the need for robust governance. Experts emphasize that AI is not a goal in itself, but a tool to enhance public health protection, sustainability and resilience in agri food systems. Responsible adoption of AI and food safety hinges on high quality in interoperable data, ethical oversight and cross section sector collaboration.
- [85:59]
D
So yeah, by the way, Stacey, I'm glad you pointed that out because I saw that in the notes as well. I think AI is going to revolutionize a lot of the things that we do. The speed of AI, the volume of what it can do as far as looking at these systems, evaluating data is tremendous. But the one thing I remember, I'm going to do this again. Maybe I'm going to have another maybe sort of answer. But the one thing I remember is back in the dot com time frame, 2000, 2001, people were talking about clicks, not bricks. Retail was going to go away. There was not going to be any more grocery stores. There was not going to be any malls or stores. You're just going to order it. Everything's going to be sent to your your houses. No more Movie theaters, all these things that were predicted, and they were all predicted in the next couple of years. Okay. More things are being delivered, there are fewer stores, but stores still exist, Grocery stores still exist, movie theaters still exist. They're not as full as they were 25 years ago, but movie theaters still exist. There's all sorts of things that, that have become available through dot com, through the Internet. But at that time when it first came out, people were talking about this being an 18 month, two, three year sort of thing.
- [87:05]
B
Thing.
- [87:06]
D
I see the same thing with AI. It's going to be tremendous. It's going to do a whole bunch of things. I just don't think. I think it's a little bit ahead of its skis right now. That it's. Everyone's saying that by 2027, 2028, something like that, like the whole world's going to be turned upside down. I don't see that. So I like this idea of that it has human oversight. All these things that Wangeningen just said that we should look at and those kind of things, I think we'll probably have time for that. Some of the financial people are saying that AI from an investment is a little bit of a bubble. So maybe it'll be the same thing that happens, happened 25 years ago. All the things that were predicted came to be to some magnitude, just not as quick as everybody wanted it to happen. So it looks the same to me, but I think it has tremendous potential.
- [87:49]
A
Yeah, tremendous potential. And you know, some of those things, you know, exist at different levels. Like even around the dot com stuff that you were talking about. Right. And Covid really was quite a blow. Oh yeah. To so much of that. And I mean, it's just changed our lives. Right. So thank goodness for the Internet and thank goodness for all, you know, those, the different services that have come from that. Right. We probably. We wouldn't. I don't. Lord only knows what we would have done through Covid without all of that, those advances.
- [88:22]
D
That's right.
- [88:23]
A
But our engagement and our choices, you know, not forgetting that we have to engage and, and decide how do we want to use this and make conscious decisions about how it's supporting us in all of its iterations. So I'm just looking around here because we're on video. We don't put out the video of this, but we just get to see each other. So I'm happy to be here with all of you guys. And here we are at the end of this. And I have not written much of a final Note here. Bailey, did you want to say anything else on AI or anything before we get going? One.
- [89:00]
B
Yeah, no, I don't have that much ad. I think I added enough throughout the. Throughout.
- [89:05]
A
You know, you added a lot.
- [89:06]
B
There's a lot.
- [89:07]
A
So happy.
- [89:08]
B
There's a lot of thoughts as I write throughout the year that I don't really get to. To get out.
- [89:14]
A
Yeah, well, we keep saying it that we need to have you back on more frequently because we like it.
- [89:21]
B
You know, we're talking.
- [89:22]
A
Yeah, I do. And I'm just so grateful for all of you. And Graham is also hiding, our producer there and editor. Thank you, Graham, for all that you do for us every episode. It's a great way to end the year. It's great being with all of you. Thank you. And thank you again to all of you who are our listeners. Again, this is for you. So we're so thankful that you're there. And if you're still listening, wow, do we love you. And now I get to do my regular stuff. So I want to remind you that if you don't already, you can follow us on LinkedIn X Facebook, search for Food Safety magazine, and see all Bailey's very creative and wonderful posts. And to take a deeper dive into all the great content that we offer, Visit our website, food-safety.com and here's the formal out here it is formally thanks again to our Food Safety Matters podcast team. Adrian Blum, Editorial Director of Food Safety Magazine, Bob Ferguson, President of Strategic Consulting, Bailey Henderson, digital Editor for Food Safety magazine, and me, Stacy, publisher, Food Safety magazine. Thanks everybody for joining us on the podcast today, and thanks to all of you for listening. You know we love hearing from you, so never, ever, ever hesitate to send us questions or suggestions to podcastood-safety.com or post a note on LinkedIn X or Facebook. Now you know who's going to be seeing those notes. It's Bailey.
- [90:55]
B
So be nice.
- [90:56]
A
We always love. Yeah, yeah, be nice. Play nice people. To make sure that new and bonus episodes magically appear in your podcast player, all you have to do is click that Follow subscribe button in the play 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. Only takes a moment and it's good for everyone. And that's it for us today. Our next regular episode will post on January 13th, but we also have a very special bonus episode that will post on December 30th, so keep your eye out for that one. And in the meantime, take good care of yourselves and those around you. And we'll talk to you then.
- [91:39]
C
And Happy New Year.