Ep. 210. Campbell Mitchell: Executive Leadership in Food Safety on a Global Scale

Summary

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Food Safety Matters – Episode 210

Guest: Campbell Mitchell, Head of Food Safety and Compliance, Kraft Heinz North America
Date: January 27, 2026
Host: Adrian Bloom (with Stacey Acheson & Bob Ferguson)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores executive-level leadership in food safety with Campbell Mitchell of Kraft Heinz North America. Drawing on his decades of international experience, Campbell discusses adapting to shifting regulations, strengthening enterprise-wide food safety culture, leading through complexity, and leveraging digital and AI tools to manage risk in global supply chains.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Campbell Mitchell's Global Career & Background

• Early Adaptability through International Upbringing
  • Campbell shares, “When I was 15, we’d lived in 15 different houses, so change was the norm...the only constant is change.” (38:54)
  • Lived in multiple countries across Asia, Europe, Africa; credits this with agility and openness to new challenges.
• Impactful Career Move:
  • “My first real exposure to a strange cultural environment was moving from Australia to Saudi Arabia…That was one of the best things I could have done.” (40:56)
• Global Leadership Posts:
  • Held senior roles at FairLife (Coca-Cola), Kerry Group, Almarai (Middle East), plus consultancy for Tiger Brands in Africa.

2. Inspiration & Entry into Food Safety

• Unexpected Path:
  • “I was doing pre-med...spent too much time at the pub...didn’t get into medicine...microbiology is far more interesting.” (42:22)
• Microbiology as a Career:
  • Inspired by job security & the dynamism of the field; enjoys being the 'translator' of complex science for decision makers.

3. Executive Responsibility in Modern Food Safety

• Leadership at Kraft Heinz North America:
  • Joined mid-2025 during an organizational transition: “I like to be part of an organization when they’re…at the tipping point where they need more structure and more systems.” (44:37)
  • Emphasizes that food safety is not just technical: “Food safety is every decision that’s made within the organization...if we do it right, nobody hears about us. If we do it wrong, it can have huge consequences.” (46:37)
• Role:
  • Engaging cross-functional business leaders (operations, R&D, marketing, HR) in food safety; not “just about lab testing”.

4. Navigating Regulatory and Consumer-Driven Change

• Phasing Out Artificial Colors (MAHA Policy) (47:30–49:39):
  • Kraft Heinz (and many US food firms) will eliminate synthetic food colorings by end of 2027, prompted by regulatory and consumer pressure under the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign.
  • “It’s a huge challenge actually...We’re taking the opportunity to reformulate a lot of the products to be future-facing, which has meant a whole lot of work for people in my department...800 products need to be reevaluated for food safety.”
  • Notes state-by-state regulatory patchwork is accelerating change; sees convergence with stricter EU-style standards.
• Reformulation Complexities:
  • E.g., Switching from liquid to powdered dyes affects blending, safety validation, and process controls: “All that has to be validated before you can say that product is reformulated and you can sign off on it.” (49:39)

5. Balancing Global Standards & Regulatory Complexity

• Cross-Regional Complexity:
  • “Every country has its own little regulation...when I was in the Middle East, I was looking after 89 countries, importing from 160 factories.” (50:17)
  • Importance of zooming in on micro details and zooming out for macro perspective: “You need to be able to get the facts right, get the details, but you’ve also got to see the big picture.” (50:17)

6. Meeting Consumer Expectations & Future-Proofing

• Aligning with Consumer Demands (53:46–54:58):
  • Consumers increasingly conflate food safety with chemicals, additives, packaging, not just pathogens.
  • “Our testing capabilities are getting tougher...we’re finding microplastics, PFAS, all these things.” (54:58)
  • “At the end of the day, we all want to provide safe, quality food....food safety is the number one impact consumers see.”

7. Food Safety Culture: Building & Measuring

• Enterprise-wide Approach:
  • Plans to deploy a comprehensive “food safety culture” survey—not just at plant-level but including procurement, marketing, logistics, etc.
  • Advocates for using global benchmarking tools like Campden BRI’s Culture Excellence Survey (based on GFSI standards) (56:22–58:09)
  • Campbell contributed to PAS320, a guidance for building mature food safety cultures: “There’s a lot more research out there now on what nudges we can put in place, what good companies are doing to improve food safety culture.” (56:22)

8. Digital Transformation & Predictive Analytics

• Next Generation Risk Management:
  • Kraft Heinz piloting AI for “digital CIP” (Cleaning in Place)—predicting when cleaning is needed using real-time data, not just schedules.
  • "We're trying to digitize all [environmental monitoring/pathogen monitoring] that...AI can see patterns and trends things that the human eye can't see." (58:26)
  • Predictive analytics for environmental monitoring and potentially supplier risk; current hurdles: integration of various databases and data-cleanliness.
  • “Nestle is doing a fantastic job of linking up all the HACCP plans across all their 200 facilities...Kraft Heinz is using the same technology.” (58:26)
  • Looks ahead to two or three years for truly powerful predictive analytics once integrations mature.

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Noteworthy Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Adaptability:
  “Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home. That was my motto.” (39:13, Mitchell)
• On food safety roles:
  “Quality and food safety, if we do it right, nobody hears about us. But if we do it wrong, it can have huge consequences.” (46:19, Mitchell)
• On being proactive:
  “We’re taking the opportunity to reformulate a lot of the products to be future-facing, which has meant a whole lot of work for people in my department... 800 products need to be reevaluated for food safety.” (48:56, Mitchell)
• On food safety culture:
  “Food safety culture is not just about the quality people or the operations people…everybody needs to understand, you know, food safety culture.” (56:22, Mitchell)
• On digital tools & risk:
  “You can start to determine the break point and then the AI will tell you before it gets to the break point: you need to start to do your CIP now.” (58:26, Mitchell)

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Important Timestamps

• 38:28 – Campbell Mitchell introduction, early global experiences
• 41:12 – International leadership and global food industry insights
• 42:22 – Origin story: microbiology, early career pivots
• 44:37 – Joining Kraft Heinz; transition and leadership role explained
• 47:30 – Phasing out artificial food colorings; regulatory challenges and reformulation
• 50:17 – Navigating differing global food regulations and import/export compliance
• 53:46 – Addressing consumer concerns and evolving definitions of food safety
• 56:22 – Building & measuring food safety culture across the whole enterprise
• 58:26 – Leveraging AI and digital tools for proactive food safety and predictive analytics
• 61:53 – Outlook on future predictive analytics and integrated supplier risk management
• 62:35 – Closing statements and appreciation

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Summary: For Food Safety Leaders and Professionals

This episode offers a rare executive perspective on global food safety leadership, underscoring:

• The importance of adaptability and cross-cultural agility for global compliance;
• How consumer expectations—and government policy—are accelerating clean-label reforms and enterprise-wide scrutiny of ingredients (notably, synthetic dyes and artificial additives);
• The shift from reactive to proactive, digitally-enabled risk management—as companies mature in their use of real-time data and AI for compliance and continuous improvement;
• The necessity of embedding food safety culture at every level and function, far beyond the factory floor.

