Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

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[00:00:00] Matt: Francine and I were talking about, now that we know for sure we're gonna be here next year, so we're gonna start promoting as well, so we can get more people in here because it's, while there are experts, there's also a lot of very young and new people here. And I think that's equally as awesome because it's the next generation learning from the experts and they can really just talk to them, which is fascinating.

And you were talking about like the listeria outbreaks. Literally there is somebody here or was here yesterday and she's in the middle of an outbreak and she came here and everybody just was just wrapping around her being like, how are you doing? Is everything okay? Obviously we're not gonna talk details, but just we're here for you.

And I saw that and I thought, no knives were out, no blames. It was just a group of people who know they're one day away of possibly being in the same spot, you know? And just, it was just beautiful to see that.[00:01:00]

[00:01:02] Intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l Shaw and Matt Regu for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't.

Eat poop. Don't eat poop. Hey.

[00:01:28] Matt: Hello. Hello, Francine.

[00:01:29] Francine: Hey Matt.

[00:01:31] Matt: Why you keep moving your face when I stick the mic in your face?

[00:01:34] Francine: Because you shove that fuzzy thing up my nose.

[00:01:36] Matt: Yeah, it feels good, doesn't it?

Alright, well we're uh, joking around here 'cause we have a great guy becoming a great friend Rick here at his conference. Food Safety Consortium, and I have to tell you before you talk about yourself, because we have grown a lot, and so I don't know if anybody's heard the interview that we had with you last year, [00:02:00] and so I'm really excited for everybody to get to know you, but.

The energy here. I don't know if you're feeling it, but we're definitely feeling it. The energy here at this conference is crazy good, and so great job this year of getting everything together. I know you're a pro at this now, but I mean it takes a lot to put together a great conference. Everybody that's listened to this probably been to good ones and bad ones.

And this is awesome. So introduce yourself, Rick. Sure. And tell us about yourself.

[00:02:28] Rick: Well, Matt, Francine, thank you. It's good to see you guys again and work with you. So yeah, I'm Rick Biros. I'm the conference director of the Food Safety Consortium. We also, I'm also the publisher and president of Food Safety Tech.

And to your point, yeah, there's a lot of time and energy that goes into planning a conference like this. When we had this podcast last year. Around this time we were in Parsippany, New Jersey, and we began planning this the day after the conference ended. So it's a year. [00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Matt: Wow. You have no vacation?

[00:03:03] Rick: I had a little bit.

I had a little bit, but actually there's a good saying in the conference, business time is not your friend,

[00:03:11] Francine: so I walked in here yesterday morning. It was after eight, and this room that we're sitting in right now mm-hmm. Was. Packed. Yeah. And Matt wasn't here quite yet, and I felt like, holy crap, am I late?

What did I miss? And the energy was just, it was like he said it was crazy. And it was un, last year was good.

[00:03:34] Intro: Yeah.

[00:03:34] Francine: But it was, I. So much more than the last few years have been. And it was, it's just been, it's amazing. And those are the comments that we've gotten from everybody. That's wonderful

[00:03:45] Rick: to hear.

[00:03:45] Francine: That we've talked to.

[00:03:46] Rick: Yeah, so Francine is referring to the exhibit area that we're in right now, and it was right before the opening session. So we had coffee and some light breakfast served here, and [00:04:00] we were opening up the session. With Jim Jones from the new Human Foods program of FDA, which is the reorg, which was interesting because, what was it?

October 20th and it was became official October 1st. So it truly is a newbie and uh, it was very interesting to hear him talk and I think it was a great way to kick off the conference. The, yeah, the energy is definitely here. To your point, Matt, last year was good, but this year's better simply put.

[00:04:30] Francine: So we've asked everybody the same questions we did last year.

You know, what did you like? What would you change? And everybody's loved everything. You know, the speakers, the, the venue, they've loved everything. The only thing that they would change, you wanna take a guess?

[00:04:46] Matt: You actually said it earlier.

[00:04:48] Rick: Oh, okay. Well. Thanks for the hint. They're still broken. The elevators are still broken.

