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- [00:00]
Stacy Acheson
The presenting sponsor of Food Safety Matters is Sherwin Williams Protective and Marine, which offers a broad portfolio of high performance coatings and systems that excel at combating corrosion, helping customers achieve smarter time tested asset protection. All backed by world class industry subject matter expertise, unparalleled technical and specification service, and unmatched regional commercial team support for their customers around the world. To learn more, visit sherwind-williams deck. To learn more, visit sherwin-williams.com protective Again, that's sherwin-williams.Com protective. Hello everyone and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacy Acheson, publisher of Food Safety Magazine and want to thank you for tuning in to part two of our Live from the Food Safety Summit coverage. So today you'll hear more interviews that my Food Safety Matters co host, Adrienne Bloom, Food Safety Magazine's Editorial Director and Bob Ferguson, President of Strategic Consulting, conducted in front of live audiences in our beautiful podcast theater at the 2026 Food Safety Summit Conference and Expo that concluded last week. And what an amazing time it was. So don't forget to save the date for the 2027 Food Safety Summit to be held May 10th through the 13th once again in easily accessible and affordable Rosemont, Illinois. So before I step aside, here's the lineup for today's interviews. Roberta Wagner, Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific affairs with the International Dairy Foods Association Steven Mondernach, Executive Director of AFTO and Sandra Esk, CEO of Stop Foodborne Illness Jacob Nelson, Asset Protection Sales Manager and Faras Alameh, Food and Beverage Marketing Manager with The Sherwin Williams Company Dr. Conrad Choignyer, Director of FDA's Office of Microbiological Food Safety Dr. Vanessa Kaufman, Director of the alliance to Stop foodborne illness and Dr. Lone Jesperson, founder and principal of Cultivate Sara and last but never ever least, Cindy Zhang, Senior Director of Global Food Safety Risk Management, Global supply chain at McDonald's, retired. And there we are. Okay, here we go.
- [02:48]
Adrienne Bloom
Okay, well, welcome back to the second day of Podcast Theater Live. Thanks so much for sitting in on our interviews. We're going to have several today, so make sure to attend throughout the exhibit hall hours. Now it's my pleasure to be talking today with Roberta Wagner, who's the Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific affairs for the International Dairy Foods Association. Thanks for being here, Roberta. It's great to have you back.
- [03:12]
Roberta Wagner
Of course, my pleasure.
- [03:13]
Adrienne Bloom
And so you're co leading a session this afternoon on policy developments around food ingredient safety and labeling. So we know that ingredient safety has become A major policy focus at both the state and the federal levels. So what's driving that momentum right now and what should industry be watching most closely?
- [03:35]
Roberta Wagner
Yeah, I think you're right. Ingredient safety and ingredients and ultra processed foods. A lot of attention being played to this in social media. A lot of this is coming from the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA movement, which started as a grassroots movement movement actually a couple years ago. It has quickly transitioned into a White House backed agenda at this point that can really is influencing food nutrition and food and nutrition policies. So you have this going on and some of the priorities of the Maha movement are reducing additives in food. So reducing things like certified colors, which a lot of industry has committed to phasing those out, reducing artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers come up a lot stabilizers, scary words. But some of these things are actually kitchen ingredients. They also equate all those food additives with highly processed foods. And they want to see a reduction in highly processed food foods. And then the other thing they're doing, they don't like grass. So generally recognized as safe substances. They feel like there's not any transparency there. They also have a lot of questions about how the safety is determined for those ingredients and by whom. So they're very skeptical because of the lack of transparency and they don't like that there isn't government oversight necessarily of those types of substances. So you have kind of all of that going on and that is putting some pressure on policymakers, quite frankly. Yet at the federal level, this is a Republican administration, they are traditionally deregulatory focused. You're not going to see a lot of rulemaking and guidance development out of a Republican administration. In fact, most of you probably know that President Trump. Trump issued an executive order that said for a federal agency to issue a regulation, they must take 10 of them off the books. So if you're wondering why you're not seeing a whole lot out of Washington D.C. fDA in particular relative to rulemaking or guidance development, it really is because we're at the federal level. We're operating in a deregulatory mode, which means relative to maha, this is. States have decided to step up and they will, they're going to fill this federal policymaking void. And they want to move the MAHA agenda too, because the MAHA agenda is bipartisan at this point. You know, it doesn't matter which party you're in. And that's why we're seeing state legislation around, you know, some of these MAHA bills in both red and blue states, honestly. So last year we saw 10 bills enacted, well, bills enacted in 10 different states relative to food ingredients. So there were other types of MAHA bills that were also enacted, but we saw bills banning very specific food and color additives, particularly in food served in food nutrition programs. We saw bills, you know, basically banning food and color ingredients statewide at retail in some states. Bills that require warning statements or digital disclosures on food packages, you know, if they contain any of a long list of food and color additives. And importantly, most of those food and color additives are deemed safe by FDA for use. So you're, you're telling people deemed safe by the federal government, but you're going to have to put a warning statement or a digital disclosure on your food package. We saw a bunch of bills around grass that were not successful last year, but they are back in action this year. And in New York it actually passed out of both chambers and it's just awaiting the governor's signature now. That is not imminent. There's some things going on there or that would have to happen. But grass bills we're seeing and then we saw a lot of SNAP restriction type legislation, so restricting what SNAP participants can purchase with their benefits. And so those restrictions were mainly soda and candy, energy drinks made it into the mix and then prepared desserts. So you got all that coming together now you kind of got this deregulation state stepping in and then you just, it's, it's table talk discussion, ultra processed foods and food ingredients right now.
- [08:18]
Adrienne Bloom
And you know, so as companies are trying to respond to all this growing scrutiny around ingredients, especially when you have things like, you know, patterns of state legislation and then, you know, motions to kind of do away with that and just stick to regulating things at a federal level. What are the real world challenges of reformulating products without compromising safety or quality or consumer expectations?
- [08:45]
Roberta Wagner
Yeah. So first I want to caveat this. I never worked in R and D in a food company and those are the folks that, you know, are responsible for reformulation. So a lot of this is what I've heard from those types of folks. You know, a lot of times I think the outside world thinks, just think about the certified colors. We're going to phase out certified colors. Well, that's pretty easy. Just take that certified color out and add this naturally sourced color and all is well. It just doesn't work like that. It's just not simple one to one substitutions. Think about a food as a very complex system. You take one piece of that system apart, the whole system can unravel. That's kind of the way I look at it. And so take a preservative out of a food or take salt, say we're not going to use salt and food anymore, you'd now change the water activity, the phone, the stability of that food. So you've impacted. Just say you took those two ingredients out of food, you now impacted food safety, quality and shelf life. Right. All in one shot. So it's complicated. It's very complicated. The other thing is when you start reformulating and adding alternative ingredients, you are changing sometimes your manufacturing processes. So you're going to have to change process parameters, you're going to have to revalidate. So there could be a lot of work on the manufacturing end if you're going to add alternative. And then you have to think about the consumer expectations relative kind of to the sensory aspects of the food. You know, when you reformulate, even if it's the consumers that are saying, this is what we want, they're going to want, especially for branded products, these iconic branded. They're going to want the same taste, texture, color, they want the same sensory experience. It's very difficult to do with R and D. I mean, they will try to make it appear to the consumer that nothing has changed when they're making these substitutions, but it's very, very hard to do. And then again, thinking about the certified colors and some of the commitments that have been made and some of the challenges our members are having these certified colors, you only had it use a pinch of them to get the color. The natural alternatives, you have to use a lot.
- [11:02]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah.
- [11:02]
Roberta Wagner
So, you know, they, they have the ability, they can change the texture. They. There's a lot of change that occurs with that simple substitution. And when the whole industry is kind of phasing out these certified colors at the same time relative to the alternatives, you have to think about are they accessible? Like, are they accessible on a wide scale to a lot of people? What is the cost? You know, and then also when you're talking about naturally derived ingredients, you're talking about usually a plant or a crop and there will be inconsistencies depending on the crop year in that ingredient that you're going to have to deal with. Moving on. So there's a lot to reformulation and it sounds simple, gets these ingredients out and put in naturally derived alternatives. But it's really, really complicated.
- [11:52]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah. So many, so many concerns about or elements, you know, relating to, like you said, variability, some inconsistencies. There's sustainability concerns as well there. So lots of Things for companies to think about when they're wanting to reformulate and use different ingredients to meet these initiatives to, for example, get synthetic dyes out of food. But we're also seeing a lot of consumer attention on ingredients, but not always a clear understanding from consumers about understanding of risk. Right. So where are the biggest gaps that you see in how risk is communicated today, especially to consumers?
- [12:35]
Roberta Wagner
Yeah, and I think this is a great question because, you know, as you know, the loudest headlines are what people pay attention to. Right. So I think what I'm seeing around risk and ingredients is just the mere presence of an ingredient is being communicated as dangerous. Right. So that's what I look at as kind of a hazards approach. You know, it's in there. So that means the food is dangerous. We should be talking about risk relative to exposure. Right. Like what are the real life levels of these ingredients that are used in food? So what is your exposure? How often are you exposed? So how many times do you eat foods that contain that ingredient? And then we need to be thinking about the vulnerable or the sensitive populations. So we need to shift that whole conversation to just the mere presence in a food of an ingredient makes it dangerous to these conversations which are quite, they're harder to have honestly talking about, okay, your real life exposure is X. How many times do you eat that food that matters. And then are you part of a sensitive or a vulnerable population? So there's that. I think another thing I've seen is it's way easier to talk about acute risks in the food space so foodborne pathogens allergens than it is these chronic risks, which is what I would put ingredients, food additives in that category, kind of low level exposure over a long period of time, kind of the chronic risk. So I think we have to do a better job of explaining that to consumers. It's hard to explain. So that's why I think we haven't done a good job there. The whole natural synthetic conversation relative to ingredients, we're missing the boat there. Natural is equated to safe. That isn't always the case, quite frankly. You have to get those ingredients out of a plant or a commodity. Right. Sometimes you have to use a lot of solvents. If you don't do that. Right. Those naturally sourced ingredients can be very dangerous. So we have to figure out how to talk about naturally derived, derived ingredients and synthetic ingredients and get out from under the safe, unsafe because that's, there's a lot of very, very safe synthetic ingredients. So we got to figure out how to Talk about that differently and then just the whole grass conversation.
- [15:06]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah.
- [15:06]
Roberta Wagner
You know, consumers need to understand that all food additives in the United States and I don't care if it's food and color additives, grass substances, they all have to meet the same standard of care, which is a reasonable certainty of no harm. Very hard to explain to consumers, but they need to know that. Yeah, who does the safety assessment differs and sometimes FDA will re review what was done on the grass side if they notify. But the same standard applies for all food ingredients. Reasonable certainty of no harm. And I would go a step further, further and said they need to figure out how to communicate to consumers that the standard is different in Europe because they keep making that comparison and Europe uses a hazard based approach. It's kind of like mere presence means not good, it shouldn't be there.
- [15:58]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, well, you know, you talk about the, the grass process and you know, it's interesting. There was a study done or a survey done by the International Food Information Council IFIC last year and they were trying to figure out how many people, among other things in the survey, like how, how many, like the percentage of consumers who are even aware that there is a grass process and what it is. And the percentage was fairly low, not quite as low as I might have thought, but it was still pretty low. So most people don't know what the grass process is. I mean, certainly there's been a lot of talk about it from the administration. You know, they're tackling the, you know, the loopholes in the grass process. And so maybe more people are familiar with it now. But you know, that's one thing is that consumers just haven't, a lot of consumers haven't heard of these elements in our food system. And you know, talking about risk, you know, does this ingredient or this additive in a food pose a risk? To me, you know, again, presence doesn't equate danger. You know, you said that at the beginning, but you know, when it comes down to those exposure assessments and the toxicology, how do you synthesize that to be able to explain it to consumers in a way that they're going to really grasp and understand without just spouting data. Right. And numbers and things like that. I mean, because those assessments can go pretty, pretty, pretty deep. But I think we do need to get better on communicating that. And I feel like, especially with social media, there's a lot of potential for things to be alarmist like, oh, did you know this hidden ingredient in an everyday food and it's gonna kill you over your lifetime. And it's kind of like there's all those types of things on certain social media sites and people grab onto that and then they tell the friends and tell their family and then it becomes this, you know, big thing. And so. But without the actual understanding of what the risk is, you know, it's hard to not repeat that stuff if it's sensationalized. Another great example is, you know, for example, the environmental Working Group, they put out the Dirty Dozen. You know, the food, the produce, that types of produce that are most have the most pesticide residues according to a bunch of testing, both naturally or organically grown and traditionally grown. And that list always gets a lot of attention every year. We always report on it every year at Food Safety magazine. And it's interesting because when you look at, you know, having talked to a lot of toxicologists about these types of things, when you look at the actual exposures that we have to pesticide residues in certain foods, even the ones with the higher levels of pesticide residues, generally you would have to eat an enormous quantity of that particular food every day for like most of your life to have any harmful effect. So the residues. And that's why the FDA and USDA do those surveys every year, pesticide residue surveys and they say, hey, you know, it's 99.99% or below the threshold where there's any reason to worry even if you eat a lot of this food. And so I think all those things are interesting when we're talking about communicating risk to consumers and how do we do that accurately so that they understand that something that seems scary or dangerous or sensationalist is, you know, it may just be sensationalist. It's like to understand what your actual exposure is is more important.
