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[00:10]
A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacy Acheson, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and I want to thank you for joining us for this special bonus episode. Today, Food Safety magazine's editorial director and co host of the podcast, Adrienne Blum, speaks with Lyle Probst, CEO of Nomadics, about the food industry shift from reactive testing to proactive food safety systems. They discuss how lessons from biodefense are shaping new approaches to pathogen detection, why food safety should be viewed as a risk management strategy that goes beyond regulatory compliance, and how advances in rapid detection, continuous monitoring, AI, and decontamination technologies could help food manufacturers identify contamination earlier, reduce recalls, and better protect consumers. But first, let me share a little bit about our guest. Lyle Probst is the Chief Executive Officer of Nomadics and an accomplished entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in operations, production, development, engineering, biodefense, and advanced technology commercialization. Throughout his career, Lyle has founded and led multiple companies spanning manufacturing, biomedical technology, defense, and software. He previously served as CEO of Microfluidic Systems, where he led development in the M band biological detection system for the U.S. department of Homeland Security, the autonomous platform that was designed to continuously monitor for biological threats and was ultimately licensed by Boeing. Today, Lyle leads Nomadix's mission to help food producers prevent contamination through innovative approaches to detection and contamination. He's spoken at the National Academy of Sciences and National Bio Watch conferences and has appeared as a contributor on national media outlets. Lyle holds a bachelor's degree in biology and an MBA in executive management. All right, now let's hear their discussion.
[02:19]
B
Well, food safety programs have traditionally relied on testing products after production and reacting when contamination is found. But what if contamination could be identified and addressed earlier before it reaches consumers, triggers, recalls, or disrupts operations? Well, here with me on the podcast today to discuss the industry's shift toward proactive food safety systems is Lyle Probst, CEO of Nomadics. Welcome to the podcast, Lyle.
[02:46]
C
Thank you, Adrian. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Appreciate this.
[02:49]
B
Absolutely. And so you know, I know your background includes things like biodefense, autonomous pathogen detection, and national security programs, which is very impressive. So I'm wondering, how did that experience lead you into food safety?
[03:03]
C
It led me into food safety because most of my career in defense is identifying pathogens that can be harmful to people and finding ways to mitigate. That has always been a major component of my career. I was contacted a few years ago from a major food brand when I was doing biodefense work to ask if the technologies I was developing and working on could be applied to food safety to help with the issues that they were encountering at the time. I did not have the bandwidth to expand into that market and so kept that in the back of my mind over the years. And as we were developing this new technology and looking at the most applicable places to apply it, I went back to the food safety space and looked into it deeper and decided that this was the right market to apply this technology because it can have the biggest impact there in helping to reduce illness and identify pathogens that can make people sick. So it is something that transpired over several years and kind of led towards getting into the food safety as our major focus area.
[04:16]
B
Thanks for sharing that background with our listeners. That's fascinating. And I kind of want to pull out that biodefense piece that you were talking about. So what lessons from biodefense do you think can be applied to food production and food safety?
[04:29]
C
Yeah, there's many lessons that I learned in doing detection of biological weapons or potential weapons that can be applied to food safety directly. One is early detection makes a huge difference in biodefense. Identifying a threat and getting notice out within 24 hours of it being detected makes a huge difference in people's recovery from being affected by or exposed to a potential weapon. The same thing applies here in food safety. If we can detect it and do it early, we can prevent it from ever reaching the customers. If we're monitoring and doing our part in the food production facilities, we can prevent that from getting out and causing people to become sick from eating contaminated food. Also, on the detection side and in biodefense detection, monitoring systems versus point of time testing makes a big difference. If you're monitoring it, it's being proactive versus being reactive, looking for it ahead of time. So that prevention aspect of it is significant, and it's much less expensive, much more effective than being reactive and having to respond to an event or something that takes place. That applies both in the defense space and here in the food safety space.
[05:54]
B
Now, when we're talking about, you know, prevention versus reaction, you know, the thing is that many companies still view food safety primarily through a compliance lens. You know, they just want to. They want to make sure that they're in compliance. But how should they be thinking about it today? If we want to look at that prevention piece over the reaction piece?
[06:15]
C
Sure, no, good question. The compliance is necessary, but compliance really is kind of a minimum standard to get through the process. Whereas food safety really is about risk management and prevention of illness. It also helps with protecting the brand. It helps in operational efficiency, consumer trust in the products. So there's several ways in which this should be viewed. And especially when we're talking about compliance, it is important to be compliant, but is much larger than that.
[06:53]
B
So, you know, when we're talking about the effects of, you know, not adhering to food safety practices, you know, recalls or withdrawals, that's one of the big things that we think about. Right. And we often hear about recalls and withdrawals in the marketplace. But there are a lot of other real business impacts of a food safety event. What are some of those there?
[07:15]
C
As you mentioned, there are many impacts when there's a food safety event that takes place. To start, there could be a direct recall and that comes at a significant cost to the company. You lose production downtime, having to shut down production lines to do a decontamination. It can take a line, a production line out of service for several days or even months, depending on the level of contamination that exists. It damages the brand. You lose customers, you lose the trust of the customers, which is, is the biggest thing that can be lost is losing that trust. So that's probably the biggest part of it. But it also affects long term revenue. It comes at a major cost to the company whenever there is a recall where they have to pull product back or even if it doesn't make it to the recall stage, just having to shut down the, and correct the issue. He said that's a major expense for a company and not all companies are able to recover from that.