Campbell’s experience and anecdotes provide actionable insights for leaders tasked with steering organizations through regulatory changes, consumer shifts, and technical complexity—all while fostering a robust, future-proof culture of safety and excellence.

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Transcript

[Stacey Acheson]

The presenting sponsor of Food Safety Matters is Michigan State University. Earn a Master of Science in Food Safety from Michigan State University. Flexible online courses allow students to balance their studies with professional life, no matter where they are in the world. Learn from a faculty of experts, build meaningful connections and engage in enriching peer to peer learning. Imagine the pride and accomplishment of completing a Master's degree while contributing to the safety and security of the global food supply. Visit foodsafety.msu.edu and then click on the Master's program link to learn more. Hello everyone and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacey Acheson, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and I'm here along with my coach, co hosts Adrian Bloom, our editorial director, and Bob Ferguson, president of Strategic Consulting. It's the first episode of 2026 with the whole gang here, so yay. And I just want to bring a few things to your attention in case things got a little blurry for our listeners over the holidays. And returning back to our regular schedules, there were some great episodes that we released at the end of the year and also the beginning of this year. In order of the release there, our year end review episode, which is always a popular episode, dropped on December 23. Then on December 30, we had a very special bonus episode on the topic of fixing the outbreak investigation system that featured Drew McDonald from Taylor Farms, Frank Yannis, former deputy commissioner for food policy and response at fda, Craig Hedberg, University of Minnesota, and John Bess, her former deputy chief of enteric disease lab at CDC. Another great episode. So then we kicked off 2026 with acclaimed food policy journalist Helena Bottmler Evic about the rise of the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA movement. That discussion had is wide ranging and also up to the minute because I think, Adrienne, you spoke with Helena the day like the day of or the day after the dietary guidelines?

[Adrian Bloom]

Was it the day when we did the interview? Yeah.

[Stacey Acheson]

So that's why you guys were in journalistic heaven.

[Adrian Bloom]

First question. Yeah. Right. That was interesting. It was a very busy day for both of us.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yeah. So all three of those episodes have gotten a lot of attention and I just want to make sure that y' all aren't missing out on any of that. So, okay, so for the business, onto the business at hand. Adrian, you want to tell us a little bit about today's guest?

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah. So today I'm talking with Campbell Mitchell, and he's the food safety and compliance head at Kraft Heinz North America, and we talk about his decades of international leadership experience major food businesses. We talk about the logistics of balancing high level leadership responsibilities with the technical and regulatory requirements for food safety and quality, as well as some strategies for strengthening food safety culture, enterprise wide and a whole bunch of other topics. It's a really great discussion, so don't miss it as always.

[Stacey Acheson]

And before we get to the news, I have a couple more housekeeping items. Something we're very excited about that over the holidays. Well, it took longer than that, but we kind of finalized everything. We reimagined Food Safety magazine's weekly newsletter and we increase its frequency. So the Tuesday, the new Tuesday edition looks so great. We've got a new logo, we got a new layout that includes it includes feature stories and lots of information packed into each edition that is expertly curated by our editors, Bailey Henderson and Adrian Bloom. So then we added a Friday edition, which we now call, which we call before we Go that recaps the week's important stories. And yes, we did borrow from the podcast for that name. Regular listeners probably know we've got at the end of our news, we tend to mention things that we don't necessarily discuss, but we want you to know about it. And so it's always fun when we can kind of, I don't know, have that cross pollination and stuff like that. So that's fun. You can know the origin of that name. So visit food-safety.com and subscribe to Food Safety Digest newsletter and you'll get both editions one click both newsletters. And last but not least, come join us in person at the Food Safety Summit and Expo that'll be held May 11th to the 14th, 2026 in easily accessible and affordable Rosemont, Illinois. So when you visit foodsafetysummit.com, you'll see all the great sessions, certification courses and networking events that we have lined up for you. Please check out that whole agenda. We have new courses, new speakers, and way too much for me to talk about now. So visit the website, make your plans to join us. Remember, Food Safety Matters Podcast listeners, you save big. You save 20% off registration fees when you register using our. Well, actually that's on top of up until March 31st. That's on top of the early bird. So there's your little time window. That's. That's a big one. Use discount code FSMATTERS20. That's FSMATTERS20 when you register and save, save, save. Okay, we did it. It was all important, but you know, seemed like a lot when I wrote it.

[Bob Ferguson]

So it was all good stuff.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yeah, see, Packed, packed, packed full of information and goodies.

[Bob Ferguson]

I'm still stunned when you said it was 2026 though. That can't be right.

[Stacey Acheson]

I know. How crazy. Well, here's the thing. We were talking about this the other day about like one of my favorite questions to ask people is how do you visualize the year? So this is why I have, I have this like kind of elliptical thing where it gets wide in the summer and then woo, we go right, boom, right around the New Year's thing and I feel like we've just been slungshot, you know, all of a sudden it's February. Right. Anyway, I digress. Adrian, do you want to get us started with some news?

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah. So, like you mentioned at the top of the podcast, so the Department of Health and Human Services and USDA recently released the Revised Dietary Guidelines for Americans, or the DGAs as we refer to them. And they've kind of rocked the food world with equal parts support and criticism. There was also the introduction of an upside down food pyramid, literally along with the catch phrase eat real food. And other notable changes in the DGAs include a higher recommended daily protein intake, greater emphasis on dairy as a healthy food category, and broad advice to avoid what the DGAs call highly processed foods as a category. So at the top or the largest part of the inverted food pyramid are protein, dairy and healthy fats placed next to vegetables and fruits and then it narrows down to whole grains at the point or the smallest part of the pyramid. And all this came out on the website realfood.gov, which states when you log onto it, for decades we've been misled by guidance that prioritized highly processed food and are now facing rates of unprecedented chronic disease. For the first time, we're calling out the dangers of highly processed foods. So interesting statement there. And some public health stakeholders have raised some concerns about the DGA's emphasis on animal protein, butter and full fat dairy and also question the scientific basis behind these claims and whether they were influenced by industry interests. And additional media reports have uncovered ties between the DGA Advisory Council and the meat and dairy industries. So that is very interesting. The DGAs also state that, quote, highly processed foods such as packaged, prepared, ready to eat and other foods that are salty and sweet and that have added sugars and sodium should be avoided. The DGAs also recommend limiting foods and beverages containing artificial flavors, flavors, petroleum based dyes, artificial preservatives and low calorie non nutritive sweeteners, which echoes HHS's and FDA's general stance against food additives and chemicals under Secretary Kennedy. But I think the most interesting thing for us here is the term highly processed as it's used in the new GGAs is reminiscent of the controversial and inconsistently defined term ultra processed foods, or UPFs. Swapping UPFs for highly processed foods in the new VGAs could be seen as circumventing the ongoing debate about the definition of UPFS and whether it should be used for official health advice and rulemaking, per the joint request for information from FDA and USDA last summer to establish a formal definition for UPFs. That request for information closed in October, and it did receive comments from diverse stakeholders with equally diverse opinions on how or if UPFS should be defined and how the category should be regulated. Now, critics say the use of the term UPFS villainizes processing without nuance and that the regulation of UPFS as a category could have unintended negative consequences. So lots of interesting things happening in the DGAs with regard to highly processed foods and what we're calling that now.