- [19:35]
Roberta Wagner
I think that's. And just a fun fact. I was a pesticide specific specialists in FDA regulatory lab for many years, my first 10 years with the agency. And you know, I was in the lab when there was a lot of organochlorinated like the chlorine based pesticides and they've really moved away from those. You know, we have the kind of the nitrogen base and the organophosphates which dissipate really quickly. Like to me that's an important message for consumers. Hey, we've really shifted the technology, types of pesticides we're using now and that means there's not going to be as many residues found in food because they literally dissipate. You know, they're gone. You don't have to worry about it.
- [20:14]
Adrienne Bloom
So yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So, okay, looking ahead to where policy and consumer expectations are heading, how might ingredient safety reshape labeling and transparency requirements in the near term?
- [20:29]
Roberta Wagner
I think this is a great question, too. Very interesting. I think, you know, so we're talking packaged foods here. Principally. These are the ones that contain the ingredients that are of concern here. You know, I think food labeling will always be about the ingredient statement, always be about the nutrition of the product. Right. I think we're going to. I'm already seeing signals of this. We're going to have to take another look at the ingredient statement. Like, are these, you know, ingredients being expressed in plain English? So when there is a, you know, a plain English variety for whatever the ingredient is, that's what you're giving to the consumer. We're starting to see pushback on some of the permitted groupings of ingredients, like spices or flavors on the ingredient statement. They want to know exactly what's in there. They don't want those groupings anymore. So I do feel like there's going to probably be some modernization of that ingredient statement at some point. I also think front of pack nutrition labeling is going to, is going to happen for packaged foods. You know, consumers need, like a quick way to look at that food and kind of assess the nutrition profile of that food so they can gravitate if they want to, to healthier dietary patterns. So something will happen about front and pack nutrition labeling. Not sure what that's going to look like, but I think that will definitely be. And short term, I don't think this is going to be years out. Also think you're going to see digital tools used on the package. Consumers want information about those ingredients. They want to know what they are, what they do, where they come from, are they sustainability, sustainably sourced. They want all that information. You only have so much real estate on the food label and the package. So give them a QR code, use smart label. Use those digital tools to give consumers that want more information about the food and the ingredients and the food. So I think you're going to see a lot more of that. I think consumers are going to be paying attention to some of these claims, like non UPF organic. Maybe there'll be a natural claim at some point. I think they're going to be paying more, more attention to those, but I also think they're going to want information that substantiates those claims. So again, you don't have room on the package for that. So I could see using a digital tool to share that Kind of information as well. So those are two things. I think in the near term we're going to see front and pack nutrition labeling to help consumers make informed choices. And then I think we're going to see digital tools used is to give those consumers that want more and more information about the foods they're purchasing that information.
- [23:09]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, certainly the QR codes would be something that would fulfill that second piece that you're talking about. And I guess with the front of pack nutrition labeling, kind of a bonus question for you. So, you know, there's been, we don't know exactly what that's going to look like yet. There's been different things proposed. There's been like a proposal for like a stoplight system like red, yellow, green, red obviously meaning this is not a healthy food. Green meaning this is a good food, nutritious, wholesome, you should eat this. There's been some other proposals for listing like what is it like maybe sodium, sugar, fat content on the front, like those three things, very simple at a glance type of type stuff. We don't know exactly what's going to be decided, how that's going to look like. But my question is, do you think that. So if we have some kind of label that would give sort of a categorical indicator, like bad, okay and good, like the stoplight system might suggest, do you think that that could lead industry to potentially want to reformulate some of the products that maybe do have that higher salt, higher fat, higher sugar, you know, different ingredients that are maybe less desirable content? Do you think that if having front of pack nutrition labeling could actually lead to that or provide some impetus for that?
- [24:31]
Roberta Wagner
I mean, honestly, even so, FDA is the one that proposed the saturated focus on the limits, the nutrients to limit, so saturated fat, sodium and added sugar. And they always even say in their proposals that we're hoping that industry will reformulate, you know, so that it's. But I would also say when you start talking about a traffic light or you know, check marks or something like that, I come from fda. FDA does not have the authority to do interpretive, that would be considered interpretive front of PAC nutrition labeling. So they would have to gain that authority through Congress to do something like that. I think they can do facts based labeling and that's why you saw them kind of gravitating toward the saturated fat, sodium and added sugars. And they're using a percent dv. So it's facts based. They're using the high, how they've defined high in there. So yeah, I'll be curious how it plays out. I'm wondering about if we have a definition for ultra processed foods, will that factor in in some way, the healthy claim factor in some way? I mean, it's kind of wait and see right now, but I feel like something's going to happen because it shouldn't be so hard for consumers to look at a package and say, this is better for my family than this. Whatever your circumstances are, if you're diabetic or, you know, you need to restrict saturated fat, we need to figure it out.
- [26:02]
Adrienne Bloom
Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us at the podcast theater today, Roberta, and make sure to attend session 17 this afternoon at 2:45 where Roberta will be speaking. And thanks to you all for sitting in. We're going to have another interview here, so stick around if you'd like. Thanks. I have the pleasure of speaking today with Steve Monternach, who's the executive director of afto, and Sandra Eskins, CEO of Stop Foodborne Illness. So you are both speaking on the summit's closing session today, Fisma at 15. And that's looking at the vision, accomplishments and remaining work of the Food Safety Modernization act since it was signed into law in 2011. So Steve, first question for you. Looking back over the past 15 years, where do you think FSMA has had the most meaningful impact and where has progress maybe fallen short of the original vision?
- [26:59]
Steve Monternach
Well, I think there's a couple spots. Produce safety, clearly, I mean that role is a huge, huge advance in food safety in that arena, unregulated area before we're just beginning to see the impacts from that. But that first is one that I would think about. I think actually this the last couple of weeks we've seen beginning some of the realization, the root cause, the best practices they talked about this morning. I wish that had been 10 years ago, but it's moving in the right direction and what we would hope to see. The other thing that I know that I suspect others have mentioned is have we really hit prevention? And I'm not sure that we're there yet. And particularly in the area I work in, in inspections, we just haven't got as modernized as we need to be. We're still somewhat focused on floors, walls and ceilings. That's not the goal we need to get further.
- [27:51]
Sandra Eskin
So when the law was enacted, I think many, many stakeholders who worked on it were very excited because of all of these subjects that were covered. Maybe not everything, but there was great promise. I have to say that in certain areas I've been disappointed and in fact, I will start where Steve started, which is produce safety. That was a big area. I know. I worked at the Pew Charitable Trusts then. That was a big, big priority. And yes, there's been advances, but it's very hard to convince consumers that we're making headway in produce safety when we have recurrent outbreaks, particularly in certain commodities. So I think that's one area where we need to double down. And it doesn't necessarily require an amendment to the law. I think it requires stakeholders working together with a commitment to improve things. The standards are described in the law as minimum standards. We need more than minimum standards. The only other thing I was going to point out right now, Adrian, is mandatory recall authority. Big, important hammer which fda, at least publicly, has not taken advantage of. We've had many conversations, and they've said, you know, there's many instances in which once we started down the road for a mandatory recall, a company has said, fine, we'll do it. We'll voluntarily do it. So that's one small piece. But it was very important because it didn't exist. So I'd like to see more progress in that front.
- [29:38]
Steve Monternach
And I would agree with Sandy. We haven't hit the full vision of produce safety. But when you stand up a completely new regulatory program that never existed before, that's a big task. And to get it right the first time, I mean, we're still not right on manufactured foods, and we've been doing that since, you know, 1906. So it's a big task to stand up a program. And compared to where we could have been, I think we're much further along.
- [30:05]
Adrienne Bloom
And so, Sandy, I'm going to pose this question to you and Steve, feel free to comment on this as well. But so. So from a consumer advocacy perspective, which you represent, how has FSMA changed expectations around accountability and transparency in food safety?
- [30:22]
Sandra Eskin
Great question, I'd say, for enlightened consumers who know about the law and when it was, what it contained. Again, I think there's a level of disappointment because every time you have an outbreak and arguably a recall, people don't understand. Maybe that's something that was caught early or it was something that they were able to address. But still there's this view of, oh, my gosh, another outbreak, another recall. So expectations. I think it's a process, and I think that people will feel better as we make more advances in food safety, at least on the FDA side.
- [31:10]
Adrienne Bloom
Any thoughts?
- [31:11]
Steve Monternach
I don't know that would add much to what Sandy said. I think, you know, it's going to be challenging and when you look at where a lot of the recalls are, these aren't necessarily the most challenging areas. They're areas we've been dealing with for generations. Allergens. You know, it's. It is stuff that is not rocket science, novel and new. It's more some of the basics. So I think, you know, that's the. One of the messages I keep seeing is we probably need to spend more time on basic sanitation than anything.
- [31:42]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, especially mislabeling for allergens. That seems like an easy solve. Right?
- [31:49]
Steve Monternach
Well, I think hand washing, retail, and it's not.
- [31:52]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:52]
Sandra Eskin
Foreign contamination outbreaks, recalls are a challenge.
- [31:57]
Adrienne Bloom
I know.
- [31:57]
Sandra Eskin
And continue to be.
- [31:59]
Steve Monternach
I think that's one thing that we could talk a little bit about is often we think about root cause analysis after there's been a bad event, but those just in times are, you know, when you're seeing something and you have the opportunity to prevent it and you find it, then you need to do that systematic analysis. Also waiting for the awful event to make a correction is not the time to do it. Let's figure it out earlier and go a step further.
- [32:21]
Roberta Wagner
Further.
- [32:22]
Sandra Eskin
Right. And again, what you're talking about in many instances are called near misses.
- [32:27]
Adrienne Bloom
Yes.
- [32:28]
Sandra Eskin
Which sounds a little scary, but it's not. It's in fact, a situation where people figure out before a product that's contaminated has left the facility that there's a problem. And those are as impactful and you can learn so much from them, as much as when there is a problem that you haven't caught.
- [32:47]
Steve Monternach
I would also say the regulatory system has not done as good a job of embracing and pushing those near misses as an opportunity or poor inspectional results. What are we doing to make sure that it's actually corrected, institutionalized, et cetera, particularly when we see it happening time after time
- [33:06]
Adrienne Bloom
and, you know, so FSMA was built on collaboration across industry, regulatory, and consumer groups. How well is that collaboration functioning today? And where do you think it still needs to evolve?
- [33:22]
Sandra Eskin
I think that was actually certainly from my own experience, the beginning of a collaborative effort. Again, the organization I worked for, the Pew Charitable Trusts, in conjunction with Robert Wood Johnson foundation, funded numerous collaborative forums where we had a facilitator and we. We talk through issues. We didn't always find agreement, but we often narrowed differences. Even since then. That was the early days of FSMA implementation. I've seen a lot more collaborative activity, and that is so essential. And I think that. I think I mentioned produce as an example where it's really going to be necessary. And I'm a lawyer and there isn't a law or regulation that I don't love. But I've also realized over the course of my career that that's not always the solution. And I think that's what collaboration highlights, that when people talk together, talk with each other, share positions, expose differences, hopefully you wind up in a place where you're going to be doing a much better job in protecting public health.
- [34:38]
Steve Monternach
So I think FISMA was the beginning of stronger collaboration. I think we see it every single day, whether it be our work with industries, consumer groups. I mean, let's be honest, pre fisma, I would have never talked to Sandy. I mean, not on a personal level, but we wouldn't have worked together. That just was not normal. I mean, consumer groups were unknown to us before Frisma and the same thing. I think the industry partnerships are much stronger today than they were, which are all very important. I tell you, people will let me go in and see what they're doing in advance and let us see, hey, we're trying this new thing. You wanna see it? That's something that I don't know would have happened there. So I think we're definitely seeing a better openness and transparency across the whole community, which is very important and frankly, hopefully will result in better food safety as we go forward.
- [35:30]
Adrienne Bloom
And you know, so as we look ahead, what do you think are the most critical gaps or emerging risks that FSMA still needs to address to really fully realize its proactive approach to food safety?