[08:16]
B
Yeah. And, you know, when you talked about lost customers and long term revenue effects, that, that made me think it's, you know, it's not necessarily only one brand. Right. Customers will often avoid an entire food category in the marketplace because of a recall or an outbreak associated with, you know, with one product. So, you know, one brand of peanut butter, for example, consumers hear about that, they go, oh, peanut butter, peanut butter is bad. We're not going to buy any peanut butter for the next few months until we stop hearing about this in the news. So, you know, it's, it's also entire categories, not just one brand. But, you know, when, when we think about things like outbreaks, which, you know, obviously is the, the worst possible thing to happen, what do you think are the food industry's biggest blind spots when it comes to preventing the kind of contamination that causes those things?
[09:02]
C
You know, what we've found in the production facilities that we've toured and we gone through to do assessments of those blind spots for the most part tend to be around biofilms. Biofilms are kind of a thick, slimy substance that's on the surface a lot of times inside pipes, feed pipes, water pipes, even cleaning pipes, the drains to the system, all are affected by biofilms forming. The issue with those biofilms is that they harbor bacteria and provide them an environment, a nutrient rich environment where they can grow and thrive. So even decontaminating at the, at the plant to, to kill pathogens, you can kill the pathogens, but if the product does not penetrate the biofilm and dissolve it, those pathogens just keep growing and the problem just continues to get worse and worse over time. We see it a lot in water systems. That's a big blind spot. People think water's clean, it comes through, we drink it, it's fine. There's actually can be quite a bit of bacter through those water systems because the biofilms build up within those pipes over time. Another blind spot that we've seen quite a bit of is intermittent testing or testing at a level that is not statistically significant for the amount of product that is going through the facility and being produced. There's a big gap there. Part of what we are looking to do to close that gap is to improve collection methods on how samples are collected. Also reduce the time to result, and reduce that time to result down to getting results in the same shift that the food is being packaged or processed. So as far as a blind spot testing, there's a lot that can be done on the testing and those methods as well. There are some instances where the producer is only looking at the finished product. Is it clean, is it not clean? Does it have. And does it have something in it or not? I see that as a, as a blind spot as well. Testing should be happening throughout the process. Decontamination should be happening throughout the process, which is why we look at it as a, we take a holistic approach of let's attack the bacteria where they thrive from the farm all the way through the process. Let's collect samples efficiently, let's concentrate those samples to a detectable level and let's detect them within a time frame that makes a difference, which is within the same shift. Getting answers within hours as opposed to days makes a huge difference.
[11:42]
B
Yeah. Those are certainly some critical blind spots that companies need to address. And the first one you named biofilms certainly a big problem because I mean, we've got biofilms where they can protect pathogens, highly pathogenic bacteria like listeria. Right. And then we can even have them in dry environments. You've got dry surface biofilms that can protect salmonella and others. So, you know, those are certainly big problem areas. But I appreciate you kind of listing out some of these blind spots because I think, you know, those things need to be top of mind for processors. Now you also mentioned, you know, testing and analysis and detection. And I know there's a lot of discussion around rapid detection technologies. So what developments in that area are you most excited about?
[12:31]
C
There's a few. Rapid detection is one of the important components to making food safe. And just like in my defense, background detection, fast detection is key. It is in food safety as well. Getting a faster time to an answer, absolutely critical. But what am I excited about? I'm excited what I've seen in the last, say, couple of years. AI coming into it. The AI assisted analysis is a big deal. We are doing things with the technology that we're developing that we couldn't have done two or three years ago without having an AI component or a machine learning ML component to that. Because we can identify in our data that's being generated, we can identify the pathogens, the signals we receive amongst all the other noise in the detection process, we can isolate it out and identify what's there. Because of the AI capabilities that are now available. That's a big deal. It gets us to a answer faster and it also allows us to have earlier intervention opportunities. If we get a result quickly, we know where that sample was taken, we know where the problem is, so we can go in and we can address it immediately and not have it grow and become worse and worse as time goes on waiting for an answer. So I do get excited about getting to answers faster. That's, I think that's, that's a big part of what has to be done to make this work.
[14:02]
B
And, you know, so beyond detection, why is intervention and decontamination becoming a bigger part of this conversation?
[14:11]
C
Yeah, the, as I mentioned, detection alone does not solve the problem. You know, when we first started this company a couple of years ago, we were developing a detection capability. But looking into it further and understanding it more, that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that contaminated food reaches consumers and people get sick from it. How do we stop that from happening is the real question. And detection is just a piece of it. If we get faster results, that helps significantly, but it doesn't stop the issue. It doesn't reduce faster detection, does not reduce Bacteria load. It doesn't, it doesn't get rid of biofilms. So it's a piece of it, but it's not, it's not the whole thing. In order to, it does help in making a, or getting to a response more quickly, but the root cause of the contamination is not being addressed unless you have appropriate decontaminate, decontamination methods in place that are being used as part of the process as opposed to a reaction to an event. It has to be an ongoing system change in order for this to work.
[15:29]
B
Okay. And you talked a little bit before about being excited about artificial intelligence applications in food safety. And I'm curious to know a little bit more about your thoughts about AI because, you know, that seems to be on the tip of everybody's tongue and the top of everybody's mind these days. And I'm wondering how you see AI influencing the future of food safety.
[15:50]
C