[Stacey Acheson]

It's interesting that they swapped that out at the last. Changed it. Okay. We've been talking about UPFS all year, right?

[Bob Ferguson]

Going from ultra to highly. Okay, got it. So I, I think I've been critical of this program every time we talked about it. I think a lot of it for me is a matter of compliance. If there's not something that drives compliance, I don't see people making a lot of changes here. You know, you see post, and people didn't know that the last parent pyramid was retired 15 years ago. And people, if I, if I asked friends of mine and say, okay, the USDA has the plate, what's on the plate? What plate? What are you talking about? Yeah, I just don't see that there's a lot of awareness. For me, the model would be like the 10,000 steps. People talk about getting their 10,000 steps. And if we get it to the point where people talk about complying with the pyramid, then I think you'll see some changes in behavior. But I would wait to see that. But it does control a lot of federal programs. Wic, snap, military school lunches, meals, things like that, all of which are required to follow these guidelines. So it does change the market quite a bit, and it does have a lot of impact regardless of the population in general follows it. But I wanted to make a point of something that I heard. I was listening to an interview with Marty McCary, the FDA commissioner, and he made a point, and I think this is really important because if you go back sometime when low fat became the buzzword, that everybody had to move off of low fat and then we wound up with high sugar, high carb diets, which now people are looking back going, wait a second, that wasn't the right move. But there was understood, there was an understanding of what that kind of nutrition should have been and that we should have been moving off that. And everybody was sure of it. And it turned out, at least the data seems to show now, that it's wrong. And he made a point. He said, if we're going to make progress and get this right, we need to be willing to let go of long held beliefs if the science supports it. So the recommendation that they have here as far as animal protein, whole milk, butter, these type of things sounds completely counter to what everybody's been told and what we've been talking about. But if that was wrong in the beginning, at some point you may have to say, okay, if the science supports that and we've been wrong, then let's adopt that and not be wrong anymore. But it sounds like a really hard thing to do, to say, okay, let's go back to steaks and butter, when certainly if you're my age, you've been raised for the last three decades to avoid those kind of things. But if it shows that it's true, it's one of these things, you know, give it a chance. I guess I don't know what the answer is and I really don't know what the data and the nutritional data shows, but it makes me wonder about how easy it is to adopt this when you have a lot of people who've been trained and taught otherwise. So it's really going to be interesting to see how this is sold and what's really true about this. But if the science supports it, at some point you have to say, you know, look at the evidence.

[Stacey Acheson]

Well, I don't recall seeing highly processed food in old pyramid, but I will say, but now that you say that Bob, and you talk about low fat things like that, low sugar, I think that that spawned a lot of engineering. You know, when you look at, oh well, here's the low sodium version, here's the low fat version. So to compensate for some of that stuff, right, they it's more engineered than it used to be. You know, it's more process, it's more. But yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah. My mom raised me on margarine, you know, so we're the margarine generation. Right?

[Campbell Mitchell]

Right.

[Stacey Acheson]

I haven't eaten margarine. Like, I don't even know what that is. I went back to butter years ago. So, yeah, I think that's at the top of my, my pyramid is butter. So maybe I'm in good shape. I see all other foods as delivery systems for butter.

[Bob Ferguson]

Not bad, maybe not healthy, but. Okay, well, we'll see, I guess.

[Stacey Acheson]

We'll see, I guess. Yeah, it's a race to the death.

[Bob Ferguson]

Yeah. And I'll go back and mention the ultra processed foods. I still stick with what I said before. And what I see is, what is a really legitimate criticism is, you know, an ultra processed food is baby formula. Babies shouldn't avoid having baby formula. The processing steps should not be as important as the nutritional content of the food. So if you have a, you know, a low calorie, high nutrient, you know, what's the. A nutrient dense food, I think is the. Is the word. And it doesn't matter necessarily if it's processed. It matters more of the overall nutrient quality, at least as far as I can tell. Now, there's some things that are highly processed that probably don't qualify, but that doesn't mean that simply on the basis of processing that they don't qualify. So I'm sticking with that.

[Adrian Bloom]

Okay, so moving on to some USDA items. So on January 14th, USDA FSIS held a public meeting on strategies to reduce salmonella in poultry products. And Bob, you actually attended that meeting. What can you share with us from it?

[Bob Ferguson]