- [35:45]
Steve Monternach
Well, I'm going to start kind of follow up on something I talked a little bit about today. FSMA forgot certain programs, a lot of what was, were traditionally known as the cooperative programs. So retail grade A milk and shellfish. I think there are some opportunities to modernize all of those programs and that, you know, while we were doing fisma, they kind of all got forgotten and now it's time to really put those programs and advance them and do better there. And I get it wasn't specifically part of the law in most cases, but there were circumstances where it was and I think we could do better. So I think that's one area I would focus on. The other thing I think we need to start figuring out, and this is a. I'm going to put my political scientist hat on and Roberta's going to tell me I'm wrong, who's sitting in the front row today. But I really think the regulatory process has become near impossible to complete. So in other words, rulemaking has become so hard and so impossible. And frankly, even getting a statute change in food has become part of so hard and near impossible. I mean, we basically haven't had anything but one infant formula bill done in since fsma. I think that, I don't think I'm wrong. There's been almost no legislation passed on food in Congress in 15 years. I think our system requires more tuning up than that.
- [37:06]
Sandra Eskin
But wait a minute. Didn't you participate in a hearing last week? I did 28 pieces of legislation relating to food table.
- [37:15]
Steve Monternach
There, there were. And three years ago, when that last hearing was done, there were I think seven pieces of food legislation. I do think this is one of the things that Maha has really done is put an attention on food. And that is wonderful. And probably, and I would argue maybe even the most important thing that Maha has done.
- [37:33]
Sandra Eskin
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:35]
Adrienne Bloom
With those 28 bills that, you know, were discussed during the hearing, you know, some of them were new, some of them were reintroduced bills. And you know, just by virtue of the fact that most bills do not pass, there's so many bills proposed per year and we know, you know, there's a very low percentage of them that actually do get passed. But it's encouraging to see there's this much focus and concern on food safety that we have to have a hearing to discuss. You know, like over two dozen bills that are, that are, that have been introduced.
- [38:06]
Steve Monternach
And I think one of the things that, you know, as I was reviewing 28 bills, which is first nuts to get through 28 bills and try to figure out what they do. Some of them are no brainers that had been sitting there for, I mean, the IFT report on date labeling and the subsequent work on that is close to 15 years old, at least 10, at least 12 years old. And it's still sitting there and no one really disagrees with it. Yes, it should be clear whether this is a quality date or this is a safety date. Everyone knows that's a good thing. So those sort of bills, I wish we could see those, what non con bills actually move forward.
- [38:41]
Sandra Eskin
I'm going to come back yet again to produce safety with a couple of additional points. Again, there are outbreaks that happen. You look at the IFSAC food source attribution data in terms of FDA regulated products. It's up there. It's a challenge because there's no kill step. We're eating them raw. But the other opportunity is in addition to data, it is Maha, because of the focus on real food. We certainly have commented in letters and other documents that again, people are not going to want to eat fresh produce if there's constantly in every, feels like few months a major outbreak. So it's an opportunity for the administration to refocus on produce safety. There's not a lot of conversation in MAHA about microbial safety, microbial contamination, and that's unfortunate. Certainly my organization focuses on it. There's acute illnesses, but there are also lifelong health impacts for serious illness. So I think it is an opportunity to refocus on what we need to do, not just the government, but the whole community, growers, buyers, other stakeholders to really move this forward in a positive way for public health.
- [40:14]
Bob Ferguson
Yeah.
- [40:15]
Adrienne Bloom
And if I can throw out another question for you, Sandy, kind of along those lines from the consumer advocacy angle that you represent, I know Stop Foodborne Illness submitted a petition to FDA to say when we're looking at foodborne illness outbreaks, when we're looking at recalls, we know that traditionally, a lot of times firms that are suspected of being having caused consumers illnesses or being involved in some other kind of thing that would cause illness or recalls, a lot of times those companies aren't named, even when the outbreak is over. Sometimes the link is pretty definitive, but they're still not named. And you're saying, please, can we give more details so that people can make sure that they're. Because we know in retail stuff, it's not always off the stores when it's supposed to be off stores. Make sure people are aware of what's going on, the ultimate goals to protect consumers. So this would be one way we can do that. Can you comment on that at all a little bit?
- [41:17]
Roberta Wagner
Sure.
- [41:18]
Sandra Eskin
That is a perfect illustration of something we haven't talked about. But you mentioned at the outset, transparency, whether it's consumers who may have purchased the product or just generally, consumers want to know what companies are having problems. Unfortunately, the Office of Chief Counsel at fda, for my estimate, has a very contorted definition of a trade secret. And let's point to what you just mentioned. Right. The name of a company, they believe that the name of a company and a company advertises and markets is considered confidential commercial information that they can't expose, they can't disclose under the Trade Secret Secrets act, and there's plenty of related law under the Freedom of Information Act. It's just totally unacceptable. It doesn't have to be. Their view is only when there's a recall and you need a recall, you need to know information, do you have to disclose it? That's just wrong. So if transparency means anything here's a good example.
- [42:27]
Steve Monternach
So I just need to follow up on that because the Office of Chief Counsel has also misconstrued what I would argue the losses and their ability to share information with their state and local partners that are after effectuating this. I'm going to give you a real world example. A grocery, grocery store complaint comes into FDA about something being wrong in the grocery store. FDA then proceeds to send the state a redacted complaint that says something is dirty in the 90,000 square foot grocery store. Is that what the consumer expected? The consumer expected someone to actually be able to investigate that complaint, wouldn't provide the information on who the complainant is, but did do a 10 page legal reason why they couldn't provide that document. That's not what the consumer expects. That's not what the law was intended to do. We have to get some reasonableness in our application.
- [43:14]
Sandra Eskin
Agreed.
- [43:15]
Steve Monternach
And that's two lawyers saying that.
- [43:19]
Adrienne Bloom
And you know, Steve, I'm going to throw out one fun question for you. So you just participated in the town hall regulatory session where you, alongside representatives from fda, CDC and USDA fsis spoke about regulatory priorities. And also things like collaboration came up a lot, both in what the federal representatives were saying that they are focusing on, but then also in the audience. Q and A. A lot of people mentioned collaboration. We talked a little bit about collaboration, focusing on Fisma here in this interview. There's been a lot of suggestions that I've heard in different sessions around the conference, including the keynote and the town hall we just had, about how regulators can better collaborate with, with not only, you know, the federal, with the, with the state agencies and public health, but also with industry. And I think one interesting idea that we've all heard bounced around many times was brought up by an attendee asking a question during Joan Menkeshenzer keynote yesterday. And they asked, would it ever be possible to have a single food agency so that we can really focus and concentrate on that. I see, I see you rolling your eyes. Right? Because it's a question that. It's like, it's a tough one, right?
- [44:41]
Steve Monternach
It isn't a tough question.
- [44:42]
Sandra Eskin
No, it's not.
- [44:43]
Adrienne Bloom
I'm curious about your.
- [44:44]
Steve Monternach
We would both say yes.
- [44:45]
Adrienne Bloom
Okay. Yeah.
- [44:45]
Sandra Eskin
And just to be clear, at the federal level.
- [44:48]
Bob Ferguson
Yeah, that's it.
- [44:49]
Sandra Eskin
At the federal level. Because I think the person who asked the question talked more broadly.
- [44:54]
Steve Monternach
That's fair.
- [44:56]
Sandra Eskin
I am not too optimistic that it'll happen before I retire. I don't know when I'm gonna retire. But nevertheless, it's a Period. I think the thing that has to happen in the interim, if it happened, is these types of collaborative efforts like IFSAC, the Food Attribution Initiative, I.e. fDA, USDA and CDC. If you can do these collaborations, even what was discussed about some sort of foodborne illness investigation board, that's.
- [45:30]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, Drew McDonald brought up that.
- [45:32]
Sandra Eskin
Again, I don't think we should wait till there's legislation. I think you can do it through interagency agreements. So to me, the view right now, at least in the shorter run, is let's figure out where it makes sense. What are the priorities? There's a lot of collaboration to begin with now, today, but I think focusing on priorities, again, the goal being that you're better at protecting the public. That's the goal of whether it's consolidation or cooperation. But certainly that can happen short of legislation.
- [46:10]
Steve Monternach
So you brought up Joan, when she was vice president at conagra. One of the most. Well, one of the things that I continually think about that she did was she actually started a regulatory industry group in that region of the country. And ConAgra really brought this together. There was no list, no one knew who to invite, but they figured it out and it was really quite valuable. And that group still goes today, actually. It's expanded a little bit, has a few more states, but it's been a very valuable way of exchanging information. And more importantly, everyone knows each other now. So some people that you just simply didn't know, you now know, and everyone's working together. And that was a huge improvement, something that she did there. It was just amazing. Addition General Mills had done a similar thing up in the Minnesota area. And I will say, though, some of those no longer exist, which is really sad because I think that is one of those unique opportunities.
- [47:06]
Adrienne Bloom
Absolutely. Well, thank you both for the sneak peek of the closing session today that starts at 4pm sharp. Hope we'll see you all there. And also, thanks for fielding those extra fun questions that I threw out to you at the end there. But Steve, Sandy, always a pleasure to talk with you. Thanks so much for attending the podcast live today. And then we will have another interview coming up here shortly with the Sherman Williams Company. That'll be with my colleague Bob. So stick around and watch that if you'd like to. And thank you all for sitting in.
- [47:35]
Sandra Eskin
And thank you, Adrian.
- [47:37]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Good afternoon and welcome everybody to the podcast theater here at the Food Safety Summit. I am here with two individuals from Sherwin Williams and I'm going to let them introduce themselves and then we're going to talk a bit about food safety and hygienic design.
- [47:49]
Faras Alameh
Well, thank you, Bob. Pleasure to be here today. My name is Faras Alameh. I'm the food and beverage segment marketing manager here at Sherwin Williams with the protective marine division.
- [47:57]
Jake Nelson
Hey Bob. Thanks. Nice to meet you. I'm Jake Nelson. I am the business development manager for Sherwin Williams with our asset protection manager team.
- [48:06]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
We're going to talk a little bit about Sherwin Williams and what you guys are doing. And first off, thanks for your sponsorship here and also your sponsorship of the town hall earlier as well. That was terrific. So I think everybody knows Sherwin Williams for paint, but we're not here to talk about wall paint, right? No, somewhat, but not really. So tell me a little bit about, for listeners who are familiar with the company or maybe not, what is it that you're featuring here? What are we going to talk about here today? Tell me a bit about what you're doing.
- [48:31]
Faras Alameh
So we're representing the protective marine division and me specifically, I'm the food and beverage segment marketing manager. And what we're here to talk about is truly like food safety. It's a crucial part of what we do. We offer hygienic solutions for your facility. Anything from your floors offering urethane cement to restorative wall coating. So insulate metal panels. In your facility we offer fluid applied roofing systems. Anything to really remove any sort of bacteria. Harage points in your facility is stuff that we specialize in. Again, people know us for additional house paint coatings but we do so much more than that. And we have the coatings designed for these types of food and beverage environments because we know that no two facilities are alike. Especially in an industry like the food and beverage world where you, you deal with everything from like hot water washed down to like low temperatures in these freezers. So exposed to all kind of different cleaning chemical solutions. So it's a pretty unique industry to be a part of due to all the different types of challenges within that industry itself.
- [49:26]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Yeah.
- [49:27]
Jake Nelson
And Bob, just, you know, everyone thinks of Sherwin Williams. Everyone knows us for our house paint. Right. I just always like to, you know, we've been walking around the show and we've had a lot of people ask like oh what? Wonder what Sherwin Williams is doing here. So Sherwin Williams is a big company. They, they started out in the house paint, you know, house paint, deck paint, you know, whatever you want to consider that that's on our paint stores group. But we are so much more than that. We have, you know, multiple divisions underneath that company. And this division that's here today is really focused on food and beverage. So we've been in the food and beverage space for over 30 years now, and we help support a lot of owners every day in their facilities. You know, from their wall coatings to their floor coatings, to their imp wall panels to the roof coatings.
- [50:05]
Steve Monternach
Right.
- [50:05]
Jake Nelson
Pipe coatings, whatever it may be. So just wanted to kind of reiterate that so everyone has an understanding of, of who Sherwin is and what we do, other than just the house paint side.
- [50:13]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Okay.
- [50:14]
Faras Alameh
And one thing to add too. It's just last year alone, kind of level set as far as our experience in the industry. We did over 3, 200 projects within a food and beverage facility. So it's quite, again, quite a bit of work that we've done. And we're familiar with all the different nuances that go into projects within those types of facilities.
- [50:30]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Okay. So we were talking right before we start, we went on here and we were talking about some of the facilities you see. And one of the things I do for the magazine is I write a column called Food Safety Insights. And I do it based upon interviews with people in food companies, with food safety experts. And when they talk about things like you said, there's no two food facilities the same. I've talked to people who are in brand new facilities, to people who are in 100-year-old facilities with what we talked about a minute ago, 100-year-old dairy brick and things like that, that it's not really hygienic design. So, and I saw your presentation yesterday. So you look at those type of situations and then bring that up to hygienic design with your coatings and, and the way that you work, talk a little bit about how you do that.