Yeah, it's a big part of it is becoming a big part of it. Like say that's a topic, It's a hot topic in a lot of areas right now. As far as food safety goes, AI is not something that's coming in to replace jobs. Right. But it is coming in to help us make food safer for everybody. As I mentioned, it does allow us, in the data that's generated, to be able to identify pathogens for, against non pathogenic signals that come through. We can identify through the use of AI as an example, a pathogenic strain of E. Coli versus a non pathogenic strain of E. Coli. Because E. Coli is naturally occurring in the environment, some strains are not harmful to humans, some strains are very harmful to them. To be able to differentiate between those is very helpful. And through the use of AI in our data analytics, we're able to do that. And then not just E. Coli, but many of the pathogens that are out there. And that holds true for all of them. There's variants of them that are harmful and there's variants that are not harmful. But with AI we can tell the difference. So I think that's probably the biggest piece of what AI is doing to help in food safety.
[17:03]
B
And so aside from contributions from AI and other advanced technologies, what kind of changes do you expect to see on a broad, broadly speaking, in food safety programs over the next five to 10 years?
[17:17]
C
I would hope to see significant improvement over the next five to 10 years. In the next two to three years, faster testing, as we've been talking about, will come into play. Getting results, the same shift. I think that's something that is Coming very quickly. In fact, we can do that now in certain circumstances with certain food types. We can do it today. That makes a big difference. More automation helps. Taking the human variability out of the equation when it comes to how these samples are collected and how they are monitored and tested. That is something I see coming in the near future. That also leads. It leads us to having continuous monitoring. That's important, that it is a continual thing that's happening. And again, I'll bring it back to defense. One of the instruments I developed in that space monitors the air 24,7 for a pathogen, it's about monitoring. It's continuous monitoring. We can do the same thing in food safety. It's a little different than air, but I think we need to get to the same space. And I think that can happen in the next five and absolutely 10 years is continuous monitoring of food that's being processed so that when it is identified, that food is immediately pulled out of the line and the issue can be addressed immediately as opposed to, you know, two, three, four days after the fact when results come in and all then you have a large supply of product that's already got out to the customers that could potentially be contaminated. So I think that's the biggest thing we'll see over the next few years is the integration of having the autonomous testing, continuous monitoring, faster results, and having systems in place that are decontaminating at the source throughout the whole process.
[19:16]
B
And, you know, I think that a lot of these things you're speaking about are, you know, play into this theme of shifting from reactive to preventive systems. And that kind of leads me into. My last question today is if you could give food safety leaders some questions, key advice as they plan for the future, what would it be?
[19:35]
C
No, that's an easy one. Give us a call. Use our products and services. But on a. On a more serious note, advice they would give to them is focus on prevention. Look at it as a holistic solution to contamination in the facilities. Start at the farms, start with where it's being produced, and then, as in the processing plants, focus on prevention. Not just being reactionary to when a positive is achieved, but be more proactive in looking for what's out there, you know, and don't be afraid of what you're going to find, because there is a way to address it once you find it, but going through it through the plant and just, you know, with blinders on of, you know, if we don't have a positive, there's nothing here that can be a big mistake. That can come back to bite a company later, which we've seen in the last few years, several instances where there's been recalls, there's been. People have been sick. There's been some deaths, unfortunately, and sometimes that can be caused by looking at it with blinders, as opposed to being proactive of saying, hey, let's get in here and let's figure out how clean are we really? And in the areas where we may not be as clean as we would like to be, how do we address it? Let's take care of it, let's be proactive in it. I think that's the biggest piece of it. It's not about being compliant with the regulations. Like I said, that's a. That's a good minimum standard that I believe is necessary. But again, that's a minimum. Being proactive in the long run, it's my opinion that saves a lot more money to the company than not being proactive. Just one recall. I read a statistic the other day of, you know, just one recall. The cost, the minimum cost could be as high as $10 million. That's just a start. Let alone when you lose brand recognition, when you lose customer confidence, it's hard to put a price on that. Whereas being proactive in these things that we've been discussing regarding food safety and how to approach it as a whole system as opposed to component, each component in its own or compartmentalizing it, if we. If they look at it in that way, they look at it as a. As a whole system, be proactive about it. That's probably the best piece of advice I could give somebody.
[22:01]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, it sounds like you really can't afford to not invest in prevention and, you know, that kind of continuous, continuous monitoring and, you know, identifying problems earlier, you know, this thinking beyond compliance mindset that we talked about is just so crucial. And I think it's really interesting, you know, with your background in biodefense and, you know, some of the lessons that you talked about that you've learned from biological threat detection, how that can be applied to food production environments and helping reduce risk while improving operational efficiency and tackling that prevention versus reaction approach, I think this has been really valuable for our listeners to hear about all this. And I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me on the podcast today, Lyle.
[22:48]
C
Absolutely. And Adrian, thank you for taking the time to talk with me as well. And hopefully there's been something that's been helpful to any of the companies that may have listened to this to think proactively and hopefully we can make a difference and have a huge impact on food being safer for everybody.
[23:05]
B
Absolutely. Thanks again.
[23:07]
A
Thanks again to Lyle Probst for this informative discussion and Nomadics for sponsoring this episode. You can find more information about Nomadix's food safety detection and decontamination technologies by visiting their website@nomadixholdings.com youm can also access links in the show Notes to your podcast player or on the episode page at our website food-safety.com all right, we hope you enjoyed this special episode of Food Safety Matters, and we'll talk to you soon.