I did indeed. I will tell you it was held in the USDA headquarters, which, if you've not been to the Independence Avenue building, it is an impressive couples block giant building. I don't know when it was built, but it was built maybe 100 years ago. But it's a really impressive building and they did a really good job with this whole meeting. So I did get a chance to attend that on the 14th. And the whole thing was convened because USDA FSIS was looking for answers to reduce salmonella illnesses in poultry products and get some ideas to guide future policy. And I really emphasize the fact of salmonella illnesses because one of the themes that came up throughout the discussions all day in that meeting was we want to reduce illnesses, but don't mistake that with just reducing salmonella. And there's a lot of technical things that came up about that. I thought the meeting was really well run. There was attendees there in person in the auditorium. They have a big auditorium about the size of a movie theater. And there was people there live and online from the public industry, industry Groups, consumer groups, academics, researchers, pretty much what you would call every, every variability of stakeholders was in the room. It was a really good group. Shout out to Mindy Beshears, partly hosting the meeting and opening the meeting. Mindy Beshears, who's the undersecretary for food safety with usda, who I was understand, I understand, was officially sworn in right before the meeting. So she had a busy morning on the 14th and she took her job and walked in and did this first. Also, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins addressed the group for about 10 to 15 minutes. And I mentioned that for a couple reasons. First off, she expressed her support for what the group was doing. The other thing is, Brooke Rollins has what she calls her five point plan for reducing. For improving food safety and reducing foodborne illnesses. Number four, Number three on it is implementing a common sense strategy to reduce salmonella illnesses. So I think that was key because of who attended. And also the meeting was opened officially by Justin Ransom, the FSIS administrator. And then Mindy picked it up from there. So what I saw immediately was the USDA brass related to food safety was all at this meeting and all expressing a real since need to make some progress on this issue, which I thought was terrific. It'd be difficult for the secretary, undersecretaries and administrators to stand up there and then say, okay, let's just let this ride. I think you're going to see some action coming out of this meeting. And there were some really good ideas. They started out with a history of USDA and salmonella and what's been happening. They talked a little bit about the current system, which if you're not familiar with it, is broken down into category one, two and three based upon performance on positive salmonella samples. I'll come back to that in a second because it's really important. I'll skip some of the numbers. And then they talked about in that system what the current performance was with chicken carcasses. 69% of the establishments are in category one, or what they call consistent process control. 12% are in category three, poor performance, meaning they're not meeting process control. Turkey carcasses, 97% are in category one. So that's very good. Comminutive chicken, chopped up cut chicken. Only 24% of the producers in that category are in category one. 55% are in the low category three. So that was highlighted as a problem and a focus for everything that they want to do in salmonella is this particular class. They also mentioned that a disproportionate number of small Producers are in category three different than the larger producers. So small companies are more likely to be in category three. And that causes a problem with the amount of salmonella getting out into the market. So also this idea of helping small producers comply and improve their processes came through the meeting all along. There was also a discussion which I found fascinating about the 52 week window. So all these categories are based upon weekly testing in a 52 week week window. All right, why is that important? Let's say that you've had really good records for 52 weeks and I've talked to some chicken producers about this. And then you have a couple of weeks where you miss the goal. It takes you about another year to get those off of your record so that your average goes up and you can move from category three to two or two to one. And what some people are saying is it's a bit unfair and it tends to bias the numbers towards a lower performance. If you have people, let's say that had a couple of bad weeks and apologize, I'm making up some numbers here. If you had a couple of bad weeks, your category number would be lower than what your current production would be. Your real, your real results would be. So it tends to bias the numbers down or bias the numbers to be more poorly. If they could change that cycle, it would change the numbers and maybe reflect more what was actually going on. So that's one of the things that came up, was not only what they're measuring, but the way they measure. Now the what they're measuring came up. The next segment was about tools and processes that could be used other than just positive negative, presence, absence salmonella testing. So enumeration was discussed instead of just getting positive, negative. Let's find out how much salmonella is on there so you can measure how much is being reduced. That could either be done on raw numbers, just looking at the numbers and getting them lower, or setting performance guidelines based upon threshold. So less than 10, less than 100, those type of things instead of just positive, negative. So those were discussed and there was a lot of that about threshold. And I'll make a personal comment. I think we should keep an eye on this idea of thresholds instead of straight enumeration because it seemed to be something that was getting a little bit more traction than just enumeration. So keep in mind about these thresholds. I think that'll come back up. The other thing with salmonella, that was discussed for quite a bit and there was a number of really educated people in the room about this salmonella serotype based approach, where instead of just looking at Salmonella, there's 2500 different serotypes of Salmonella, a small percentage of them are pathogens. So why are we looking at the overall salmonella load when we should be looking at the overall pathogen load, which is really what's causing the illness? So what I started with saying the focus being on illnesses, not just on reducing the prevalence of salmonella, but reducing the ones that cause illness. Martin Wiedman, which I think many people are familiar with from Cornell University, stood up and said we should be really careful about just looking at reducing salmonella numbers because you can reduce them and then essentially increase concentration of the pathogens left if you're not reducing the pathogens. So the focus should be the reduction on pathogen. And that was a lot of the discussion going to another level of the science. Also using sequencing, you can also, instead of identifying the pathogens, just look for those with certain virulence factors. So let's just look for the ones that are proven genetically to be able to cause illness. That was something else that came on. I had a side conversation with a couple of the researchers who did this and they, they like the idea. They thought it was a real good idea. The way they would work this forward, it's still not ready for prime time, perhaps to be used in real samples from a chicken plant. So let's see how that goes and how that gets refined. There was another technology that was highlighted that they've been working together with a commercial company that we'd be familiar with along with usda and they may have a product launched later this year that would look at these virulence factors along with enumeration. So we'll see where that, that goes and perhaps we'll get a chance to talk about that a little bit more on a future podcast. So some of the concerns they have is what do we do with small processes, what do we do with community chicken products and what are the barriers to putting those controls in place? They're looking for these type of ideas and that's what most of the discussions were. And the, the federal docket and comments are still open right now and it'll be open till February 2. So if anybody wants to add a comment in on the way this should move forward, it's still open. And again, I would say it's a good meeting. I think it was an excellent meeting the way it was run. And I like the fact that all the people in charge were there and committed to what was going on. So I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fantastic. And it was a very interesting meeting to see what was happening.

[Stacey Acheson]

And you said the comment period is through February?

[Bob Ferguson]

February 2nd.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yep, February 2nd. Okay, so that's not too far. Yeah. Okay. Coming up.

[Bob Ferguson]

And you can easily look this up if you want. The slides that they used are on the docket as well. There's going to be a transcript of all the comments. So the questions and presentations that people made online or in person. There's going to be a transcript that's not up as of the recording today, but the slides are and the comment period still open?

[Stacey Acheson]

Well, I mean, given the sort of frame and model set with, with E. Coli, it seems like serotypes is the way to go.

[Bob Ferguson]

But I don't, I, you know, I had two conversations with veterinarians and they said one of the things that's different and I'm just repeating this, I'm not a veterinarian or that close to it is apparently E. Coli shows up intermittent, intermittently within cows. So sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. You're looking for the serotypes. And we've seen, like you said, that that sort of regulation based upon those serotypes has worked. The issue with birds, however, is the one veterinarian I talked to said every bird has salmonella. It's just, it's endemic within birds and it's difficult to get rid of. There was some discussion during this meeting of the, the where the birds come from, where that, where they're hatched. And that's really where you can control where the salmonella comes so that they don't get colonized with it in the first place. I'll leave that aside for a second. But the problem with reducing salmonella and looking at the serotypes is that you have so many and they're going to be there all the time because of, of the, the nature of salmonella colonizing birds. And the veterinarian told me it doesn't matter if it's chickens, turkeys, eagles, birds in your backyard, they're going to have salmonella. So it makes it a little bit more difficult to do than what happen. Just a side note that it's a little bit more of a difficult technical problem.

[Adrian Bloom]

Interesting comments from that meeting, Bob, and thanks so much for sharing all that great information. The inside information, I think that's interesting for our listeners to hear.