- [51:07]
Faras Alameh
So I, I want to defer to Jake, where we have a team called our asset protection managers, where we walk in and we do a complete facility assessment or site assessments we call them, and we'll, we'll go ahead and walk your entire facility and then look at all the different opportunities for a restorative coating like our floors or walls, to where it's. You might not be so familiar. You know, like everyone has so much on their plate. But being able to go in with Jake's team to where it's a free, free cost, there's no cost to the customer, and they'll give you a comprehensive report. It's almost like an audit. But hey, these are the areas you need to address today, tomorrow, and down the line, like these are critical things you need to look for. And usually we're called in. Typically they have a need. But then we're going to walk with you throughout your facility and help you project plan these along the way.
- [51:50]
Jake Nelson
Yeah, so, you know, about three, four years ago, Bob, we, we recognize, we've always supported owners, but our business is always, you know, we set, we don't sell directly to owners half the time. Most of it's usually done through the, the stores and sold to the contractors that are working on these projects in these facilities. And we're, we're always there assisting and helping. So about four years ago, we really, we recognized that, hey, we need to get more owner support, you know, to the, the Cargills, Nestle's, ADM's, the Big Food and beverage facilities across the markets. And so we created a team team here at Sherwin Williams, where we call it our asset protection team. So their job is 100 owner focused. They go in and connect and build relationships and, and get to know these facilities. And as they get into the facilities, they'll, they'll do site surveys or site audits. And when they do that site audit, they, you know, it can be one area. They could be looking at, you know, one dairy area that they're looking at for an application, or they could look at the whole facility and say, hey, I'm going to come through and do an audit and look at your floors, look at your walls, look at your pipes, look at your roof. And then I'm going to kind of give you a life cycle asset assessment where it can tell you like, hey, this area needs to be addressed now because it's not meeting the regulatory guidelines that your specification calls out for. Or this one's good for another, another five years. You know, you've got the life expectancy for five more years. So we created a team across the country. We have over 20, 22 or 23 asset protection managers in the, in the United States. And so their focus is 100% on these food and beverage facilities and manufacturing and processing where they can go in and assist them. They not only do they give them the, you know, asset review, but they'll come back with a submittal process. They'll give them a specification and kind of guide them. And then they'll also help connect the dots to get the really, you know, good quality contractors into those facilities. They, to help do that work or we'll help train and show the facility, if they have an interest in doing it themselves, how to get that Job done and done. Right. So that way, you know, coatings aren't delaminating or having issues in the future. Right. So our goal is 100% to be a voice of the customer and give them support throughout the way. But on top of that we have also some key account managers that are owner focused that work with the higher ups inside of these facilities to really help drive a specification. When you have national accounts that, you know, national accounts that have facilities in every state, we want to make sure we're pushing that same specification and guideline to each facility. Granted, they're all a little bit different, but we want to make sure we can standardize it as much as possible so they have the support they need from us.
- [54:18]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Okay. In a lot of the sessions here, people have been talking about root cause analysis and, and once somebody has a problem that they're going to look at the root cause. But what you're talking about is not necessarily, necessarily in a remedial situation. Somebody should take a look at this and have you come out and take a look at any time. It doesn't have to be after an event. It should be, it could be very proactive. That it should be very proactive. Somebody comes out and says, well, show me what you see yet.
- [54:42]
Jake Nelson
I was going to say a lot of our customers or a lot of the owners, we notice that they do a lot of work during the shutdowns, holiday shutdown. So we have an inside sales team that reaches out and does shut down campaign. And it's not to just be out there and be salesy, but we're trying to notify all these owners across the country that hey, we can come in and assist you because we want to be proactive and get ahead of the curve. So that way there is no issues when we can help avoid those future issues. But always be working on this.
- [55:08]
Faras Alameh
Yeah. And the whole idea between our asset protection team is to partner with the facilities. They're not salesmen. They're there to truly be a partner and support these facilities. We know like today everyone's doing more with less and, and they're wearing a lot of different hats in these facilities. So having someone like, you know us, Sher Williams and are these asset protection managers who have a whole team behind them, we have a whole team specialists that do a lot. They specialize in flooring, they, they specialize in fluid applied roofing, they specialize in water wastewater treatment. And these are industry leading experts too. So if there's any sort of, you know, question that you may have, we can find a solution for it. And again, we talked about how no two facilities are like, you know, we have a team across the country, so someone from Jake's team, like, you know, who's based heavily in the Midwest, we can call someone out in the east coast or west coast and like, hey, have you seen this type of solution in your area? So it's a lot of ne networking, even within our own company to support a single facility. So you're not just getting one person, you're getting the power of Sher Williams between every single one of our asset protection managers.
- [56:05]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Okay.
- [56:06]
Jake Nelson
Yeah. And the last thing I was going to add to that too is we talk a lot about our resources. This is our resource team, is our asset protection team, our key account managers, inside sales, our marketing team that, you know, supports the APMS or the asset protections. You might hear that, hear them as apms, that's our acronym for them. But we also have our tech service team that will go out and support those owners and the applicators when they have a job coming up. So that way we can make sure that the coatings are applied correctly and the substrates are, you know, service prepped or is done accurately prior to the application of the coatings. So. And the coatings can go from, like Frost said, from floor coatings, roof coatings. But we also focus on pipe coatings where you see a lot of condensation, especially in the food and beverage space. You get a lot of condensation or you have a lot of safe touch. We have a coating that specializes our a, that we can take a, a pipe that could be running at 300 degree and drive it down to 120 degree with the safe touch coating application. So there's a lot of safety involved in our coating as well when it comes to this.
- [57:02]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
I saw that at your booth. I know there's a lot of focus on walls and floors and ceilings and like you were talking about before, but also I was very impressed with the, the pipe coatings that you have because a lot of the corrosion that occurs unseen, and not only the corrosion, but the water that gets trapped there too, is also a harborage area.
- [57:19]
Faras Alameh
Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, corrosion under insulation, we know, is a big problem across the industry. So having the thermal insulative solution is pretty unique as far as in the food and beverage space. It's a little bit different than what's traditionally done. You see those, you know, steel jacket insulation, major harbage points, because once that starts condensing, condensating, once it's, you Know, trapping moisture starts eating away at the pipe. Now you have to start getting a leak. And again, bacteria point in your production system. So. And again, if it's also sustainability, play to where you're trying to energy conservation to where, you know, if it's a cold pipe and you want to keep it cool and not keep spending money having to cool that pipe or if it's the same thing, hot tent pipe, you want to keep that temperature up, so you keep moving it through the facility without heat loss. So a lot of different benefits and very unique type of approach to this type of problem in your facility.
- [58:07]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Okay, so that's a perfect lead in for what I was going to ask you next because I love real life examples. When I interview food companies, I ask them about what's really happening, not what's supposed to be happening, but really happening. So you have your asset protection group go in, do some audits, tell me some of the things you've seen and what you saw and what the outcomes were after you were able to fix those.
- [58:27]
Jake Nelson
Yeah, one. You know, one thing that comes to mind we were talking about before, but we talk about the dairy tile. And dairy tile is, you know, it's in every facility. You know, these fast food joints you go in and that's the original tile that they all put down. And even when people are building, brand new dairy tile still is sold. And there's dairy tiles durable. It's been around forever, it works really well. But you know, with the grout systems, you get a ton of bacteria buildup, you get, you know, just tons of different things. It's slippery, it's not, you know, always easy to work on. But our ultimate goal is to put a safer system in that, you know, for the, for the person that's working on those floors, but also to help be able to clean faster and quicker and make sure that the facility is up to par all the time. Right. So we have a urethane cement where we can actually go right over the top of the dairy tile or we can remove it too. So there's, there's opportunities like that. We've run into that situation multiple times. I talked about the pipe corrosion. We run into that all the time. Where we're really expanding our offerings right now, where we've had a lot of pipe fail or we have a lot of condensation, you see a lot of dripping coming down, and then next thing you know, the floor, the floor starts peeling back because there's water constantly dripping on it. So we've done a lot of repair where we removed the corrosion or the insulation over the pipe. And then we come in and, you know, spray apply the. The AAB pipe coating. And then the newest one that's been a really big area in our food and beverage space is our IMP wall system. So I, you know, during, during the COVID days production, food production was running as high as it possibly could to keep every. Everything satisfied. And inspections kind of were minimized during that time because people couldn't be in, you know, couldn't have inspectors and facilities for. Because of the, the virus going around. Well, what happened is a lot of these IMP wall panels started to get really corroded and it became a big cost for the owner to replace the IMP wall panels. So Sherwin had, had created a system with our AR425 and our shell ox 800. And we basically created. Came in and created this imp wall panel system where we can just come in and go over the top of it. You might have heard Quinton talk yesterday in Frost about it being kind of like a truck liner. And that's what it is. It's flexible and it can handle the heat and you know, the contrasting of the heat and cold airs. So it's.
- [60:33]
Faras Alameh
And the whole idea between what we do is that whole hygienic design, right? Removing sort of back to your harage points. Make a seamless monoflix system to where it just flows, you know, as you mentioned, like coating over dairy tile. We know it's a big part of the industry now. I mean, you, you've seen it yourself to where you go in these facilities. The grout's chipped, it's cracked. The moment that's, that's impacted. There's no sanitizing that, no matter what you do to it. So creating a clean, seamless Mouthflex system is the best approach to it. And he mentioned our polycrete system along the way. So it's these, it's these solutions for the industry that truly drive food safety. And that's what we're so extremely passionate about.
- [61:10]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
You guys aren't suggesting that decades old dairy tile or grout is, is not hygienic design and hard to clean? You're not suggesting that, are you?
- [61:16]
Faras Alameh
I mean, you're saying it, man. You're saying it, not us.
- [61:19]
Jake Nelson
But yeah, we're just saying there can
- [61:22]
Faras Alameh
be improvements and challenges with along the way. Certainly.
- [61:24]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Is there a reason why nobody's putting that tile in anymore? Is that what we're trying to say? It's not really the best out Yeah, I, I saw your presentation yesterday and I liked what Quentin was showing about the wall putting those up. Once you put it up, the picture showed that it was, it looked like, I mean, it's a brand new hygienic area, the walls and it. I'm going to say this because I don't have to put it up, but it looks like it's pretty easy and, and somewhat simple to put up. I mean, you guys have to do it so you can tell me what it is.
- [61:50]
Faras Alameh
I mean, it's a process that, I mean, we have the right contractors to do it, to put it in, but once it's in, it's. It's there. I mean, he talked about the benefits of it. It's extremely flexible. It's going to handle the impacts from like forklift traffic, people bumping into it. We know these walls take abuse. These facilities, you know, they're put up to some, you know, quite the challenge. But once they're in, you know, the flexibility of the base coat as well as the top coat, which is assuming chemical resistant, can handle hot water, you know, wash down. So that thermal cycling, it creates that monolithic system that we talked about. Seamless, no areas for bacteria to harbor. So. And it's touched, you can touch it up along the way. So as it starts to wear, you need to come back in. We, you know, a team can come back in and touch it up. Yeah.
- [62:28]
Jake Nelson
And it is a polyurethane. It's not. It's. We, we work very closely with the contractors, our tech service team and our sales team to ensure that the applicators are, you know, trained well when they do those applications. I mean, we can train people how to utilize it, but it does, it does require special equipment to put it up, but it is ultimately, it's more cost effective and longer, you know, psych life, longer system that has a better life cycle to it. When you put this application up versus carrying the IMP wall panels out and replacing them, because that's what I'm. So many equips, so much equipment, it's significantly cheap.
- [63:03]
Faras Alameh
I mean, I've seen quotes anywhere from like, I believe 30 to $80 for these imp walls. That's just a starting point versus, you know, a few dollars, you know, comparatively to just, you know, getting it coated with the system.
- [63:15]
Steve Monternach
Okay.
- [63:15]
Vanessa Kaufman
All right.
- [63:16]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Yeah, the, the pictures I saw, it didn't look like it was a, a big demo project or something like that. It's something that, that should be, you know, affordable and doesn't disrupt the whole facility.
- [63:26]
Jake Nelson
The Biggest, the biggest part of doing the IMP wall panels is the preparation to get it ready because you got to tape off the pipes, you got to, you know, kind of get the, the surface prep going on the IMP walls. But you know, the application of the IMP wall is pretty seamless and, and effective.