Summary6 min read

Food Safety Matters: “NomadX: Preventing Food Safety Crises—A New Approach to Detection, Decontamination, and Intervention”

Date: July 21, 2026
Host: Food Safety Magazine (Adrienne Blum)
Guest: Lyle Probst, CEO of Nomadics

Episode Overview

This special episode explores how food safety can shift from a reactive, compliance-based paradigm to a proactive and risk-managed system. Drawing on his biodefense background, Lyle Probst discusses lessons learned from continuous pathogen surveillance, the importance of early detection, and how AI and advanced decontamination strategies can help food producers identify and mitigate hazards before they escalate into costly and dangerous crises. The conversation makes a compelling case for industry-wide adoption of next-generation detection and intervention tools—not just for regulatory compliance, but to protect consumers, brands, and the bottom line.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Biodefense to Food Safety

Timestamp: [03:03]

Biodefense Experience: Lyle’s work in identifying and mitigating pathogens in national security settings led him to food safety, after realizing similar technologies could address food industry challenges.
Industry Cross-Pollination: “As we were developing this new technology ... I went back to the food safety space ... this was the right market to apply this technology because it can have the biggest impact there in helping to reduce illness and identify pathogens that can make people sick.” (Lyle Probst, [03:03])

2. Lessons from Biodefense: The Power of Early Detection

Timestamp: [04:28]

Early Warning System: Just as quick detection is critical in biodefense, food safety benefits when threats are detected and contained early, “before [contaminated food] reaches customers.”
Continuous Monitoring vs. Point-in-Time Testing: Proactive, ongoing surveillance is far superior and more cost-effective than periodic, reactive testing.

“Monitoring systems versus point of time testing ... is being proactive versus being reactive, looking for it ahead of time. That prevention aspect ... is significant, much less expensive, much more effective.”
— Lyle Probst, [04:28]

3. Beyond Compliance: Food Safety as Risk Management

Timestamp: [06:14]

Compliance is Baseline, Not Goal: Companies should see food safety as risk mitigation and brand protection—not just meeting minimum standards.
Wider Impacts of Food Safety Events: Recalls lead not only to big direct costs and operational downtime, but also customer mistrust, lost future income, and even damage to entire product categories.

“The biggest thing that can be lost is losing that trust ... Not all companies are able to recover from that.”
— Lyle Probst, [07:14]

4. Industry Blind Spots: Where Contamination Persists

Timestamp: [09:02]

Biofilms: Often go undetected inside pipes, drains, and machinery, providing a haven for pathogens—even surviving standard sanitation and water systems.
Testing Limitations: Relying only on finished-product testing or not sampling at a statistically meaningful pace leaves manufacturers vulnerable.
From Farm-to-Plant Approach: A holistic, integrated strategy is needed—with sampling and intervention across all stages of the supply chain.
Speed Matters: Reducing test turnaround to hours (instead of days) enables same-shift intervention.

“Testing should be happening throughout the process. Decontamination should be happening throughout the process ... Getting answers within hours as opposed to days makes a huge difference.”
— Lyle Probst, [09:02]

5. Innovations in Rapid Detection and AI

Timestamp: [12:30]

AI-Assisted Analysis: Machine learning allows faster, more accurate identification of pathogens from noisy data, distinguishing harmful strains (e.g., pathogenic vs. non-pathogenic E. coli).
Enabling Interventions: Fast, precise detection points teams to the contamination source for immediate corrective actions, curbing outbreaks at their inception.

“We can identify the pathogens, the signals we receive amongst all the other noise in the detection process … because of the AI capabilities that are now available. That’s a big deal.”
— Lyle Probst, [12:30]

6. Beyond Detection: The Role of Intervention and Decontamination

Timestamp: [14:11]

Detection Alone Isn’t Enough: Finding contamination without removing or neutralizing it leaves root causes unaddressed.
Ongoing Decontamination: Should be continuous and systemic—not a singular reaction to positive tests.
Integration is Key: True prevention integrates detection, intervention, and process change.