Escalator? Escalator. Oh, escalator. Excuse me. And actually no one knows this, but I guess [00:05:00] it'll find out soon. We broke them, so we kept them all up here.

There you go. Yeah.

[00:05:07] Francine: The escalators the only negative that we have, that honestly it. So that's self-contained. Kudos. It's

[00:05:13] Rick: conference right up here. It's uh, you know, all within a small space. So it keeps everyone together. That was done by design and when we looked for venues, we looked to keep, especially in this kind of setting with all the glass, and our listeners can't really see it, but it's a, the room is called a sky view, which is a big skylight.

So there's a lot of natural light in here, but we try and. Have the conference in almost like this giant fishbowl where we keep everyone together because it is conducive to networking and conversations. And that's really a big takeaway for most people who come to conferences is the conversations they have.

[00:05:54] Matt: Really, the sessions have been awesome too. So when we got here, Francine and I told Rick we're gonna ask the [00:06:00] exact same questions as we did last year to every single one of the people we interview. We asked. What was your favorite thing about Food City Consortium and what is it that you would change?

And Rick was like. That's awesome. That way we can have the consistency in the questions and it also, I bet it's gonna be the escalators broken because last year it was the location and so you nailed it with the location. This place is awesome. Is this gonna be

[00:06:25] Rick: here next year as well? We are intending to be here next year.

We've reserved the space. We just haven't signed the contract. We wanted to get through this, you know, being here for the first time. We wanted to make sure everything went smoothly with the venue, but it has, and we'll be here next year.

[00:06:40] Francine: We will book our rooms earlier next year there.

[00:06:42] Rick: Good. Good idea.

[00:06:44] Matt: Good idea.

Yeah. And we are back next year. Thank you Rick again for inviting us again. So Rick was like, in order to make this to streamline, you're coming back next year like, okay, great, we're gonna come back next year, which is awesome. And I. I totally agree with you though. One of the two reasons why you go to a conference is [00:07:00] one education to learn more, and I think equally as important, if not more important, is networking and the connections that you get at a conference.

Because that beyond just the education, those are the people you can call when you need something or you need help or just someone to a shoulder to cry on in this industry or whatever. And everybody we talk to. Your conference is uniquely good at both of those things. They, everybody's talked about how unique and good your sessions are, which it's not the same thing over and over again.

And two, unlike any other conference, people really network very well here.

[00:07:40] Rick: I mean, that's one of the big goals with the, with organizing this conference is just that, and again, you can't get that from a webinar. And the feedback we've heard is some of the other bigger conferences. You see a lot of people, but they're, you're so time constrained with trying to see [00:08:00] everyone that you think you have to see that they tend to have a lot of conversations without much content or they're not as meaningful.

And when we discuss our conference to a potential attendee or speaker or exhibitor. It's really is about having meaningful conversations with people.

[00:08:23] Francine: Even us we interviewed and we've had some really meaningful interviews during this conference. We also had a lot of conversations with real sustenance This.

Conference, and we've been in this industry for a long time and a lot of knowledge ourselves, and we both found ourselves saying over the course of the last couple days with the people that we've interviewed. Wow, I didn't know that. So there's still a lot of knowledge to be had from the individuals that you interact with at this conference, which is a good thing.

[00:08:58] Rick: Yeah, I would agree. I also [00:09:00] think we're in a kind of a. Not we as the conference, but we as an industry are in a unique, for lack of a better term situation right now, where we're seeing the industry truly now blossom out of COVID. And while COVID in, when you even mentioned the word, many people think, oh, that was, that's so long ago.

I don't even remember what happened three years ago. But it's taken the industry this long to start really responding. And then you had the other added stimulant of a lot of listeria making the national news. Without naming a brand name. The constant listeria outbreaks that have been happening, I believe, is driving the industry and specifically more of the C-Suites, where it's above and beyond the food safety and quality assurance professionals to start paying [00:10:00] attention.

But if you were, if it was COVID and we weren't being inspected and there was no real enforcement, what's the point? And I think those days are over, and I think we're in the beginning of what I feel is a feel an energy that was similar to when FISMA was introduced, when FISMA was introduced back in, was it 10, 12 years ago.