- [63:42]
Faras Alameh
And these teams, again we work with these, you know, these short shutdown windows. You only have a few hours, they're shutting down on a Friday and they have to be up in production by Monday. And these are where, you know, you have the right team in place where, where it's like they have crews that come in and they're working pretty much nonstop up until that final wash down, you know, pre, you know, pre go on that Monday. So that's really where you know, our experience comes in is having these relationships that, where we bring you in competitive bids with the right contractors along the way that are going to, you know, we trust to do the right projects. We're not going to bring just anyone into a facility. We bring the right contractor in at the right time.
- [64:15]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Okay, and as far as other stories, what sort of outcomes do you see when with any of the products, any of the different applications, what sort of outcomes do you see? So you go in and you like,
- [64:27]
Faras Alameh
what do you mean?
- [64:28]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
I guess so if you're going to put up the new hygienic walls, you have the floors, you've controlled the drainage and things like you've done all these things and you come back and you talk to your customers and they're saying, oh, we've noticed, oh well, 100%.
- [64:41]
Jake Nelson
So you get a lot of great outcomes with it. You're seeing a cleaner and safer environment. Right. You're seeing it when they, when they go to do the regular process. All these facilities have processes to do wash downs and.
- [64:52]
Cindy Zhang
Right.
- [64:52]
Jake Nelson
And things of that nature. Once we get the new systems in place, it's easier for them to maintain the facility and keep it up to prevent bacteria growth and things of that nature in those areas. Right. So and you know, when we top coat with our Shalox in 800, that's got an inorganic chemistry to it so things can't adhere to it. It can, it can, you might see something on the surface, but when we do a wash down, it's going to, it's not going to organically, you know, build into the coating system where you know, older, older technologies, things can attach to it and then, you know, anchor, basically get an anchor profile into that coating system where this is inorganic chemistry. So you're not Going to see that. So again, it's safer environment, it's cleaner, it's getting the facility up to par and then it helps reassure their everyday best practices are followed. So that way they have a clean environment when they're in food production and something too.
- [65:41]
Faras Alameh
It's also the look and appearance. We know how sanitary white is important to the industry. So by refreshing your system, it looks cleaner. I mean as, as wall systems especially different coatings start to age, they start to yellow or discolor, you know, you may not know that, you know, it looks dirty.
- [65:55]
Cindy Zhang
Right.
- [65:55]
Faras Alameh
And we know having a bright white hygienic finish is important. That's what the system looks like. So it stays bright white for longer. So you start, you know, like you notice that now when you go into facility as it starts to age, you're like, all right, is that, you know, is there back to your harpage points. That's going to catch the eye of an auditor much more likely than a system that's like, oh, bright white, that's easily washable. It's state, you know, got that sheen to it to where you know it flows just right off. And something too like, you know, we mentioned our floor systems, you know, it's that urethane cement, but you can also build that up to have proper slope to drain. So another benefit too is as you're washing down your facility, you no longer have uneven spots right. In the flooring system, it just slopes right to drain so it's less squeeging. You're finding these puddles over time in building up, you can build up cove bases along the wall so you have no more 90 degree stops to where you know it's going to be hard to remove that moisture and potential bacteria. So you build that up to you round that edge off and things just flow right off. So from floor to wall, whenever you're washing, you know that area down, it just goes straight to that drain. Yeah.
- [66:53]
Jake Nelson
And the other thing just to reiterate on here is obviously we're looking at, you know, things to make things safer, cleaner, a better environment. But at the end of the day, our number one objective is to give a longer life cycle for your assets. We want to be there to help protect your assets, get a good, you know, system in place. That's going to give you guys long longevity in that equipment that you have in your facility, whether it's the floors, the pipe, the equipment that's in there that we're going to go and do the coding work on to give you that longer Life cycle asset. So it's, we're here to help prevent future issues and, and to really keep you guys on a maintenance schedule and to keep the facilities operational because we all know that when a facility shuts down, they can't afford that. You know, they have to keep production running constantly and they have scheduled shutdowns throughout the year, most facilities in food and beverage. So we have to really try to help keep those, those shutdowns tight to get the, the preventive maintenance done rather than have to redo a bunch of areas. Right.
- [67:46]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
This, this is really fascinating to me because I have a microbiology background, so I talk to people about environmental monitoring and harborage sites and all these kind of things. But you've mentioned a couple of times about how it's easier to clean. And the other thing for us when you said a second ago about how it looks, if you're going to promote food safety culture and have the sanitation crew on the, on the off shift doing this kind of stuff and it looks like it ought to be clean, they're really going to clean it. If it looks like it's never clean, maybe it's okay to skip that. So that also adds to the overall, overall program of a site.
- [68:18]
Jake Nelson
Yeah. And I mean, just like you or I, if you see something dirty, you're probably not likely to want to eat your food on it. If you see something clean, you're going to want it. So. And these food and beverage facilities do a really great job at trying to keep their facilities up to par at all times. But that's our job is to really help them and guide them from our perspective perspective of how they can be more efficient and do a better job.
- [68:39]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
The other question I have for you is, and I'll make this a two part question, you guys can handle this however you want is what recommendations would you have for a food safety professional and what they should do this year to improve food safety readiness. Part of this I'm going to assume you're going to say something about having the inspection, so I'll open that up to you. But how does somebody get started if that is something that somebody wants to take advantage of?
- [69:02]
Faras Alameh
So I mean, obviously get in contact with us, but you know, I think welcoming us in, understand, like we're not here to like, you know, give you, like, you know, give you a ding and we're not here to like, you know, uncover anything, you know, negative in your facility, but we're here to support you along the way. So we're here to partner with you we're not trying to sell you anything. We're going to give you the right solution. Everyone's very budget conscious, so we're going to give you the right solution. But once you let us in your facility, you know, we'll give you that comprehensive breakdown to really partner with you, take things off your plate. And that's the biggest thing you could do is understanding like again, that partnership approach. We can work with you on the specifications and how to proactively maintain this over time. So that's the best part. And I think once you, once you do that and know that again we're not here to, to like, you know, uncover anything that you don't want uncovered, but it's like we're here to support you and can make, take things off your plate through that.
- [69:47]
Jake Nelson
Yeah. And I would just add to that. If you're not utilizing your asset protection manager from Sherwin Williams today, get in contact with us and somebody will reach back out to you within under 24 hours. And the reason why I say that is if you don't know your asset protection manager in your local area today in your food and beverage facility in the United States, get with, get with. Go to that website, click the link. We are there to support you guys. We will schedule a meeting, we will come on site. We are there to be a support system and a resource to help guide you through anything that you have coming up, whether it's going to happen, it's six months, a year, five years. We want to be the ones to help you guys, you know, formulate what that specification looks like and how we can helping, you know, bring your facility up to par and make it easier for you.
- [70:29]
Faras Alameh
And kind of just to add to that too, is is also, you know, you can be proactive in understanding the type, you know, from coding perspective, the coding solutions that are out there. There's a lot of things that might not become top of mind as far as possible solutions for you. Like one thing is like you got a leaky roof. Every facility I've been into, you see those, you know, water collection, you know, hanging down from the ceiling. They're bright pink or yellow. You seen like the hose going down in a trash can or a bucket. That's the number one area of like, you know, potential contamination of facility coming off your roof. Think of everything that's, you know, we have a fluid applied roofing system. That one extends the life of your asset. Just as he was mentioning, it's also a fraction of the cost of complete tearing off your roof. And tossing in a landfill. So this becomes now a maintain attainable system. So you're not constantly looking at like, oh, you know, and we'll come out and do like imaging of your roof. We'll make sure the moisture readings to make sure it's a good candidate for a liquid applied roofing like our Uflex system. But that's another thing too is understand like there's solutions out there that you might be thinking, oh I gotta complete tear this off and, and toss it. No, no, no. It's like we're very much a sustainable play as well.
- [71:30]
Jake Nelson
Yeah. And to that point for us we have a, we have all of our APMs and our sales reps carry samples on them. But we have a system called One Flash. And that One Flash is like it's a repair kit. So basically what it does is if you have a leaking roof, we can take that one flash and we can put it up on your roof to kind of mitigate and help stop the leak for right now until the roof can get redone. Our, our, everyone that utilizes it from us loves it. And we, they're always asking for more, especially when we go into the spring and the fall because they're getting ready for those rain days and, and the leaks. But on top of just our, you know, we talk about a lot of our products. Everyone thinks it's as a paint company, we represent a bunch of different mortars and grout injections. So a lot of facilities also are responsible for sewer collections on their site. They're responsible for their pre treatment areas. You know, we, whether it's a tank, you know, floor, we can help assist on that and give you guys the guidelines of what needs to be done and how to correct it.
- [72:22]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
So yeah. How many root cause analysis come back with something dripping from the root Proof. Right. That dripped into the machines or in that happened. You read that all the time.
- [72:30]
Faras Alameh
Yep.
- [72:30]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
That's pretty common. One other comment I have and I. The audit that you offer, the, the inspection that you offer makes sense, I would think of any facility of any age with somebody who's been there for a short period of time, a long period of time. But it strikes me, listening to what you're saying is if I were a food safety manager and I'm new at a plant or I've only been there a couple of months, makes sense to have somebody else come in, take another with another set of eyes and come take a look around and let me know what I might want to have to plan when I'm doing My capital expense or whatever happens to be.
- [73:00]
Faras Alameh
Absolutely. And that's the thing too. It's like we work with these managers all the way from like proactive maintenance.
- [73:05]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Yeah.
- [73:05]
Faras Alameh
To also capex build out. So if you're looking to build you know, a new part of your facility, add an addition, we can build hygienic design from day one.
- [73:12]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Yeah.
- [73:13]
Faras Alameh
So that way it's like, all right, we know the systems that are in place. I mean I can't tell you how many often are. Often we're in a facility and you're like what you use here and they're like, they're a newer manager like and they're like, they kind of give you a look like oh you know I started or like we're not sure. This is a pretty old floor building from day one. We also help keep records. You know, we know the contractors in there, we know like areas to look for. So it bringing us in, it's like it's to support you along the way. Again, these guys aren't sales guys. They're, they're truly partner with these facilities every day.
- [73:40]
Jake Nelson
Yeah, I mean that's, that's the biggest thing is part, you know, we're here to partner with you guys guys and, and help support them. So any, anything we can do to give you guys that guidance. Again it's, it's a no cost service to you guys. Our team's out there doing every day. Sherwin invested in, into this model because we believe that you know the owners, at the end of the day we want these projects to be successful. We want them to go right and we want them to have the right specifications, you know, from a manufacturer of what we would recommend. And again they can, we can connect you guys with inspectors, we can connect you guys with other coding applicators to really, you know, you know, take a look at it, make sure it's the right thing. But you know, from our standpoint we want to, we want to make sure the problem's resolved up front versus coming back a year later because it wasn't done right and somebody wanted to put up a coating that they found at Home Depot. Right.
- [74:24]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
So yeah, the before and after pictures are impressive. I was really impressed watching it yesterday. So any other takeaways? What would you want somebody to know if they're, they're getting done listening to us but they ought to remember, fill in the blank.
- [74:37]
Faras Alameh
I would say again, you know, like we have a wide array of coatings. I know we talked upon just a few today, but we offer areas like water waste water treatment. We offer, you know, for your facility, we talk about roofings, walls, flooring especially just everyday maintenance in your facilities. And also we can get you equipment for your facilities. And the one thing we kind of just touch upon is that training that we offer. So if you're doing some work at house and you want to make sure you're doing it the right way, we have a tech services team that come out, train you, make sure you're doing it the right way. So that way it, it's, it's helping you in your bottom line. So if you don't want, you know, you can't afford to bring in a contractor. You know, budgets are tight, you need a stop gap until the next major shutdown. We have teams and services that come in, support you through every step of the way. Be it from you know, your proactive maintenance, you know, products today, tomorrow or again that capex that we talked about. But truly the power of Sherwin Williams is quite amazing. Seeing it inside, inside of Sherwin Williams you have so many guys with so much experience that all we do is talk coding. So it's a wonderful truly company to be partnered with.
- [75:35]
Jake Nelson
The biggest thing I would tell you is getting get in touch with Sherwin Williams, get in touch with your asset protection manager and they can go out and help you and, and do a site audit. It's at no cost to you guys and really be the voice for you and help you guys figure out what your specifications are for your facility.
- [75:49]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
That's very good. I can tell you I've learned a lot. Again my, my thinking is automatically going to go to microbiology and those type of things. But the idea of chemical resistance, easier to clean, faster to clean, more durable, all makes a lot of sense.
- [76:05]
Faras Alameh
And one thing I guess to kind of wrap it up too, it's like we've tested our coatings against 500, you know, 500, over 500 different common contaminants.
- [76:12]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Right.
- [76:12]
Faras Alameh
And cleaning solutions within the food and beverage environment. So we know they're going to hold up the stringes. You know the hardest, the harshest types of conditions are exposed to hot water wash downs chemicals. And we always know not everyone's using the right balance of cleaners to solution. So that's, that's a key part of what we do as well is, is being able to support you along the way.