[Stacey Acheson]

Scoop.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, it was fun looking at some other US News. There was a report that was published by the U.S. government Accountability Office in early January, and It looked at FDA's implementation of the Food Safety Modern Modernization act, or FSMA, and identified areas that are needing more work. So according to GAO, in the 15 years since FSMA was passed, FDA has issued nine FSMA regulations and completed most but not all requirements of FSMA. GAO also said that FDA had fulfilled 41 of 46 key FSMA requirements. So, for example, FDA has issued several implementation guidances for industry and conducted various studies required by fsma. But it hasn't issued final guidances on hazards analysis and preventive controls for human food or finalized guidance to protect against the intentional adulteration of food. It also hasn't implemented a national Food Emergency Response Laboratory Network or published updated good agricultural practices for fruits and vegetables in alignment with the produce safety Rule. Also missing is the implementation of FSMA 204 section D or the Traceability rule, which the Trump administration has pushed forward the compliance date for by months to July of 2028. So the GAO made several recommendations to complete all the FSMA requirements, including establishing a timeline for finalizing guidances on hazards analysis and preventive controls for human foods, establishing a timeline for finalizing guidance to protect against the intentional adulteration of food, publishing a report in 2026 on the progress of implementing a FERN laboratory network, establishing milestones and timelines for updating these good agricultural practices for fruits and vegetables, establishing an implementation plan for FSMA 204 and developing and implementing a performance management process to assess the results of FSMA regulations and their contributions to the prevention of foodborne illness. So we look forward to seeing some of those things happen.

[Stacey Acheson]

Well, I'll just add that there is going to be we can continue this discussion in the closing session of this year's Food Safety Summit because it is all about FSMA at 15. So there's a great lineup. Check that out when you're out there checking on our agenda. But a great closing session. So that's going to be interesting. Bob, I know you had something to say here too.

[Bob Ferguson]

Well, I had to go back and take a look at this because again, FSMA goes back to 2011 or 2012, right?

[Stacey Acheson]

2011.

[Bob Ferguson]

Yeah. And they had a number of these that were supposed to be.

[Stacey Acheson]

And lots of infographics.

[Bob Ferguson]

There's lots of infographics.

[Stacey Acheson]

That's what I think of fisma. I think of infographics.

[Bob Ferguson]

I remember putting together a few slides for some people to say here's that. That's right. And but it's interesting when you look at the deadlines, most of the deadlines have been missed along the way and so there's ag water. Well, ag water, but even things like traceability, there was a legitimate reason that, a legitimate thought that a lot of people just weren't ready. So putting together a traceability requirement when traceability wasn't really working, that's something to consider. But there was a lot of reasons for this. But if you look down each one of the things, most of the deadlines were missed, even for the ones that are now put in place. So I think, I think it's been the process. We could probably go through each one and talk about the details. We won't do that today, but it's been quite a task to get this done.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yeah, well, it was the first modern. It was literally modernizing something after 80 years of nothing.

[Bob Ferguson]

That's right.

[Stacey Acheson]

No changes like, nothing to see here.

[Adrian Bloom]

Okay. So in another interesting development, the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has retracted a pretty important paper from the year 2000 that asserts the safety of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. So this paper has been relied upon for 25 years as a hallmark piece of evidence for regulatory approvals of the agricultural chemical. But in recent years, Roundup has faced increasing scrutiny due to its potential adverse health effects like cancer. And Bayer's Monsanto, which manufactures the chemical, has been dealing with more than 40,000 lawsuits filed by cancer patients and their families. Actually, in 2021, Bayer said it would end sales of glyphosate based herbicides in the US to manage their litigation risk risks. So according to the journal Retraction, these lawsuits have uncovered emails from Monsanto showing that employees of the company may have contributed to data collection, writing and review for the study, though they weren't acknowledged in the paper. The authors also may have received undisclosed financial compensation from Monsanto for their work.

[Stacey Acheson]

Whoops.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, there's a few red flags there. So the EPA is due to deliver a safety reevaluation decision for glyphosate. In 2020, following a lawsuit by the center for Food Safety and other stakeholders challenging EPA's determination that glyphosate is safe for use. In 2022, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned EPA's safety decision, saying that EPA didn't adequately consider the chemicals risk of harm to humans or to endangered species in compliance with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide act, or fifra. EPA is now required to issue a new complete FIFRA compliant glyphosate final registration review decision this year. So we'll See what, what comes out of EPA for that.

[Stacey Acheson]

Watch this space.

[Bob Ferguson]

I got a couple of comments. Let's see how much trouble I can get into this afternoon. You know, the Monsanto papers that came out from all this legislation are troubling. They include, like you said, conflicts of interest. The one that got me the most was the ghost writing. Apparently Monsanto employees wrote some of these scientific. The sections of these scientific papers, but they were attributed to independent academics writing them. And so, you know, that's difficult and unethical. There's no question about that. The one thing I will say is that this issue with glyphosate is messy. And I think a lot of these approvals are messy. And when you start digging into this, it becomes very gray pretty quickly. So I'll be curious to see how much of a smoking gun the withdrawal of this paper was. One of the things I looked up as I started to dig into, of course, the EPA has approved it, the European Chemicals Group has approved it, and EFSA allows the use of glyphosate. Health Canada has all performed risk assessments on glyphosate. And I looked up some of the papers that they look up. EFSA use 16,000 published papers. European Chemicals Agency used something like many thousands of papers. They said Health Canada did a full evaluation on 1300 studies. And they all came up with the idea, this idea that it's. Some of the studies show that it's a problem. It's borderline. Some of the studies show that there's not much of a risk. It depends upon the way you do the risk assessment. So this gets pretty controversial and messy pretty quickly. Even iarc, which is part of who said that it's probably carcinogenic to humans. But IAC doesn't do any risk assessment as far as the exposure level. Now, to give you an idea, they make it a group. Group 2 is a group 2 category. Group 1 category means it's absolutely cars. It's been proven to be carcinogenic to humans, but that's things like gasoline, benzene and asbestos and tobacco, things like that. So glyphosate is at least below that level even by iarc. So when you read through this and try to make sense of it, if you're not a toxicologist in the middle of this, I think it's difficult to sort out where this belongs, because agencies that we would normally refer to are agencies in Europe, agencies in Canada, in the U.S. agencies that we refer to say things like, it does not present unacceptable risks. And I'm Quoting them. And what was that? The EPA said it's not likely to be carcinogenic to humans. So when you look at the evidence, it's all over the place. So I think it's difficult for a layperson to sort this out. The other thing, just for, for discussion sake, is the Ninth Circuit did require EPA to go back and do this other assessment. So it'll be really interesting to see what they come up with this year and how they refer back to the science. But I think if I understand this, and I don't claim to be a lawyer that understands all the details of what the 9th Circuit said, but they really said they criticized EPA for the process they followed and they skipped certain steps. They didn't say that they didn't use evidence or the science was bad or the toxicology was bad. They said they need to do it in a way that follows the law, which they skip some steps. So again, that kind of muddies up exactly what is going on and how risky glyphosate is.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, and I think, you know, it's interesting because as you said, it's authorized for use in the eu, but I believe, you know, when they, when the EU issued like it's renewed registration for it, I think it was in 2023, so a couple of years ago, you know, thus renewing it for use in the EU member states for another 10 years, there was a lot of opposition from certain EU member states. So just like with here, you know, you see, you see, you know, some people saying like, well, we shouldn't use it, but then, you know, the government is saying like, well, it's fine for use. And so there's a lot of mixed opinions, you know, not only in the US So I think you see that kind of around the world where it's used.