There was a lot of energy. There's a lot of energy in learning and there's a lot of energy in trying to do things better. And I think that faded after what they call what FISMA burnout. Yeah, I got it. I figured it out. And then COVID hit, and now we've got one of the last aspects of FISMA coming out, which is FISMA 2 0 4, the traceability role.

And people like, okay, this is 15 months from now and this isn't being rolled out in a phase like most other aspects of FISMA was. This is all or nothing. [00:11:00] And I think that's caught the attention of the industry coupled with. The inspection's increasing. In addition to that, the reorg of FDA, what we heard Jim Jones talk about was pretty amazing.

Three pillars that they're gonna be focusing on. One's micro, the other's chemical testing, and then the other is nutrition. And we've not really been paying a lot of attention from a regulatory standpoint on chemical testing. Yeah, that's been all Europe's big issues. Now with Forever Chemicals and a lot of the other issues, we're gonna see an increase in the aspect of analytical testing that we've not seen in a long time in the food industry.

I

[00:11:45] Matt: agree 100% agree with you, and I'm coming from Clean Label Project now, running Ellipse Analytics, the analytical and certification arm for clean label projects. So we are doing all that type of testing and it's growing and, and the consumer's view of. [00:12:00] What they're eating, what are they're putting into their body that that fear and distrust.

Of the industry as a whole is driving this increase in testing. It's not like the food industry are putting these chemicals in there. They're just there. And so now it's like, okay, well if the consumers are really hurting and wanting to have those decreased, then what is the food industry gonna do? And it's gonna be a huge shift.

You're absolutely right. Just like FSMA 2 0 4, the new traceability rule that's coming out in 16 months, you're totally correct. And that's what was fascinating here is. You have all the major players that are going into what the future of food is all in this room right now, so, so the industry, I, I was watching people talking to Andy Kennedy, my former partner, and.

About FSMA 2 0 4 and it's just unique. 'cause they can, they don't have to go and read about it. They can literally go and ask the person who helped write the bill or helped write the [00:13:00] rule, Hey, here's a question I have, can you help me with that? And he'll just answer it. He doesn't get much closer

[00:13:05] Rick: to

[00:13:05] Matt: that,

[00:13:05] Rick: does it?

Let's see, let me think back. When I wrote it, it meant X, Y, Z, so yes. Yeah, that's, it's a good group of people here. Yeah. Good group of people.

[00:13:16] Matt: Okay, so you combined it with the frozen.

[00:13:20] Rick: International Frozen Institute, the Frozen Food Institute, which AFI for short, we partnered with them on the conference and that was also a big component of the, what I feel is the quality of the programming where we talked about last year being a good program.

That's was pretty much all me doing it. But then when we took, when I worked with a. We took a program I had already put together, which was probably by January and February of this year, and then we added to it. So specifically Sanjay Gamala and Donna Garrin from AFI have [00:14:00] been phenomenal partners in the content of this.

So they were able to add adding sizzle to the steak. They really added someone where, yes, Andrew Kennedy was going to speak, but his co-presenter was added in through afi. The getting other industry people to participate in the program was through afi. Then Donna and Sanjay have a food safety working group that they're very active with as part of afi, so they can go to that group and say, we're gonna be interviewing Jim Jones.

What questions should we ask them? And so you have 25 people giving feedback and input, if you will, to what Donna would ask Jim. So it's truly coming from industry when you have that type of access to, if you will, I wouldn't call it a think tank, but that type of group industry knowledge and questions that [00:15:00] translates into and comes into the programming.

That's what we've seen and we're very, very excited about it. So what we found is, is that AFI and food safety tech have very complimentary skills that don't overlap each other that much. And so what they're good at is maybe something that I'm not as good at and vice versa. What I'm really good at is not something they're very good at.

And so the combination of the two as a partner has really strengthened the program and the conference.

[00:15:34] Matt: And is that gonna happen again next year?