“Detection is just a piece of it … The problem is that contaminated food reaches consumers and people get sick from it. How do we stop that from happening is the real question.”
— Lyle Probst, [14:11]

7. The Expanding Role of AI in Food Safety

Timestamp: [15:50]

AI as an Enabler—not a Job Replacer: AI enhances, rather than threatens, food safety jobs.
Precision Strain Identification: Allows identification of specific harmful variants beyond generic contamination.

“With AI we can tell the difference [between harmful and benign strains]. So I think that's probably the biggest piece of what AI is doing to help in food safety.”
— Lyle Probst, [15:50]

8. What’s Next? Predictions for the Next 5–10 Years

Timestamp: [17:16]

Faster, Automated, Continuous: Widespread adoption of rapid testing, in-shift results, automated sampling, and continuous monitoring.
Autonomous Systems: Mirroring defense sector technology, continuous autonomous surveillance will become the norm.
Source-to-Process Decontamination: Decontamination as a regular, integrated process, not a crisis response.

“Continuous monitoring of food that's being processed so that when it is identified, that food is immediately pulled out of the line and the issue can be addressed immediately ... that’s the biggest thing we’ll see over the next few years.”
— Lyle Probst, [17:16]

9. Advice for Food Safety Leaders

Timestamp: [19:35]

Holistic Prevention: Leaders should build holistic, farm-to-plant strategies focused on ongoing prevention—not just reacting to positives.
Face the Data: Don’t fear “what you’ll find”—detecting issues is the first step to eliminating them and avoiding catastrophic costs.
The Real Cost of Inaction: One recall can cost $10 million or more, with even higher intangible costs to reputation and consumer trust.

“Don’t be afraid of what you’re going to find … It's not about being compliant with the regulations … that's a good minimum standard that I believe is necessary. But again, that's a minimum. Being proactive ... saves a lot more money to the company than not being proactive.”
— Lyle Probst, [19:35]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

The Shift in Mindset:
“Compliance really is kind of a minimum standard ... food safety really is about risk management and prevention of illness. It also helps with protecting the brand.”
— Lyle Probst, [06:14]
On Biofilms as a Hidden Threat:
“… even decontaminating at the plant … if the product does not penetrate the biofilm and dissolve it, those pathogens just keep growing and the problem just continues to get worse and worse over time.”
— Lyle Probst, [09:02]
On AI's Impact:
“We’re doing things … that we couldn’t have done two or three years ago without having an AI component.”
— Lyle Probst, [12:30]
On the Cost of Recalls:
“Just one recall. ... the minimum cost could be as high as $10 million. ... When you lose brand recognition, when you lose customer confidence, it's hard to put a price on that.”
— Lyle Probst, [19:35]

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Summary | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:03 | Lyle explains his transition from biodefense to food safety innovation | | 04:28 | Lessons from biodefense: early detection & monitoring vs. point-in-time testing | | 06:14 | Compliance vs. risk management mindsets; impacts of recalls and trust | | 09:02 | Industry blind spots: biofilms, testing frequency, sampling, and process scope | | 12:30 | Rapid detection and AI: technological advances for faster, accurate results | | 14:11 | Need for intervention and continuous decontamination, beyond detection | | 15:50 | AI’s growing influence on food safety data and pathogen differentiation | | 17:16 | Future predictions: automation, continuous monitoring, and proactive system changes | | 19:35 | Lyle’s key advice: build holistic, preventive approaches, real cost of inaction |

Conclusion

Lyle Probst advocates a decisive shift for the food industry: away from reactive, compliance-driven practices and toward data-driven, prevention-first approaches informed by lessons in biodefense. The integration of AI, real-time detection, and continuous system-wide decontamination are poised to transform how food manufacturers protect both consumers and their own businesses. As Probst emphasizes, “being proactive in the long run ... saves a lot more money than not being proactive”—and, ultimately, saves lives.