[Bob Ferguson]

Yeah. The other thing that's not brought up enough is I think that it's a different in, in your exposure. And this is, you know, common in a lot of toxicology. If, if you're working with it every day, if you're working with lots of chemicals and you're exposed to high levels, if it's an occupational exposure, that's a different thing than if you're weeding around your house or something like that. So it really depends upon what your exposure level is. But again, it's, it's, it's, it's a difficult thing. It's, it's not an open and shut case either way that I can.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, absolutely. Exposure level is, is the big difference maker, it seems. So oh, it is. Yeah.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yeah. Well, farmers and farm workers may have something.

[Adrian Bloom]

Right.

[Bob Ferguson]

Well, that's, that's, that's an occupational exposure. That's exactly right.

[Stacey Acheson]

Right.

[Bob Ferguson]

There's a. There's a famous saying in, in toxicology where everything is toxic. It's the dose that matters.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yes.

[Bob Ferguson]

So.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yes.

[Bob Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah. Okay. So before we go today, we wanted to let you know about a revised guidance document from the EU that pertains to monitoring and shelf life studies for Listeria monocytogenes in ready to eat foods. This guidance was issued in compliance with the changes made to the EU regulation on the microbiological criteria for foods in November 2024, which expanded the requirements for food business operators regarding listeria and will come into Force on July 1 this year. So originally, food business operators were only required to ensure that listeria is undetectable in 25 grams of RTE foods before the food left the immediate control of the manufacturing facility. And specifically in cases where the producer couldn't demonstrate that listeria growth wouldn't exceed 100 CFU per gram throughout the food's shelf life. Now, this responsibility has been expanded to cover all situations for RTE foods that can support listeria growth beyond 100 CFU per gram for the entirety of their shelf life. And you can visit the article link in our show notes for more information on the specific revisions and updated information for EU food businesses regarding listeria prevention and RTE foods. Because there is some nuance here, so I think it's helpful to read the whole thing.

[Stacey Acheson]

Yeah, thanks for that, Adrian.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah.

[Stacey Acheson]

And as always, there are links to all the articles that we've referenced in our show notes. And we want to remind you that if you don't already, we invite you to follow us on our social channels, LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram, just search for Food Safety magazine. And of course, to take a deeper dive into all the fantastic content that we offer and sign up for our newsletter, Visit our website, food-safety.com and now it's time for Adrian's interview with Campbell Mitchell, who is head of food safety and Compliance for Kraft Heinz North America. He has over 30 years of international experience in food safety, quality management and risk mitigation. Before joining Kraft Heinz, Campbell served as Vice President of Quality and safety at FairLife LLC, a $4 billion Coca Cola owned dairy brand. He's also held senior leadership roles with Cary Group and Almirai. If I got that wrong, I apologize in the Middle East. Additionally, he founded a consultancy that supported Tiger Brands in Africa. A microbiologist by training Campbell holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration from Massey University in New Z. He frequently speaks at industry events on the topics of food safety, culture, and sustainability. So after a quick break, we'll hear their discussion unlock a deeper understanding of the science behind food safety With a Master's degree from Michigan State University, this 30 credit master's program is heavily based in the sciences with opportunities to tailor electives towards interest or career aspirations. Whether driven by a personal goal for a graduate degree or a desire to ensure safe food, earning a Master's in Food safety empowers students with the knowledge and tools to tackle any challenge. Join this network of professionals who are leading the way and making a difference in food safety. Visit foodsafety.msu.edu to learn more.

[Adrian Bloom]

Well, welcome to the podcast Campbell, I'm so excited to have you here.

[Campbell Mitchell]

Nice to meet you, Adrian.

[Adrian Bloom]

And you know, I'm excited to talk with you today because I feel like our listeners are going to gain a lot of great insights from your wealth of international leadership experience. And I think it's interesting because that actually kind of has roots in your childhood. So to kick things off, I'm curious, how did living internationally with your family as a young person prepare you for working in cross cultural environments around the world?

[Campbell Mitchell]

World, yeah, I think it gave me a really good background growing up. My my dad worked for Shell, so we lived all over the world. When I was 15, we'd lived in 15 different houses so change was the norm. And I think you get used to just being agile, being adaptable. You know that the only constant is change. And you're so when I was five, we moved to Singapore, then we moved to Brunei and Borneo. Then we moved to Houston, Texas. Then we moved to Amsterdam, sorry, the Hague in the Netherlands, and then we moved to North Holland and Groningen and I went to boarding school in Scotland. My parents moved to Nigeria and they spent quite a long time in Nigeria while I was at university. And then they moved to Japan. So they spent about 20 years living in Japan. So yeah, I don't know if you remember that Paul Young song, but wherever I lay my hat, that's my home. That was my motto. So yeah, I think having that adaptability gave me the confidence to change jobs and move to My first real exposure to a strange cultural environment was moving from Australia to Saudi Arabia and I'd been made redundant in a job with Kidman Fielder in Western Australia, locked in the paper for a role. And lo and behold, there was a job advertised to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. And so luckily my wife was confident enough to move to such a strange location as well. But I must say I think that was one of the best things I could have done was to, to, to take the leap and, and that was a huge experience. And I spent nine years in Saudi Arabia and got five promotions while I was there. So it was huge input to my career.

[Adrian Bloom]

That's fascinating. And I mean like having that, you know, international background and having lived and worked in so many different places, I mean you've, you've had positions in your various jobs like in almost every continent. I think we're missing Antarctica maybe, but, you know, pretty much everywhere, right?

[Campbell Mitchell]

Yeah, before FairLife, North America and South America was, was a little bit missing. Although working for Kerry, I was in Kerry in Dubai for five years looking after Middle East, India and Africa. And I was really the voice of the customer for all the Kerry factories around the world. So we dealt with a lot of the North American facilities as more suppliers to our customers in the Middle east and Africa. And so yeah, got sort of the global exposure, but yeah, really happy to be here in North America. Chicago is the heart of the global food industry and you know, it is really where it's at. I'm living in Michigan at the moment, so enjoying the snow at the moment. But yeah, I think the only sort of subcontinent I haven't been to is South America and Antarctica.

[Adrian Bloom]

Wow, that's amazing. So, and I know you're a microbiologist by academic training and I'm curious about what sparked your interest in food science and food safety initially. And you know, how did you first get into the profession?