- [76:30]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Very good.
- [76:31]
Jake Nelson
Hey, it's good to meet you Bob. Thanks for having us.
- [76:33]
Faras Alameh
Yeah, thanks for being here.
- [76:34]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Thanks for being on the podcast theater here at the Food Safety Summit.
- [76:37]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
It was great.
- [76:38]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
It was a great discussion. Like I said, I've learned a lot.
- [76:40]
Jake Nelson
Thank you.
- [76:40]
Bob (interviewer for Sherwin Williams segment)
Good to see you guys.
- [76:41]
Jake Nelson
Good to see you. Nice to meet you.
- [76:42]
Adrienne Bloom
All right, well, welcome back to Podcast Theater Live. Thanks so much for attending. I know we're competing with a beer garden here right now. Or maybe I shouldn't have said that. Stay right here. None of you leave. You can get beer after the episode. Anyway, I'm very pleased to have with me for this interview today. Across the table here, Dr. Conrad Choirnier, Director of FDA's Office of Microbiological Food Safety. I have Dr. Vanessa Kaufman, Director of the alliance to Stop foodborne illness, and Dr. Lone Jesperson, principal and founder of Consult. Cultivate. Sorry, Cultivate SA. So you are all speaking on a session this afternoon that's going to offer attendees, both online and in the room, a unique experience, a food safety culture debate club. So, really looking forward to it. Now, Vanessa, this session is framed as a true debate. What are some of the most persistent disagreements in food safety culture today that you might expect will really challenge the audience?
- [77:44]
Vanessa Kaufman
Yeah, so we're going to have four questions that the audience will hear debated by these two wonderful people. And we also have a couple of other folks joining them on their teams. We have four questions. I'll reveal them here because you all are here now, so you get a little insight. But the first one is food safety culture starts with the top. The second is food safety culture is expensive. The third is food safety culture should be audited. And last but not least, a strong food safety culture delivers positive food safety outcomes. So I think those are four questions or statements that we kind of believe to be true or not true. You know, it's like very, you know, long held beliefs, but we are challenging our assumptions as we ask people to do every day in food safety culture.
- [78:35]
Adrienne Bloom
That's fantastic. And, you know, I have heard those four points debated in many different circles and there's never been an answer. So I'm excited to hear the debate on those, those four points. So now, Conrad, from a regulatory standpoint, what do you see as the biggest gaps between what companies say about food safety culture and what is actually demonstrating demonstrated in practice?
- [78:58]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
And so what I've observed, and I think this is true not just in food safety culture, but organizational culture generally is, you know, people will talk about, yeah, we have a great culture. People are happy here. People, people value food safety. But if you scratch the surface, it's not necessarily an intentional culture. It's not one. Maybe today, maybe the next Few months is a good culture, but when something goes wrong, is it going to withstand the, the crisis? Right. Or will it withstand turnover in staff or change in leadership? And so if you scratch like, do they have the infrastructure in place to intentionally maintain and foster a strong food safety culture? Meaning do they have the appropriate trainings in place? Do they have routine recognitions? Do they have incentives built into performance plans? It's more than just saying we value food safety and putting it on the wall. It's about that day to day constant vigilance, ensuring that you have that strong culture.
- [80:12]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, and I mean, along with that training piece that you mentioned, I mean the importance of connecting the why to what you're learning during training, your responsibilities on your job, what are you actually doing on the floor and how does that connect to protecting consumers? All those things are points that need to drive home for a culture to be strong and loan. You've long emphasized that culture drives behavior. What are some commonly accepted solutions to culture challenges that you believe deserve more scrutiny or even pushback?
- [80:44]
Bob Ferguson
Well, I think one of them is that we believe that because we have a food safety culture plan, because somebody outside our organization asks for that, we develop a plan, we implement the plan. Now we have a food safety culture that is good enough, so to speak, because we put a check in that box. And I think that goes along the same lines as what Conrad was talking about, that if we can switch that paradigm and say that don't focus on changing your food safety culture because an auditor or an inspector tells you to, but find a way to engage your leadership in understanding how food safety and quality makes us a better company. So that if you think about culture, it's ultimately what you have accepted to be true because it makes us successful. So we've accepted that putting a check in the box around a food safety culture plan has made us successful because we can pass an audit. There are plenty of data that shows that passing an audit doesn't necessarily save lives. So I think it's about saying, how can we get out of checking a box around a food safety culture plan and then get in front of your leaders in those critical one to ones where you can actually position food safety as something that's personal to them and therefore can become part of what makes us successful as a company. I don't know if that makes sense, Adrian.
- [82:06]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like what you said about, you know, making sure that we're not just, you know, pencil whipping and just looking at food safety as a, or food safety culture as A checklist item. And I think along with that, you know, you talked about audits, like over reliance on high audit scores, saying like, hey, we've got a great score, we're going to ride on that. We don't really need to strive for continuous improvement or pay attention to things that need, you know, could, could improve or, you know, making sure that everyone is still upholding those standards that we want our company to meet. So lots of things to consider. I think we're going to hear some of that in the debate today. A question for all three of you. So if there's one assumption about food safety culture that the industry really needs to, to rethink, what would that be and why? And anyone who wants to go first can.
- [83:02]
Vanessa Kaufman
I'm happy to go first, thanks. Yeah, absolutely. So I think one thing that the industry thinks and it should be challenged is that food safety culture can be an add on task to an existing position without having to rework any sort of workload shift, anything. In fact, I have seen companies who have dedicated positions to food safety culture and loan. I don't know if that's the best model because it can be expensive, especially for a small or medium sized company. Maybe you've seen some different things, but there's no way that somebody can own food safety culture and continue doing all of their tasks. They probably are already overworked as it is and now they're responsible solely for food safety culture. It just doesn't seem like a good idea. And I think you're setting your employees up for failure and you're not going to get the results that you desire.
- [83:54]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
And if I can just add to that, I mean, that gets a little bit to what I was saying in terms of sustainability of food safety culture. Adding a person to be your food safety culture person makes it. It's almost like a superficial band aid, as opposed to embedding it into every aspect of the organization, which is going to last and actually be adopted. I mean, it's not something you adopt, it's something that is. You already have a culture. It's how do you maintain a culture or create the culture that you want? And in this case, the intention is to create a culture that has food safety at the forefront.
- [84:35]
Vanessa Kaufman
In the spirit of debate though, Conrad, isn't it good to have somebody who is kind of ultimately responsible, responsible or driving things? Don't you need somebody to be in a position?
- [84:47]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
Yeah, I mean, I think potentially. But isn't food safety everyone's responsibility?
- [84:51]
Vanessa Kaufman
Oh, for sure, we can agree on that.
- [84:53]
Bob Ferguson
So I'd like to take the term food safety culture out to the parking lot and burn it. And here's why. It's building on these two great points that were made by Vanessa and Conrad. Food safety culture. We have diluted the efforts by saying that it's this standalone entity that somebody in a food safety and quality position leads. Culture in an organization is owned by the leadership in your organizations. The fact that that culture might help or hinder what you do for food safety, that's what you need to investigate. You don't want to create a separate, standalone, parallel track of culture that happens to be living in food safety. I actually don't agree with the full time job that has food safety culture attached to it for that very reason. Culture transformation should be one entity that your organization looks at. And sometimes it might have a focus on food safety or other operational risks like people safety. Other times it might be customer satisfaction or business growth. But we have to have a much stronger integration of food safety into the overall culture of the organization because now it gets owned by those senior leaders who has to set the tone for what you do and who you are from a cultural. But it has to. Those are the individuals that set up governing your organizational culture. Then you have food safety who then brings in and says, and this is how that then shows up. For example, we're not investing in making sure that maintenance is performed in the right way so that we don't have foreign material in our product that goes out the door. And it's because of the workload of our maintenance staff. That's not a food safety alone discussion. That's something that has to be adopted by your organizational culture. So at the risk of having just shot my colleagues and myself in the foot at cultivate, I think we should just burn the term food safety culture
- [86:47]
Adrienne Bloom
in the parking lot.
- [86:48]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
I have stopped using the term and particularly when I stopped speak internally about it. In a way, I've adopted the rule. The first rule of food safety culture is not to talk about food safety culture. But if you think about a company that I've been in other types of companies, not as an employee, but have visited other types of companies that don't produce food. And I once visited a company whose product was innovation and innovation was their value, right? And they created an environment that enabled their staff to be creative. You know, they put artifacts on the wall of all the inventions that they created. They had. You know, you remember those stories about Google and the way they had these eggs that people could take naps in and Just allowing, creating that environment so that their staff could be innovative. So similarly, if a company is producing food and they value food safety, they should create an environment that consistently fosters food safety. Whether that's the artifacts, whether that's the way they have placed their equipment in order to ensure that the behaviors, you know, people's instincts line up with safe food behaviors or the way they reward their employees.
- [88:08]
Bob Ferguson
I think that's a really, it's a good way of describing economy because that's what it means to live in a culture. Right. What you just said with those different artifacts. And then I think you can take food safety performance objectives into everybody's every. The different roles and functions that are relevant for their functions. Because while food safety.
- [88:27]
Cindy Zhang
Yep.
- [88:27]
Bob Ferguson
We're in the food industry, everybody should own food safety. The ownership looks different if I'm in finance or in operations or maintenance or in hr. But if we. Then it just becomes part of your culture as well to set those objectives that you evaluated on from a performance perspective. And it happens to also include food safety. Yeah.
- [88:45]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
Yes, I like it. Exactly.
- [88:47]
Adrienne Bloom
So I guess, you know, kind of a follow on question to that. So within culture and then connecting the, the why the food safety why to, to, you know, the jobs, the people that are handling and producing food and transporting it and all the different jobs there are out there. So if you're not going to call it food safety culture, you know, when you're, when you're talking to your employees, you know, how do you, how do you frame things like, you know, do your job correctly or else. Right. You have to connect to the why the food safety why. So is culture then really only something that we secretly measure in the background now? Or is this, how do we, how do we talk about this concept to employees without actually saying it if we're not going to, you know, I'm not saying it's wrong to not use the term or to transition to something different. I'm just saying like, you know, how do we frame the food safety why to people in the context of this is our culture of our company. This is, these are our goals, this is what we strive for, these are our standards. Right. Does that make sense?
- [89:52]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
Yeah. Well, so I. One of our colleagues who's going to be debating with us today, her name's Kelly Stevens from General Mills and I hope she's okay with me sharing this. But she doesn't talk about food safety culture. She talks about culture, our organizational culture. And most organizations will talk about their culture. Many organizations are not intentional about it. Though, as I said in the beginning, it's like, oh, morale is great around here, you know, And. And so it's more about, like, if you are going to be intentional with your culture, which I think every organization should be. If you're making food, food safety should be one of the values, along with, you know, whatever your other values might be. Every organization has a set of core values. Food safety should just be one of them. And then everything you build around it, whether the way you train your individuals hits on those values, if food safety is one of them, then your trainings could focus on the why. Why is food safety important? And that's where you can touch on some of the stories that like STOP brings to organizations to help explain the why to their staff. Or when you are setting up your performance plans. As Loan was saying, where does food safety fit in the performance plan? If you are in purchasing, how do you incorporate that value in the behaviors of the people that work in that staff? And how do you explain to the staff why they should do it in the way that. Why what they're doing is important for food safety?
- [91:27]
Vanessa Kaufman
Is this a maturity question?
- [91:29]
Adrienne Bloom
Loan could be.
- [91:30]
Vanessa Kaufman
Okay, because I'm picturing if you have an immature food safety culture, you might need to speak to it more and you might need to directly call it out. And then once the organizational culture, the food safety culture becomes more mature, then you would stop needing to say, like, that thing is on fire and we need to fix it.
- [91:49]
Bob Ferguson
I think you're right, Vanessa. I think there's an element of maturity in it. But I also think it's realizing that if you are immature, that means that a lot of you that might be here, that's in food safety and quality, the burden falls on you to make sure you're compliant and that food safety is being acted on the way that it's supposed to be acted on, and often in isolation. So I think the way that you then go from that stage into a more mature stage is exactly what Conrad is talking about. Now you start to translate food safety into the responsibilities of different functions and different roles. And in that, you weave in the values where you say, so, for example, if you have a value that says do what's right, it's a beautiful headline for a lot of things. You want to do what's right so that your colleagues go home with 10 of these and 10 of those on your feet. Right? You want to do what's right where if you're the one that's supposed to ride a tow motor and move material around in your D.C. that you don't put allergenic material where it shouldn't be. That's also doing what's right. So I think you put the context or the conversation around behaviors and food safety into the context of interpreting your company values. But the beauty about it back to maturity is you can really move to a different stage of maturity because now you're starting to integrate. It doesn't become food safety sits out here, and then everything else we do sits out here. No, it becomes around saying do what's right for food safety, for personal safety, maybe for environmental sustainability and other things that your company strategically is focusing on. And it's woven into how all of your colleagues and yourselves are evaluated from a performance perspective. So I actually don't think it's something new. I think many companies have been doing this for years when it comes to company values. As for how you use them, we just have to get better at integrating food safety into that. And we, as food safety professionals, we play that role of integrator to go from one stage of maturity to the next.