[00:15:37] Rick: We are going through the due diligence like of, well actually it's not due diligence. It's going through getting through this event, looking at everything they have to survey their members and say, did you feel that you got your value out of it?

I think they're gonna say yes, but we are anticipating another partnership this year and I would very much welcome them as a partner. [00:16:00]

[00:16:01] Matt: Nice.

[00:16:01] Rick: Very cool.

[00:16:01] Matt: Yeah, and you are already thought two years out for this. Are you going to be thinking again like at the same place the next year as well? Just keep doing it over and over, kinda like what you did with New Jersey.

I mean, you were there for a few

[00:16:14] Rick: years, right? We've actually have this space on hold for next year, and it's very exact same pattern. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. We've got some other organizations that we're talking to about. Bringing into, like this year we also had the foundation FSC 22,000, doing their North American event.

They found a home here, but we're also talking to a couple of other organizations about providing them with meeting space. And then we also have the women in food safety that had their breakfast and a booth, and there's been a lot of networking for their members. It's truly the true meaning of a consortium.

Where we have multiple groups in one event or for one common purpose, [00:17:00] and that's really what we're trying to grow on as well. So yes, we will be here again, I suspect we, I very strongly suspect that we will be partners with AFI again, and we will probably be also having additional groups that will be working with and partnering with in addition to afi.

[00:17:17] Francine: So I attended the Women in Food Safety breakfast this morning. Yep. And phenomenal. It was how that group has grown. Yeah. Over the years is just utterly amazing melody and the group that has put that together, it's phenomenal. Which, yeah, they have done. Yeah. I remember

[00:17:33] Rick: going to Melody when we were still in the Schomburg area with the consortium, well, you guys need some meeting space, or What can we give you?

And she's like, I never thought of that. Yeah, so, so I'm glad it's really turned into it. What I heard was a really good breakfast meeting.

[00:17:52] Francine: Yes. I first, the first I spoke to them was probably three years ago. Uh, in New Jersey, maybe, I think it was three. It [00:18:00] was the year that, um, I was on the panel, Darren up there, Darren and Melanie Griffith, I think are, I can't re, I was on a panel and they've done such a fabulous job.

[00:18:12] Rick: Yeah, it's, she's done a great job with it. So

[00:18:16] Matt: that is unique about you is you are really open to ideas about things like you having, like right off the bat, you are the first conference we ever had our podcast at, and you were like, sure, let's throw that spaghetti takes. And I've seen you go through iterations where you try things out and if it doesn't work, you'll try it maybe a second time.

If it doesn't work a second time, nah, we're out. But then I think. You're right. And when you said that it really truly is becoming the Food Safety Consortium, if we can all work together, it'll all help us. There's no ego in it, is what I'm trying to get. It's like you really are trying to just put together the best of the best in one spot.

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:54] Rick: It's not the Rick by, it's not the Rick by, it's as simple as that. This one,

[00:18:57] Matt: well

[00:18:57] Rick: this

[00:18:58] Matt: one is right. Now,

[00:18:59] Rick: if [00:19:00] Affy was to try and do this on their own for a first time, would they have 300 people? Probably not. That's actually what they told me. Vice versa, when we brought it down to dc. Would we have the AFI people who really aren't in our database come?

No. So it's a true win-win situation for both organizations and the input that the AFI members have made have been great and they've benefited from the sort of non AFI member. Attendees and exhibitors and speakers. So it's a win-win situation for everyone.

[00:19:37] Matt: Okay. So tell us about Food Safety Consortium is one of multiple things that your organization does.

Yeah. Food safety tech and what, like day in and day out. Where would people see you or see like what, where, where could they go? Is it food safety? Texas the best place to go. Food is the

[00:19:53] Rick: best place I've, when we were talking last year, it was the beginning of kind of. A [00:20:00] reorganization, if you will, but a refocus where I was overseeing three different industries and splitting my time among them, and we've reorged our company so that I can dedicate just about most of my time to the food safety and quality industry.

For food safety tech and the Food Safety Consortium and just having a minimal oversight in the medical device space. So yes, they can find me on food safety tech.com. We're adding some new things that we're doing there, looking at some new projects for next year. So having a lot of fun with it.