Loading summary

Transcript27 lines

[00:10]
A
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacy Acheson, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and I want to thank you for joining us for this special bonus episode. Today, Food Safety magazine's editorial director and co host of the podcast, Adrienne Blum, speaks with Lyle Probst, CEO of Nomadics, about the food industry shift from reactive testing to proactive food safety systems. They discuss how lessons from biodefense are shaping new approaches to pathogen detection, why food safety should be viewed as a risk management strategy that goes beyond regulatory compliance, and how advances in rapid detection, continuous monitoring, AI, and decontamination technologies could help food manufacturers identify contamination earlier, reduce recalls, and better protect consumers. But first, let me share a little bit about our guest. Lyle Probst is the Chief Executive Officer of Nomadics and an accomplished entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in operations, production, development, engineering, biodefense, and advanced technology commercialization. Throughout his career, Lyle has founded and led multiple companies spanning manufacturing, biomedical technology, defense, and software. He previously served as CEO of Microfluidic Systems, where he led development in the M band biological detection system for the U.S. department of Homeland Security, the autonomous platform that was designed to continuously monitor for biological threats and was ultimately licensed by Boeing. Today, Lyle leads Nomadix's mission to help food producers prevent contamination through innovative approaches to detection and contamination. He's spoken at the National Academy of Sciences and National Bio Watch conferences and has appeared as a contributor on national media outlets. Lyle holds a bachelor's degree in biology and an MBA in executive management. All right, now let's hear their discussion.
[02:19]
B
Well, food safety programs have traditionally relied on testing products after production and reacting when contamination is found. But what if contamination could be identified and addressed earlier before it reaches consumers, triggers, recalls, or disrupts operations? Well, here with me on the podcast today to discuss the industry's shift toward proactive food safety systems is Lyle Probst, CEO of Nomadics. Welcome to the podcast, Lyle.
[02:46]
C
Thank you, Adrian. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Appreciate this.
[02:49]
B
Absolutely. And so you know, I know your background includes things like biodefense, autonomous pathogen detection, and national security programs, which is very impressive. So I'm wondering, how did that experience lead you into food safety?
[03:03]
C
It led me into food safety because most of my career in defense is identifying pathogens that can be harmful to people and finding ways to mitigate. That has always been a major component of my career. I was contacted a few years ago from a major food brand when I was doing biodefense work to ask if the technologies I was developing and working on could be applied to food safety to help with the issues that they were encountering at the time. I did not have the bandwidth to expand into that market and so kept that in the back of my mind over the years. And as we were developing this new technology and looking at the most applicable places to apply it, I went back to the food safety space and looked into it deeper and decided that this was the right market to apply this technology because it can have the biggest impact there in helping to reduce illness and identify pathogens that can make people sick. So it is something that transpired over several years and kind of led towards getting into the food safety as our major focus area.
[04:16]
B
Thanks for sharing that background with our listeners. That's fascinating. And I kind of want to pull out that biodefense piece that you were talking about. So what lessons from biodefense do you think can be applied to food production and food safety?
[04:29]
C
Yeah, there's many lessons that I learned in doing detection of biological weapons or potential weapons that can be applied to food safety directly. One is early detection makes a huge difference in biodefense. Identifying a threat and getting notice out within 24 hours of it being detected makes a huge difference in people's recovery from being affected by or exposed to a potential weapon. The same thing applies here in food safety. If we can detect it and do it early, we can prevent it from ever reaching the customers. If we're monitoring and doing our part in the food production facilities, we can prevent that from getting out and causing people to become sick from eating contaminated food. Also, on the detection side and in biodefense detection, monitoring systems versus point of time testing makes a big difference. If you're monitoring it, it's being proactive versus being reactive, looking for it ahead of time. So that prevention aspect of it is significant, and it's much less expensive, much more effective than being reactive and having to respond to an event or something that takes place. That applies both in the defense space and here in the food safety space.
[05:54]
B
Now, when we're talking about, you know, prevention versus reaction, you know, the thing is that many companies still view food safety primarily through a compliance lens. You know, they just want to. They want to make sure that they're in compliance. But how should they be thinking about it today? If we want to look at that prevention piece over the reaction piece?
[06:15]
C
Sure, no, good question. The compliance is necessary, but compliance really is kind of a minimum standard to get through the process. Whereas food safety really is about risk management and prevention of illness. It also helps with protecting the brand. It helps in operational efficiency, consumer trust in the products. So there's several ways in which this should be viewed. And especially when we're talking about compliance, it is important to be compliant, but is much larger than that.
[06:53]
B
So, you know, when we're talking about the effects of, you know, not adhering to food safety practices, you know, recalls or withdrawals, that's one of the big things that we think about. Right. And we often hear about recalls and withdrawals in the marketplace. But there are a lot of other real business impacts of a food safety event. What are some of those there?
[07:15]
C
As you mentioned, there are many impacts when there's a food safety event that takes place. To start, there could be a direct recall and that comes at a significant cost to the company. You lose production downtime, having to shut down production lines to do a decontamination. It can take a line, a production line out of service for several days or even months, depending on the level of contamination that exists. It damages the brand. You lose customers, you lose the trust of the customers, which is, is the biggest thing that can be lost is losing that trust. So that's probably the biggest part of it. But it also affects long term revenue. It comes at a major cost to the company whenever there is a recall where they have to pull product back or even if it doesn't make it to the recall stage, just having to shut down the, and correct the issue. He said that's a major expense for a company and not all companies are able to recover from that.