[Campbell Mitchell]

Well, to tell you the truth, I was doing pre med like a lot of scientists and I spent too much time at the pub and didn't really get into medicine, which I'm actually happy because the way I, and that's sort of the advice I give people and their careers is, you know, you gotta roll with the punches. Just, just everything. One door closes, another door opens, so everything can turn into an opportunity. So obviously med school was very competitive to get into and it would have taken years and years. My brother's an ophthalmologist and so he spent about 15 years of, of study. So I'm glad I didn't go down that path. I think microbiology is far more interesting. So when we were in first year university, all the professors lined up and gave us their speech on which science we should take as our major and the microbiology professor put up a chart and said out of all the sciences, microbiology has the most jobs. So I said, okay, that'll be for me. But I've always been interested in, you know, how, how little things can impact on a large scale. So, you know, like the butterfly effect, you know, food safety, microbiology, it's more of an art than a science. And, and I've really enjoyed being able to be the person who sort of translates and, and interprets the, the data that you get from microbiology to, to people. Because it's a dynamic world of microbiology. You know, you test a food product one day, you're not going to get the same result as when you test it the second day. So you always have to be explaining to people the ramifications of all the different results that you're getting. And that's probably what I enjoy the most out of microbiology.

[Adrian Bloom]

Interesting. And so I know you're currently working as head of food safety and compliance for Kraft Heinz North America and you began that role, I believe it's was July of last year. So I'm curious about what led you to craft Heinz and also the specifics of your role there. What do you do on a day to day basis?

[Campbell Mitchell]

Yeah, I like to be part of an organization when they're sort of going through this sort of transition. Like I knew that the split was happening with Kraft Heinz before I started and I actually see that as an opportunity. I like it when organizations sort of reach the tipping point where they need to sort of get more structure and more systems and more processes, be more smart about the way they do things, you know, implement better strategy. So, you know, even though I do, you know, microbiology and food safety, it was about 20 years ago when I lost being able to do bench work and have a laboratory. So I haven't really done a lab tests for that long. So now it's all about. Probably the biggest challenge that people at my level have is engaging with their peers. You know, getting the operations, marketing, sales, you know, hr, R D, getting everybody involved in what it means. Because, you know, food safety is, is not just about the lab testing. Food safety is every decision that's made within the organization. And a lot of people think quality is there to say no. They're the people who stop and then put the brakes on and slow things down. But I always tell people quality is there and food safety is there. It's the brakes that keep you on the road so that you can go faster. So quality and food safety, if we do it right, nobody hears about us. But if we do it wrong, it can have huge consequences. And yeah, I think explaining to people the importance and the ramifications of what we do is a big part of my job.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, certainly. And you know, as a leader, that has to come from the top down, right. That, you know, that investment and emphasis on food safety and permeating that throughout the entire organization. But I want to focus a little bit on kind of what you might say is a trend in the US and food safety, and also maybe a little bit of that compliance piece within your role. So in June of this year, Kraft Heinz North America joined a number of other major food processors and retailers in announcing that it would phase out synthetic food colorings from its US product portfolio by the end of 2027, following requests from the Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again or MAHA campaign. So I'm wondering, what does that process look like inside the Kraft Heinz organization and how will the company's US Product lines differ from product lines that are sold in other regions?

[Campbell Mitchell]

It's a huge challenge, actually. It's surprising the number of products that we have that have those artificial colorings and dyes. And then also we're taking the opportunity to be proactive. So there's regulations coming down the track that we foresee that are going to be happening, like titanium dioxide, etc, that you can see. Even though there seems to be a lot of sort of state by state regulations happening now, rather than federal regulations, if you cast your crystal ball, you can sort of see that that's where it's going to end up, that it's going to be everywhere. And then if you look at product lists or ingredient lists of products in Europe compared to North America, you know that they have lists twice as long for the same product. So I think there is a move to be a lot less processed foods and, and complicated ingredients and things. So I think it just makes good business sense. And so, you know, Kraft Heinz and others have decided to remove that. But we've also taken the opportunity to reformulate a lot of the products to be, you know, future, future facing, which has meant a whole lot of work for people in my department because now we've got like 800 products that need to be reevaluated for food safety. And for example, some dyes used to be liquids and now they're powder. So then you have to blend them and rehydrate them and then you have a tub of liquid in the factory. How long do you keep that around for? Is it safe before you add it to the food? So all that has to be validated before you can say that that product is reformulated and you can sign off on it. So yeah, there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make sure that it's not just a chemical composition change the ingredient. We also have to validate all the food safety aspects of that as well.

[Adrian Bloom]

Oh yeah, absolutely. And you know, finding substitutes for the, for different dyes for those reformulations is, you know, a process in itself before you can even do a, any of the testing work. Right. So yeah, a lot goes into it, I'm sure. Like, like you said, I want to go back a little bit to your, your leadership roles and, and you know, you've held a number of executive roles at international and national food companies. And I'm wondering how do you balance high level leadership responsibilities with those technical and regulatory requirements for food safety and quality and especially when you're looking across different regions with different food standards and different regulations.

[Campbell Mitchell]

Yeah, it is difficult. You know, even just the other day we had some discussions about import regulations into Nicaragua, for example. When I was in the Middle east, you know, I was looking after 89 countries so that, wow. Every country has its own little on regulation and we were importing from 160 factories around the world. So I think the being able to see things at the micro level and then zoom out to the macro level as a skill that I try to encourage and anybody that I coach or mentor, you need to be able to get the facts right, get the details, but you've also got to see the big picture. And a lot of it's the cultural aspect. So different countries have different ways of looking at regulations. You know, quite often there's what it says in the regulation, but what actually happens in real life. So you need to be able to speak to the experts and have good support networks. So you need to have people that understand who to talk to. And again, quite often it's interpreting the results and explaining them to people and making sure that everybody understands what those ramifications are for those results. But I mean, you don't always get it right. We had some very interesting, had to turn ships around heading to Europe because we had the wrong ingredient and products going to markets in Europe, for example, or countries not approved to produce dairy products to export to Europe and things like that just, it can get very complicated.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, and you know, that's, that's an additional expense as well. You know, when, when it's, there's so many different regulations, so many different things happening, so many different standards need to be adhered to. You know, I would, I would assume as more and more of this stuff arises, especially in the US with all these, you know, kind of state regulations coming in and then federal things changing, you know, down the line, you know, there's, I think it's. Has the ability maybe to throw more wrenches in the supply chain, you know, is that fair to say? At least the possibility for that is there, unfortunately. Right. So it's just being like agile and flexible and being able to pivot. Right.

[Campbell Mitchell]

And yeah, I guess that's been able to manage that. Someone said to me, if they were in my position, they wouldn't get a night's sleep. I'd be staring their hair out thinking about all that. But I'm, I'm comfortable that I'm able to make sure that people are empowered to do their job and you trust them to do it and you rely on experience and mistakes happen. We just have to, like I said before, roll with the punches and work through it and make the best of what the situation is, whatever that may bring.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, and I guess this kind of leads a little bit into my next question. I want to focus a little bit on customer and consumer demands and throw that into the mix. So in a high level role like yours, how do you ensure that your brands are meeting or exceeding expectations and remaining agile to consumer demands, such as concern over food additives or concerns about sustainability or just changing consumption trends, which are always happening.