[00:20:41] Matt: Great. And I know that every single time we post a podcast it ends up on food safety tech or most of the time.

So, we'll definitely, I think we should work in better conjunction Yeah. Yeah. On this year and, and Francine and I are talking about, now that we know for sure we're gonna be here next year, so we're gonna start promoting as well, so we can [00:21:00] get more people in here because it's, while there are experts, there's also a lot of very young and new people here, and.

I think that's the next generation equally is awesome because it's the next generation learning from the experts and they can really just talk to them, which is fascinating. And you were talking about like the listeria outbreaks. Literally there is somebody here or was here yesterday and she's in the middle of an outbreak and she came here.

And everybody just was just wrapping around her being like, how are you doing? Is everything okay? Obviously we're not gonna talk details, but just we're here for you. And I saw that and I thought, no knives were out, no blames. It was just a group of people who know they're one day away of possibly being in the same spot, you know?

And just, it was just beautiful to see that.

[00:21:49] Rick: Yep. Very good. That's awesome. That really is awesome. Again, that's a testament to this industry and the folks that work in it. They're very supportive and leave the [00:22:00] competitive boxing gloves out outside the door.

[00:22:05] Matt: You wanna ask him? Do you wanna ask him the questions?

[00:22:07] Francine: No.

[00:22:09] Rick: Okay, let's do it.

[00:22:12] Francine: Tell me what you loved about this year's consortium, and if there was anything you could change, what would it be?

[00:22:19] Rick: I think actually Matt hit the nail on the head. The energy. I love the energy. There's just a lot. You can really feel it, and I absolutely love that. I, from a personal standpoint, I love the connection that we have to this industry, to this audience.

I was introducing a session on food safety culture literally 30 minutes ago, and was interesting was that session came about from a evaluation form we had from last year where we asked what topics should we be covering? Someone said that you guys covered food safety culture with several sessions. They were all really good, [00:23:00] but how do you measure it?

And when we did our call for abstracts, we said we're looking for a session on metrics related to food safety culture. So the lineage is that some attendee, anonymous attendee came up with this idea. We put in the call for abstracts that we got someone to submit the abstract for, and it resulted in a session this year.

So there's that direct lineage going back to what the industry's asking for, to coming out in a session That, and that's really gratifying from my perspective to see took a year, but it's still really interesting and I love that. Your other question, what would I change? Some of that's just on, on the operation side.

We went through a couple of new things. I broke my own rule about not trying some new technology for the very first time [00:24:00] lifetime and the registration printers weren't working when they should have been. First thing in the morning on Sunday when we had our pre-conference. By 11, I got 'em working and we've been ever good ever since.

So there was a couple of. Things on that nature that we can always look to improve. It's the continuous improvement. I do listen to our speakers on the quality management and we do apply that to ourselves and what can we do better? So there was a little things like that, but not so much like we saw last year where you said, you asked me the same question, it was location can't control the escalator.

[00:24:39] Matt: Well, you said two things, location, and that you didn't wanna. Put a bunch of money up and not, yeah,

[00:24:45] Rick: that money's always an issue. Money's always an issue.

[00:24:49] Francine: So on a positive note, none of those things that you mentioned came back to us in feedback as far as the, so they're technical things, stuff happens and we've all learned to accept.[00:25:00]

So you noticed it. And sometimes as operators and people that are businesses, there are things that happen that we're like, oh my God, why does these things have to happen? We've really messed this up. But the perception sometimes from the general public and the consumer is, you know, life happens and we can't control the technology.

Exactly. Yeah. No, it's again,

[00:25:19] Rick: that's really just self critique more than anything else. But you're right, it's been a great conference and I'm very proud of it and very proud of the team and the collective group of people and organizations that help put this together.

[00:25:33] Matt: Very cool. Well, Francine and I have some advice for you.

You're smiling 'cause you've already know what I'm gonna say. Don't even, yeah, I will not.

[00:25:44] Rick: Thanks guys.