[08:16]
B
Yeah. And, you know, when you talked about lost customers and long term revenue effects, that, that made me think it's, you know, it's not necessarily only one brand. Right. Customers will often avoid an entire food category in the marketplace because of a recall or an outbreak associated with, you know, with one product. So, you know, one brand of peanut butter, for example, consumers hear about that, they go, oh, peanut butter, peanut butter is bad. We're not going to buy any peanut butter for the next few months until we stop hearing about this in the news. So, you know, it's, it's also entire categories, not just one brand. But, you know, when, when we think about things like outbreaks, which, you know, obviously is the, the worst possible thing to happen, what do you think are the food industry's biggest blind spots when it comes to preventing the kind of contamination that causes those things?
[09:02]
C
You know, what we've found in the production facilities that we've toured and we gone through to do assessments of those blind spots for the most part tend to be around biofilms. Biofilms are kind of a thick, slimy substance that's on the surface a lot of times inside pipes, feed pipes, water pipes, even cleaning pipes, the drains to the system, all are affected by biofilms forming. The issue with those biofilms is that they harbor bacteria and provide them an environment, a nutrient rich environment where they can grow and thrive. So even decontaminating at the, at the plant to, to kill pathogens, you can kill the pathogens, but if the product does not penetrate the biofilm and dissolve it, those pathogens just keep growing and the problem just continues to get worse and worse over time. We see it a lot in water systems. That's a big blind spot. People think water's clean, it comes through, we drink it, it's fine. There's actually can be quite a bit of bacter through those water systems because the biofilms build up within those pipes over time. Another blind spot that we've seen quite a bit of is intermittent testing or testing at a level that is not statistically significant for the amount of product that is going through the facility and being produced. There's a big gap there. Part of what we are looking to do to close that gap is to improve collection methods on how samples are collected. Also reduce the time to result, and reduce that time to result down to getting results in the same shift that the food is being packaged or processed. So as far as a blind spot testing, there's a lot that can be done on the testing and those methods as well. There are some instances where the producer is only looking at the finished product. Is it clean, is it not clean? Does it have. And does it have something in it or not? I see that as a, as a blind spot as well. Testing should be happening throughout the process. Decontamination should be happening throughout the process, which is why we look at it as a, we take a holistic approach of let's attack the bacteria where they thrive from the farm all the way through the process. Let's collect samples efficiently, let's concentrate those samples to a detectable level and let's detect them within a time frame that makes a difference, which is within the same shift. Getting answers within hours as opposed to days makes a huge difference.
[11:42]
B
Yeah. Those are certainly some critical blind spots that companies need to address. And the first one you named biofilms certainly a big problem because I mean, we've got biofilms where they can protect pathogens, highly pathogenic bacteria like listeria. Right. And then we can even have them in dry environments. You've got dry surface biofilms that can protect salmonella and others. So, you know, those are certainly big problem areas. But I appreciate you kind of listing out some of these blind spots because I think, you know, those things need to be top of mind for processors. Now you also mentioned, you know, testing and analysis and detection. And I know there's a lot of discussion around rapid detection technologies. So what developments in that area are you most excited about?
[12:31]
C
There's a few. Rapid detection is one of the important components to making food safe. And just like in my defense, background detection, fast detection is key. It is in food safety as well. Getting a faster time to an answer, absolutely critical. But what am I excited about? I'm excited what I've seen in the last, say, couple of years. AI coming into it. The AI assisted analysis is a big deal. We are doing things with the technology that we're developing that we couldn't have done two or three years ago without having an AI component or a machine learning ML component to that. Because we can identify in our data that's being generated, we can identify the pathogens, the signals we receive amongst all the other noise in the detection process, we can isolate it out and identify what's there. Because of the AI capabilities that are now available. That's a big deal. It gets us to a answer faster and it also allows us to have earlier intervention opportunities. If we get a result quickly, we know where that sample was taken, we know where the problem is, so we can go in and we can address it immediately and not have it grow and become worse and worse as time goes on waiting for an answer. So I do get excited about getting to answers faster. That's, I think that's, that's a big part of what has to be done to make this work.
[14:02]
B
And, you know, so beyond detection, why is intervention and decontamination becoming a bigger part of this conversation?
[14:11]
C
Yeah, the, as I mentioned, detection alone does not solve the problem. You know, when we first started this company a couple of years ago, we were developing a detection capability. But looking into it further and understanding it more, that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that contaminated food reaches consumers and people get sick from it. How do we stop that from happening is the real question. And detection is just a piece of it. If we get faster results, that helps significantly, but it doesn't stop the issue. It doesn't reduce faster detection, does not reduce Bacteria load. It doesn't, it doesn't get rid of biofilms. So it's a piece of it, but it's not, it's not the whole thing. In order to, it does help in making a, or getting to a response more quickly, but the root cause of the contamination is not being addressed unless you have appropriate decontaminate, decontamination methods in place that are being used as part of the process as opposed to a reaction to an event. It has to be an ongoing system change in order for this to work.
[15:29]
B
Okay. And you talked a little bit before about being excited about artificial intelligence applications in food safety. And I'm curious to know a little bit more about your thoughts about AI because, you know, that seems to be on the tip of everybody's tongue and the top of everybody's mind these days. And I'm wondering how you see AI influencing the future of food safety.
[15:50]
C