- [93:50]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, great. Well, thank you all. So what we're going to do now, actually, is something we haven't done on the podcast theater yet this year. We invite questions from the audience for our our speakers. And if you just want to stand up and state your question, I'll repeat it so that we can capture it on the recording. So if anybody has an any questions, just raise your hand, stand up, and let us know. No pressure.
- [94:18]
Vanessa Kaufman
They've all had a beer now, so should be good timing.
- [94:22]
Adrienne Bloom
Well, I'll start with a real quick question. So. And I guess this is mostly toward Vanessa. What? Where did the idea for a debate club come from? I want to know how this was, how this came about.
- [94:34]
Vanessa Kaufman
Well, we can blame LOAN for that.
- [94:35]
Adrienne Bloom
Oh,
- [94:38]
Cindy Zhang
no.
- [94:38]
Vanessa Kaufman
I think it's a wonderful thing alone had done it a few times at a different conference and it had worked really well. So we decided to integrate that into what we're doing. It's the first time we're doing this.
- [94:50]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
There was. There was. We didn't do it officially as a debate, but at one meeting we did a webinar and you said something and I said I totally disagreed with it.
- [95:02]
Bob Ferguson
Yes, you did. Which you frequently do.
- [95:04]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
Which I frequently do. And we are going to debate that statement today as well. So stay tuned.
- [95:12]
Bob Ferguson
I think Vanessa and Lily from STOP deserves all the credit for how it's going to shape out. I've got high hopes for this, and you should all make sure you make it to this debate. It's going to be fun. But all of the actual doing and organizing and making sure that Conrad shows up in a clean shirt, that is all down to Vanessa.
- [95:33]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, no, absolutely. That's session 18 at 2:45. So you have to be there and see this debate. So any questions from the audience?
- [95:41]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
There we go.
- [95:41]
Adrienne Bloom
You have one. If you could stand up and just kind of loudly say, say your question. Okay, thank you for the question. So the question from the attendee is looking at food safety, culture, modernization, and the leadership role within that. What are your thoughts on the role that leadership plays in modernizing food safety culture?
- [96:01]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
Is it modernizing food safety culture or modernizing food safety food safety culture?
- [96:09]
Bob Ferguson
Well, I think if we mean by modernizing, challenging some of the assumptions of what we think it is today and doing things in a different way, then I think I would go back to one of the Adrian's points that we look at food safety in the context of a company culture as something that can enable business or can enable continuous improvement and not an on, off or is is not. I think that would be the, that would be the point I would make in that context.
- [96:41]
Adrienne Bloom
Not an add on either. Like you said, not an add on.
- [96:44]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
And thinking about, you know, you've also used the term continuous improvement in this podcast. I love that term. I think thinking about any opportunity for continuous improvement, we, we talked about, you've heard a lot about root cause analysis over the past few days. So incorporating a culture where something goes wrong, it's more than just fixing it. It's more. It's also taking a step back and figuring out, okay, what can we do better next time to make sure this doesn't happen. And before we got on this podcast, Loan and I were talking about the role of the inspector as a regulatory agency, you know, thinking about an inspection from a different perspective, thinking about it as an opportunity and not a punishment. Right. When an inspector shows up at your facility, use that as an opportunity to engage with the investigator and actually learn from their findings. If you get a 483, don't think of it as a negative thinking. Think of it as a, hey, this is something that someone from the outside saw in our facility. Is it worth us taking a closer look and thinking about how can we do it better next time? So thinking about it, flipping it out inside out. So in terms of modernizing, I think it's changing the attitude toward different experiences that we have that we might think of as negative, but thinking of them as there's a Silver lining in those.
- [98:13]
Vanessa Kaufman
Yeah, well, and when I hear the word modernization, I think of technology and differences in communication from 10, 20 years ago. And so how can we incorporate AI into food safety culture? How can we communicate messages to folks who need to know them in the ways that they're actually responding, receiving them? But you know, how can we collect this data around KPIs and different things and maybe suss out patterns that we weren't seeing before alone, you're probably the one to speak to that a little better than I am.
- [98:45]
Bob Ferguson
As for sourcing the data or well,
- [98:48]
Vanessa Kaufman
just thinking about how technology can help us better understand patterns or, you know, how folks are doing that already, what the future looks like.
- [98:57]
Bob Ferguson
I think one of the things that we see a lot and that we're also participating in is this connecting risk profiles to the state of your culture and risk profiles from the perspective of if you look across a set of data that you would typically not do cross analysis on. So I'll give you an example. Your HR retention data in combination with your product efficiency or OE data and your standard work in combination with the robustness of your hazard analysis and the norms in your HACCP team. If you look at data across those typically not cross analyzed sets of data, you can get a realistic risk profile as for what are the actual risks around food safety in your organizations. Because if we look at risks isolated to a hazard analysis and what goes on just against the food safety management system, we're just getting potentially a third of the truth. And to your very well made point, Vanessa, around using AI, using technology, we can help companies draw out some of those patterns that can say, well, we can say because your culture is at this level, you're seeing a higher risk profile in these particular areas, for example, around standard work, leader standard work, or how a HACCP team functions. So I absolutely agree with that. And we couldn't do that before because we couldn't take unstructured data and do analysis across it. Today. There's so many possibilities and we heard that on day one in the opening
- [100:28]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
session and six months from now it'll be even stronger.
- [100:32]
Bob Ferguson
That is so true, Conrad.
- [100:33]
Cindy Zhang
Yeah, yeah.
- [100:34]
Bob Ferguson
And maybe actually building on that point from Konrad, in six months that's going to look different. That's a bit of a wake up call for us in food safety as well. Right. Because we don't necessarily shift our mindsets in six months, takes a little bit more because we're still in that compliance mindset, many of us in food safety. So we're going to have to do a little internalization on that one and say, so how are we going to support our businesses in a different way because of this fast changing environment around AI and technology?
- [101:07]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, certainly when we talk about modernization, what whether it's within food safety culture or recalls, for example, there's so many different pieces, the technology piece, the collaboration piece, the science piece. And they all need to come together if we're going to get from here to there where we want to be in the future. So thanks for those responses. I think we might have time for one more question, if anybody has one. You. Yes. So I'll just repeat the question real quick. So the question for everybody who couldn't hear is that, you know, when you're looking at audits and you're looking at compliance and you're looking at, you know, checking off the things that need to get done, how do you avoid having food safety culture as, you know, a box on a checklist?
- [101:55]
Bob Ferguson
Can you just give us a specific box you're checking?
- [101:59]
Roberta Wagner
Yep.
- [102:00]
Cindy Zhang
Yeah.
- [102:01]
Bob Ferguson
So if you take, you need to have a program, for example, where you have to have KPIs that leaders hear about and react to on a monthly basis, because that's what the standard says. Well, you don't have to go through that because we have to be compliant. Right. You can go back to the culture again and say, as what we measure as a business to be successful, go into your COO or your plant leader or whoever owns the business, regardless of your size, and say, what do we measure that makes you evaluate that we are successful in meeting our goals? Well, we measure financial performance. We measure retention of employees. We need to add to that the implementation and the effectiveness of our programs around food safety. And then you need to be creative around what that measure is. But now you're integrating what the business is evaluating itself on on a regular basis, maybe a monthly basis. You're integrating food safety into that, with what's the most important requirements that helps drive some of those other requirements as well. But it now becomes a conversation, at least on a monthly basis or in that rhythm or cadence that that performance is being evaluated. So now you're going outside the let's pass an audit. You're going into saying our business is successful because we deliver on this on a more frequent basis and also look at how effective it is. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. And then the first time that you hear, yeah, but we can't add more to what we're looking at, then you have to be really courageous.
- [103:37]
Cindy Zhang
Right.
- [103:37]
Bob Ferguson
And say, okay, so do you want to have a food safety incident? Do you want to have something happen where our quality and our customers are backing off and saying, we don't want to deal with you anymore? And the categorical answer is going to be no. Oh, and then you swoop in and then you go, and here's the metrics that we then need to add. Right. So yeah, gotta have a little courage.
- [104:01]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
Well, and I just. To add, I don't think there's a problem with having a checklist.
- [104:06]
Bob Ferguson
No, no.
- [104:07]
Dr. Lone Jesperson
But I agree. Or audits for that matter. I think the problem when it comes to audits is that they've taken an outsized level of influence and people use those audits as their sole indicator, as opposed to thinking of audits as one indicator of many that you should be using to assess how things are going.
- [104:29]
Adrienne Bloom
Great. Well, thank you, Loan. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you, Conrad, for this great interview and thank you, the audience for listening in. Appreciate it. All right. Hi everybody. So we're going to do our last interview of the podcast theater live here. I have with me Cindy Jang, former senior director for global food safety, risk management and global Supply chain at McDonald's. And Cindy, you led the opening workshop on Tuesday examining the use of AI and food safety. And I think it was a really interesting and very hands on session. And I think attendees walked away with a lot of knowledge and a lot of questions too about, you know, what does the future bring for us in this realm. So after bringing together perspectives from industry, academia and government during this workshop, what stood out as the most realistic and immediately actionable applications of AI and food safety?
- [105:29]
Cindy Zhang
That's a very good question. I think people who are sitting here, they probably attended the first session. Right. The opening session. And also I've been talking to several people, you know, in the hallways, people are stopping me and saying, wow, what, what a great session was. And, and it was amazed. We have to open up another room. Right. For the, for the attendees.
- [105:52]
Adrienne Bloom
It's a very well attended session.
- [105:53]
Bob Ferguson
Yeah.
- [105:53]
Cindy Zhang
So to me, I think the message is very clear. AI is here and we have to use it. I think for the immediate reaction to that is, you know, we need to dive into it. And during the session we have people to share their perspectives after the use case. And I remember that one person who said, wow, I never used the AI before. Now I see how powerful it is, how easy it is, how efficient.
- [106:29]
Adrienne Bloom
Right.
- [106:29]
Cindy Zhang
To create a HACCP plan within couple of minutes. So I think the clear message is people wants to take action to do whatever it fits the best for their business. So I think a lot of people saying they want to, you know, go back, look at their HACCP plans, see if the HACCP plan is still up to date or maybe there's something is missing. And also, also looking at training materials, training AI definitely is a great tool to help them in elevating their training and better targeted for their different audiences in the past. It takes a lot of time, right? Different audience. You have to come up with something differently. And with AI, couple minutes you can, can do a better job on more targeted training.
- [107:23]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah. And you know, I think one of the interesting things that came out of the, the, the hands on portion, the workshop exercises and also the discussions around the table, some of the comments that were shared by workshop attendees was that, you know, AI is something that can be really helpful. I think Sean Layton, one of your panelists from Cargill, he called, he likened AI to a brilliant intern. So, you know, it can give you a lot of great ideas, it can do things really fast. But then I think the resounding sentiment in the room and that I heard from attendees and also you guys up on stage, the panelists was that you need to keep the human in the loop and you need the human. You always need a person to be overseeing the decision making that is based on information that's coming from AI. So, you know, I think there were a lot of really good ideas discussed during the workshop. And looking across some of the examples that were shared and the discussions with the attendees, what are some common challenges that food companies are facing as they start this journey to implementing AI, you know, from strategy to execution. What are some challenges that we heard about or that you see?
- [108:32]
Cindy Zhang
Yeah, we, you know, with all the speakers from academia, industry and the government, and especially people see, wow, FDA is using AI, right? In so many different applications. That's very, very encouraging. And but the common challenges also we have talked about at the session, first one is illegal legal. From a legal perspective, you know, companies concerned about that, who is going to be responsible if there's something went wrong?
- [109:04]
Roberta Wagner
Right, right.
- [109:05]
Cindy Zhang
Whose responsibility is? And also looking at, well, by using AI, you know what the human expertise comes in. We know very clear after the workshop or during the workshop, we made it very clear people are still very much in need in food safety. The food safety experts, we still need them from A to Z. But AI will help food safety experts to amplify their voices.
- [109:39]
Adrienne Bloom
Right.
- [109:40]
Cindy Zhang
And the expert needs to validate what AI tells you. You cannot really just take Whatever, whatever AI said.
- [109:50]
Adrienne Bloom
Right, right.