[Campbell Mitchell]

Yeah. The interesting thing about food safety is when we think of food safety in the food industry, we think of pathogens and, and oilage and microorganisms. But consumers, when they think of food safety, they think of chemicals, additives and packaging, what's going to come from my packaging and colors and things like that. But if you look at the number of recalls, most recalls are because of allergens, bad labeling, or again, microbiology. So I think those things from a food safety perspective are quite. Well, I mean, mistakes happen, but they're quite easy to understand and work through. I think the challenges we have now is that there's a lot more consumer demand, a lot more consumer expectations of shouldn't be anything in my food, all chemicals are bad, these sorts of things. And our testing capabilities are getting, getting tougher and tougher. We're finding microplastics and pfas and all these things. So I think sometimes we make a rod for our own bat because we're getting better and better at detecting things.

[Adrian Bloom]

Right?

[Campbell Mitchell]

Yeah, but, but that said, look, I think we all want the same Thing at the end of the day, we all want to provide safe, quality food. And you know, when you talk about sustainability, a lot of people think sustainability is about, you know, food waste, but a lot of it's about food safety as well. So, you know, if product is not going to go off as quickly, then it's going to be less waste. And so therefore that provides a cleaner planet. So, you know, if you talk to consumers about what's most important to them, food safety is the number one impact that they see for food for food companies. And then if you look at what, what could have the biggest impact on our food business, you know, a product recall or food safety incident is going to have the biggest impact. So even though, you know, people think times are changing, I think at the fundamentals we still have the same things that we've got to get right, which is food safety. You know, focus on, on food safety and, and I include in that, you know, allergens and cross contamination and prime metal and things like that.

[Adrian Bloom]

Now we talked a little bit about this before when you mentioned culture, but I know that one of your priorities at Kraft Heinz is to strengthen food safety, culture and compliance. So I guess my question is, what's on your agenda in those two areas for the year ahead?

[Campbell Mitchell]

Yeah, we haven't really done a lot of food safety culture surveys. The new GFSI standards require that you have to have, you know, food safety culture assessments. A lot of companies, they do it within the facility just to get a certificate, ask a few questions. Okay, say we've done it. But like I said before, like the food safety culture is not just about the quality people or the operations people. What about the procurement people, what about the marketing people or the logistics and supply chain people? Everybody needs to understand, you know, food safety culture. So we, our plan this year is hopefully do an enterprise wide survey. So we've engaged with some consultants to do it in house. But I always promote the Culture Excellence survey through Campden BRI. That's a global benchmark of 20,000 facilities around the world that you can and that's based on the GPSI standard as well. So hopefully we'll be doing that this year as well. That's a world class survey. Measuring it is one thing, but you've also got to improve. So I was fortunate enough to be on the steering committee for the PAS320 which is a guidance on how to build a mature food safety culture loan. Jesperson was the author of that. And so I think there's a lot more research out there now on what things we can do, what nudges we can put in place, what, what good companies are doing to improve food safety culture. So, you know, you'll see a lot of that coming from Kraft Irons facilities in the future as well.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, that's great. And lastly, I'd like to hear more about next generation risk management. So in your current and your past roles, how do you leverage digital tools to drive a proactive approach to food safety in these complex, complex supply chains that you've overseen?

[Campbell Mitchell]

So we've got a few things, Kraft Heinz has already dabbled in a few areas like digital cip. So we're starting to use AI to predict when we need to do a CIP rather than waiting for the scheduled time. So that's saving a lot of time and money and chemicals because you don't some depend on what type of product you're making. Sometimes you don't need to do the full CRP every week. So you're using the data that you're gathering from conductivity meters, from ATP swabs and all the chemical concentrations and everything and you can start to determine the break point and then the AI will tell you before it gets to the break point. You need to start to do your CIP now and then also like environmental monitoring, so pathogen monitoring and also non pathogen environmental monitoring. We're trying to digitize all that and then that can give you predictive tools where to tell you where to go and find. Because you know, when you've got 31 factories, you can start to see patterns and trends and even you know, the AI can see patterns and trends, things that the human eye can't see. So yeah, I think that the future is quite bright for that predictive technology and those specific use cases where you know what data is going in and you know what information you want to get out. Where it becomes more difficult is sort of thinking about, well, where's the next recall going to come from? Which supplier is going to let me down next? You know, then I don't think we have have a very good integrated database of supplier risk management globally. So if you do an AI search for a particular raw material and tell me what's the hazards with this raw material, you'll get quite a short list. But if you go to some of the agencies who provide risk management for ingredients, they'll give you a much longer list because they're accessing stuff that AI can't access access. You know, there's spreadsheets and databases and PDF reports that AI isn't linked into. So I can see that coming in food safety very shortly that we're going to be able to get all these databases to link up so that then we can start to get a lot more predictive analytics. Nestle is doing a fantastic job of linking up all the HACCP plans across all their 200 facilities around the world using a digital HACCP. And Kraft Heinz is using the same technology. So potentially we'll be doing that as well where we can start to look at, you know, you don't wait until there's an error in the HACCP CCP monitoring. You can actually see based on the, potentially, you know, the, the person who did the, the test that day was not there. So, so there's a gap. So let's go focus on that. That. So I think the AI and the databases is at this stage, we're probably just integrating the data, but once that data is clean and we've got a lot of information in there, then maybe in two or three years we're going to start to see some really powerful predictive analytics.

[Adrian Bloom]

Yeah, there's so many different applications, I think, that are in development and on the horizon, potential AI applications to assist human decision making and really help with these massive amounts of data that companies can accrue in spotting trends that help them operate better and obviously keep food safer. It's an exciting time I think, right now in industry. Campbell, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and share your perspective on global leadership and food safety with our listeners. I think this has been an awesome conversation and really enjoy that. Yeah, well, thanks for, thanks for being here again and we'll talk to you soon.

[Campbell Mitchell]

Happy to talk anytime, Adrian. Thank you.

[Stacey Acheson]

Thanks again to Campbell Mitchell for joining us on the podcast today and of course, thanks to all of you for listening. A very special thanks to our presenting sponsor, Michigan State University. To learn more about their master Master's degree in food safety, visit foodsafety.msu edu and then click on the Master's program link. Now, you know we love hearing from you, so don't ever hesitate. Send us your questions or suggestions to podcastood safety.com or post a note on LinkedIn, X, Facebook or Instagram. We always love hearing your feedback. And to make sure that new and bonus episodes magically appear in your podcast player, all you have to is 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, please throw some stars our way by rating the podcast, especially if you liked it. It only takes a moment, and it's good for everyone. And that's it for us today. Our next regular episode will post on February 10th. See, I told you. All of a sudden it's February. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves and those around you, and we'll talk to you then.