Yeah, it's a big part of it is becoming a big part of it. Like say that's a topic, It's a hot topic in a lot of areas right now. As far as food safety goes, AI is not something that's coming in to replace jobs. Right. But it is coming in to help us make food safer for everybody. As I mentioned, it does allow us, in the data that's generated, to be able to identify pathogens for, against non pathogenic signals that come through. We can identify through the use of AI as an example, a pathogenic strain of E. Coli versus a non pathogenic strain of E. Coli. Because E. Coli is naturally occurring in the environment, some strains are not harmful to humans, some strains are very harmful to them. To be able to differentiate between those is very helpful. And through the use of AI in our data analytics, we're able to do that. And then not just E. Coli, but many of the pathogens that are out there. And that holds true for all of them. There's variants of them that are harmful and there's variants that are not harmful. But with AI we can tell the difference. So I think that's probably the biggest piece of what AI is doing to help in food safety.
[17:03]
B
And so aside from contributions from AI and other advanced technologies, what kind of changes do you expect to see on a broad, broadly speaking, in food safety programs over the next five to 10 years?
[17:17]
C
I would hope to see significant improvement over the next five to 10 years. In the next two to three years, faster testing, as we've been talking about, will come into play. Getting results, the same shift. I think that's something that is Coming very quickly. In fact, we can do that now in certain circumstances with certain food types. We can do it today. That makes a big difference. More automation helps. Taking the human variability out of the equation when it comes to how these samples are collected and how they are monitored and tested. That is something I see coming in the near future. That also leads. It leads us to having continuous monitoring. That's important, that it is a continual thing that's happening. And again, I'll bring it back to defense. One of the instruments I developed in that space monitors the air 24,7 for a pathogen, it's about monitoring. It's continuous monitoring. We can do the same thing in food safety. It's a little different than air, but I think we need to get to the same space. And I think that can happen in the next five and absolutely 10 years is continuous monitoring of food that's being processed so that when it is identified, that food is immediately pulled out of the line and the issue can be addressed immediately as opposed to, you know, two, three, four days after the fact when results come in and all then you have a large supply of product that's already got out to the customers that could potentially be contaminated. So I think that's the biggest thing we'll see over the next few years is the integration of having the autonomous testing, continuous monitoring, faster results, and having systems in place that are decontaminating at the source throughout the whole process.
[19:16]
B
And, you know, I think that a lot of these things you're speaking about are, you know, play into this theme of shifting from reactive to preventive systems. And that kind of leads me into. My last question today is if you could give food safety leaders some questions, key advice as they plan for the future, what would it be?
[19:35]
C
No, that's an easy one. Give us a call. Use our products and services. But on a. On a more serious note, advice they would give to them is focus on prevention. Look at it as a holistic solution to contamination in the facilities. Start at the farms, start with where it's being produced, and then, as in the processing plants, focus on prevention. Not just being reactionary to when a positive is achieved, but be more proactive in looking for what's out there, you know, and don't be afraid of what you're going to find, because there is a way to address it once you find it, but going through it through the plant and just, you know, with blinders on of, you know, if we don't have a positive, there's nothing here that can be a big mistake. That can come back to bite a company later, which we've seen in the last few years, several instances where there's been recalls, there's been. People have been sick. There's been some deaths, unfortunately, and sometimes that can be caused by looking at it with blinders, as opposed to being proactive of saying, hey, let's get in here and let's figure out how clean are we really? And in the areas where we may not be as clean as we would like to be, how do we address it? Let's take care of it, let's be proactive in it. I think that's the biggest piece of it. It's not about being compliant with the regulations. Like I said, that's a. That's a good minimum standard that I believe is necessary. But again, that's a minimum. Being proactive in the long run, it's my opinion that saves a lot more money to the company than not being proactive. Just one recall. I read a statistic the other day of, you know, just one recall. The cost, the minimum cost could be as high as $10 million. That's just a start. Let alone when you lose brand recognition, when you lose customer confidence, it's hard to put a price on that. Whereas being proactive in these things that we've been discussing regarding food safety and how to approach it as a whole system as opposed to component, each component in its own or compartmentalizing it, if we. If they look at it in that way, they look at it as a. As a whole system, be proactive about it. That's probably the best piece of advice I could give somebody.
[22:01]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, it sounds like you really can't afford to not invest in prevention and, you know, that kind of continuous, continuous monitoring and, you know, identifying problems earlier, you know, this thinking beyond compliance mindset that we talked about is just so crucial. And I think it's really interesting, you know, with your background in biodefense and, you know, some of the lessons that you talked about that you've learned from biological threat detection, how that can be applied to food production environments and helping reduce risk while improving operational efficiency and tackling that prevention versus reaction approach, I think this has been really valuable for our listeners to hear about all this. And I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me on the podcast today, Lyle.
[22:48]
C
Absolutely. And Adrian, thank you for taking the time to talk with me as well. And hopefully there's been something that's been helpful to any of the companies that may have listened to this to think proactively and hopefully we can make a difference and have a huge impact on food being safer for everybody.
[23:05]
B
Absolutely. Thanks again.
[23:07]
A
Thanks again to Lyle Probst for this informative discussion and Nomadics for sponsoring this episode. You can find more information about Nomadix's food safety detection and decontamination technologies by visiting their website@nomadixholdings.com youm can also access links in the show Notes to your podcast player or on the episode page at our website food-safety.com all right, we hope you enjoyed this special episode of Food Safety Matters, and we'll talk to you soon.