- [109:51]
Cindy Zhang
So that was very clear. And another challenge is the security, the cybersecurity. We know a lot of data, data patterns and data analytics with AI is much, much easier to do. Sean also said there's no excuse. Now you say, well, you know, I have a lot of data. We have mountains of data here and there, and it's gonna take another six months to figure out. No, that's not a language we want to hear anymore. But what about cybersecurity?
- [110:26]
Bob Ferguson
Right.
- [110:27]
Cindy Zhang
So people need to be really cautious on how to make sure the data is secured and also use data in a meaningful way.
- [110:39]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah. And I think some of the other interesting points brought up during the workshop have to do with the two challenges that you just cited. First of all, on the legal side of things, also, you know, is your company formally allowing use of AI and your organization, what, what types, how, and you know, for what projects? So that's another thing that, you know, those policies are often being handed down, but if your company hasn't, hasn't issued a policy yet, you know, there's ambiguity, There may be ambiguity around, you know, what is it okay for me to use, you know, as I'm working on doing my work. And then the other, the other piece about you mentioned, you know, the cybersecurity. So, you know, a lot. There was a lot of people in the audience that said, hey, we're using a paid or branded version of, you know, like GPT or one of these other models, and that's what we use for our work. And with those paid models, they typically say, your data won't be used to train the AI, so your data is secure. And then some other people were saying, oh, well, we don't have a paid AI tool. We just kind of use it where we need it, but we use a public version. And then, as you said, that brings up a lot of questions of cybersecurity. Right. So, so many ideas. The room. I loved all the ideas that were generated and the questions that were raised. So, speaking of data, data is foundational to AI. So what were some of the key challenges that were discussed around data quality, integration or governance and how organizations are beginning to address those things?
- [112:21]
Cindy Zhang
Yeah, data. We know we all love data. We are scientists. We all love data. But now with AI tool, we'll be able to really empower you to talk about the data in the business way, how you're going to cross to that to your CEOs and to your general managers with the data. They don't like to you know, just talk about data, but you can translate that data into a business terminology, Right? And we have a one case study there as well. But I think, you know, many companies, yeah, maybe they just dive into it right now. They don't have guardrails, they don't have policies. Like you're saying, well, that's an opportunity for us, opportunity for us to speak up, to lead that area for your company, say, hey, we need to leverage this AI tool because here are the benefits. But the, what are the, you know, guiding principles we need to have? So you, you have to start somewhere. If you don't start, if you don't start now, and you will be behind for kind of a long, long way. Right? So I think we really need to be smart on learning and leveraging new technology to work smarter with, with the new tools. And AI also, it is not perfect like you're saying, AI is not perfect at this point, but it is better than last year, right? AI is smarter and moving faster than just like last Christmas. And so we need to get on this learning train, learning train, and then so we can be trained. And it's just like, you know, exercise, right? You have to work on your muscles and to make it better. It's a journey. It's a journey, but also we can leverage the network you have, you know, the friends you made here, to use them as a sounding board and to listen to others where they are at. So give you more encouragement to try it.
- [114:31]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, absolutely. I like what you said about, you know, with AI, you really do need to start getting into it because if you're not playing around with it or using it in, you know, some kind of official or unofficial capacity, especially, you know, for personal use. We all need to play around with things to, to, to see how they work before we apply them in a serious area like our work.
- [114:50]
Roberta Wagner
Right.
- [114:50]
Adrienne Bloom
But if you, if you haven't started doing that yet, you'll be far behind. But the key is that, you know, you need to be careful and cautious as you move ahead with, ahead with it and understand when is it appropriate for me to apply the outputs from AI to what I'm doing in my work or other areas of life?
- [115:09]
Cindy Zhang
Yeah, you, I think, you know, you need to start somewhere small and less risky if you haven't started, right. Even if you started, you can focus on how to leverage AI to improve the efficiency. For example, like writing SOPs. Everybody writes SOP, right? Standard operating procedures. And then you may have a new products coming in. So what is the new sop? Right. And you can have AI to get started and then you know, your knowledge and you can, you can make it better. But it's. Normally it would take you maybe six hours or eight hours. That's probably, I'm more conservative and could be longer time to develop that sop. But with AI, it gives you, you a first draft in two minutes. You tell, tell, tell the AI, you know, what is the product, what's your environment, what's the temperature, what blah, blah, blah. And they give you that right away. And then so you can just, you know, polish it and then based on your experience. So that's a safe. I would say that's very safe. This is, you know, legal. People won't get on you.
- [116:15]
Adrienne Bloom
Right, right.
- [116:16]
Cindy Zhang
And also training, training. So you train new employees or train your temporary workers. We use a lot of temporary workers I know now nowadays. Right. So how do you train the temporary workers? You need to have a training plan. Right. So the training plan is not to blow them away on their first day. You gave them a half hour training first day, and second week you're gonna do another hour. So how you're going to stagger those training and in a targeted fashion, you can use AI and make an animation.
- [116:54]
Adrienne Bloom
Right?
- [116:55]
Cindy Zhang
That's. Yeah, you know, make an animation, make it a following Spanish, in Spanish, in Chinese, you know, in Polish. So you can do all those languages. Now with AI, you don't need to hire a consultant. So that's very safe area. Right. And also data. Looking at the data today, you have, you have many, many data pockets, islands in your company, but never put them all together. I think at the first day session we showed people can take a picture even with the data sets. Take a picture and then you ask AI, what do you see the pattern, what action I need to take? So I think you start small, start area, which is safe, not, not, you know, us kind of giving you more risk as a company. And also another thing is that you can engage your legal team, leverage their talent, bring them on board first, you know, let them see what you, you're doing. So I think there's end list of safe area to dive into. Utilize AI to help your work. So work smarter, not necessarily work harder. We only have eight hours at work. Right.
- [118:17]
Adrienne Bloom
So speaking of taking those first steps and hopefully safe steps. So based on the discussions held during the workshop, what are some of the most important first steps for food safety leaders who want to begin leveraging AI, but maybe don't have the infrastructure or the expertise in place yet?
- [118:34]
Cindy Zhang
That's an Excellent question. It's all about leadership, adoption, adaption of new technology. Right. AI is one of them. So what leadership's role for a company? I would say leadership needs to embrace new technology, needs to empower people, leveraging people's talent to have an open discussion, put those potential applications at the table, encourage people to bring their ideas to the table and then we can have a discussion and to prioritize. One or two things can get started and then see the results, utilize that results to jump into the next step. So I would say leadership needs to really open, open minded and open to technology. And do not say just no at the very beginning because I don't know the in and outs of AI. And we all know AI. You don't need to have a coding skills, right. A natural language. So you show the management, I think they all use that for their personal things. Probably plan the trip, plan a vacation, how to use AI. So you show them a similar things and you can ask AI how can I show to my management, to my leadership and to be able to engage leadership, getting there, excitement on using AI. So I think leadership needs to play a more proactive role in AI adoption. Yeah.
- [120:21]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah, that's great. Well Cindy, thanks for summarizing the workshop. And also if you didn't catch the workshop, it was the opening one on Tuesday that is available. It was live streamed and so it's available to watch on demand. If you just go to the Food Safety Summit site and look up the live stream streaming options, you can watch the entire workshop, all three hours of it. So if you'd like. So I'm going to throw out a bonus fun last question for you, Cindy. And this has nothing to do with AI. Well, no, actually it does have a little bit to do with AI because last night at the Stop Foodborne Illness Food Safety Summit gives back reception that benefited Stop Foodborne Illness. You and a crew of folks representing some of our educational advisory board members and some other helpers put on a food safety song and dance for everybody who's at the reception. It was an awesome project. I think that the, you know, the crowd everybody was there was very excited and into it. I'm just kind of curious how that all came about. For anybody who was there, you, you know, this was a took a lot of work and a lot of time. So tell a little bit about how that originated.
- [121:35]
Cindy Zhang
I hope you enjoy that too.
- [121:37]
Adrienne Bloom
I loved it. I've got it stuck in my head. I was actually humming it this morning when I woke up.
- [121:43]
Cindy Zhang
So that's a Great example on how we leverage AI. I never wrote a song in my life, so this was the first one, so. And you know, with AI helps me to polish the lyrics. I gave the content on what I want. Like I want a collaboration. I want to have, you know, the HACCP being mentioned there and talk about, you know, consumer. Because I always use consumer as my boss. Okay. In my 33 years at McDonald's, I always think about consumer. That's the ultimate boss of me. I'm working for them and you know, gave the context. So AI came up with a beautiful lyrics, right. So I just only made it here and there, you know, few tweaks. And I shared to my colleagues with, you know, Sarah and a few others, they all said, wow, this is great. I have nothing to add on. And well, and then comes to the music, right? We had a good friend who said here, here's coming by here. Aaron did a great job in terms of making the movements. Well, we had a friend and who said they can put a music together. I participate in a chorus group, okay. For last 10 years, know a little bit about singing, but I don't know about how to put the music to compose the music. So someone said, wow, yeah, you know, they have a friend and can do that. I said, oh wow, that's fantastic. But at the end that friend is not going to be available, very busy. So I said, okay, what I'm going to do, A.I. right. So I, I talked to several of my friends at the chorus group and they said, yeah, you should try this. Suno s u n o try that. They can help you. So I, you know, open up account, it's all free. And I put my lyrics uploaded. I said I want to have upbeat, you know, positive energy. Right.
- [123:47]
Adrienne Bloom
It was very positive enough. So I like that.
- [123:49]
Cindy Zhang
So it comes with different options.
- [123:51]
Bob Ferguson
So.
- [123:51]
Cindy Zhang
And then I pick one options over the others. That was the long story short.
- [123:57]
Adrienne Bloom
Well, it was.
- [123:58]
Cindy Zhang
You all had fun, right? I hope we the, our group had fun to, to practice and to bring it all together. Together.
- [124:04]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah. We could tell how much fun you were having on stage and we were having a lot of fun listening and, and actually we took video of the song and the performance and I believe that's on the Food Safety Magazine YouTube page. So if you go to our YouTube page, you can watch it there if you missed it or if you want to relive the experience and I hope
- [124:21]
Cindy Zhang
you can be inspired by that. You go back, encourage your employees to come up with the song. I was also thinking about the Spanish song so you guys can do that when you go back and then Marachi.
- [124:36]
Adrienne Bloom
Right. And we could do all sorts of different types of music that would be, that would be interesting. More food safety songs.
- [124:42]
Cindy Zhang
Yeah. Make it fun. Food safety is not only just the standards and systems and science, it's also the human part. I think the last part maybe. Yeah. The collaboration. I want to point out with the people on stage. Yes to they all reside in different states, majority of them in the in Illinois even though in Chicago. But still it's very hard to get together physically. So we did a several online zoom rehearsals and we did a one in person and then also couple of rehearsals yesterday. So Erin is here. She's the choreography expert so helped us to make to make some synchronized moves. So but at the end it's very authentically showing you. We need more practice probably. But we had fun.
- [125:34]
Adrienne Bloom
Yeah. So you can see how much work went into this behind the scenes and you know we had a a great time last night with the song.
- [125:40]
Cindy Zhang
So we did have human right at the end we have a human to present exactly to the if you can imagine is all the robots are sense maybe not as fun as the human on the stage.
- [125:51]
Adrienne Bloom
I think this echoes everything we've been talking about during our discussion of the AI workshop actually. So Cindy, thanks so much for joining us in the podcast theater and sharing some of the insights and the lessons learned from the opening AI workshop.
- [126:03]
Cindy Zhang
You're welcome.
- [126:03]
Adrienne Bloom
And thanks to all of you for sitting in on the interviews this year. And sessions will start back up at 2:45 after the exhibit hall closes. And don't forget, forget our very special closing session on Fisma at 15 years and that's from 4 to 5:15. We'll see you there. And again, thanks for sitting in and
- [126:23]
Cindy Zhang
then use AI when you go back. Got more people. Got more people to use it.
- [126:29]
Stacy Acheson
Thanks again to Roberta Wagner, Steven Mondernach, Sandra Eskin, Jacob Nelson, Farras Alameh, Conrad Choignier, Vanessa Kaufman, Lone Jesperson and Sarah Cindy Jeung for joining us on the podcast today. And of course thanks to all of you for listening. Many thanks to our presenting sponsor, Sherwin Williams Protective and Marine, which offers a broad portfolio of high performance coatings and systems that excel at combating corrosion, helping customers achieve smarter time tested asset protection. To learn more, visit sherwin-williams.com protective that's sherwin-williams.Com protective. You know we love hearing from you so please never hesitate. Send us questions or suggestions to podcastood-safety.com or post a note on LinkedIn, Facebook X or Instagram. We always love getting your feedback. And to make sure that new and bonus episodes magically appear in your podcast player, all you have to do is click 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 enjoyed it. It only takes a moment and it's good for everyone. And that's it for us today. Our next regular episode will air on May 26. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves and those around you, and we'll talk to you then.