Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E133
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[00:00:00]

Matt Regusci: Results showed a large increase in acceptance of irradiation food from 33% of the population in 1992 saying irradiation food was something that they were okay with to 67% in 2004.

Francine L Shaw: That was 33 years ago, Matt. 33 years ago.

Matt Regusci: Yes.

Francine L Shaw: 33.

Matt Regusci: 33 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a almost exactly amount of increase. It's a 34% increase in 33 years.

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 Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. [00:01:00] Don't.

Eat poop. Don't eat poop.

Matt Regusci: Hello? Hello, Francine.

Francine L Shaw: Good morning, Matt. I went with good morning that time.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, but it's almost your afternoon. It's almost noon. In a minute. Another day, another 50 cents. Well, we have an interesting topic today.

Francine L Shaw: We do. We do. Okay,

Matt Regusci: so when.

You and I have both been in food safety for a very long time.

Do you remember when the first conversation of food irradiation came out?

Francine L Shaw: I know that when I first started talking about it, people were just panicked by it and it was like, no way. Nobody wanted to do anything with it.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, and I think the conversations first started coming around, like probably back when that e coli outbreak happened with Jack in the Box in.

Francine L Shaw: It's been a long time.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Where people are [00:02:00] like, well, why don't we just nuke our meat and kill all the bacteria from it? Wouldn't that work out just fine? And actually, yes it does.

Francine L Shaw: You were eating nuke meat. Microwaved meat.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. I eat a lot of gross microwaved, everything. Oh my gosh. When I was a teenager, I like grew up on microwaved food, loved.

It's still like one of my dirty pleasures, quote unquote dirty pleasures. No, we're not gonna go down to, we're not sink.

Francine L Shaw: Where are we going with this?

Matt Regusci: It's like microwave burritos. This is like such white trash days, but microwave burritos. You can buy like microwave burritos or whatever, like bean burritos, beef and green.

Like spicy or not spicy. Oh my gosh. Like the cheap microwave burritos. We always had those because they were cheap and they were easy to cook. The people who listened to the last episode know that I grew up in a house that did not have the [00:03:00] best cooking expectations. I think it was more survival, and I was the oldest of five kids.

And so we would, I cooked for my brothers and sisters from the time I was 10 to 12. Got them up, got them breakfast, made sure they did their homework after school. Like I was basically their parent and I had to cook for 'em. And so the easiest thing was throwing microwave burritos into the microwave.

Because 90 seconds and they're done frozen burritos. And that is still like one of my, one of my like, oh man, I just want something trashy and quick is microwave burritos. So yeah, nuke meat for me. No problem at all.

Francine L Shaw: So I just wanna say, this is probably gonna shock you, but when I was growing up that we didn't have microwaves.

I got my first microwave when my daughter was born. We did not have microwaves. I also cooked for my siblings. However, when I was growing up, and I'm much better than you every year. Like at 11, I was making fried chicken.

Matt Regusci: I [00:04:00] made a lot of spaghetti. Like still to this day, it's spaghetti.

Francine L Shaw: I made a lot of spaghetti too.

Matt Regusci: Spaghetti is so easy, but we like didn't make spaghetti from the can. 'cause. Growing up like Italian, Swiss Italian, my grandpa like taught me how to make spaghetti when I was like eight years old. Like spaghetti sauce. I would like make like legit spaghetti sauce.

Francine L Shaw: Oh no, I was using a ragu, so not that one.

Matt Regusci: It's so funny 'cause there are things where like I have like trashy guilty food pleasures that I will do, but there are other things where no, it has to be legit. It has to be like a legit red marinara meat sauce. And I'll spend hours making that 'cause. Yeah. But microwave burritos. Done. Yeah. So, okay. So you didn't grow up in a, with a microwave.

What was like fast food for you? Like at the house? How did you like Yeah, you're cooking for your brothers and sisters and you're like, I have homework to do. I gotta go do my babysitting, I gotta do my jobs. 'cause you started working in a fast food restaurant at the age of 14, right? [00:05:00]

Francine L Shaw: Yeah. The jobs before that, that at 15 I started working in a restaurant.

Leftover.

Matt Regusci: It wasn't fast food at home. What would you make? Fast? Like sandwiches or

Francine L Shaw: It would be leftovers. Yeah, maybe sandwiches or, oh my god. Spam.

Matt Regusci: Oh yeah.

Francine L Shaw: We had spam.

Matt Regusci: I love spam.

Francine L Shaw: There really wasn't a lot that you could make quickly. And my mother, we made everything from scratch. We weren't like, not spaghetti sauce.

There wasn't hamburger helper or Right.

Matt Regusci: Canned,

Francine L Shaw: you still maybe barbecue. Like barbecue was easy to make. Like sloppy Joe.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Was a lot of things canned growing up? Did you eat a lot of canned stuff? What do you mean? Oh my gosh, I need to make a meal real fast. I'm gonna throw something together. Would you just pull cans of pork and beans and toast or something?

Francine L Shaw: I don't recall being like what? Being a thing British people would eat real fast. A drink. I don't recall. Cork and beans [00:06:00] being, huh? Like. I made pork and beans. Soak the beans.

Matt Regusci: No, like in a can. Pork chili in a can. Like we ate a lot of canned food too. Like I throw canned food together really fast.

Francine L Shaw: And then we made chili.

And I mean, I'm not ancient or anything, but we, again, we were also super poor. So I mean we, we powdered milk. All the moisture was sucked out of it.

Matt Regusci: My dad is half British, half German. And, but I grew up with my Swiss Italian family, so there were things that we would do that was like white trashy stuff.

Like we ate a lot of canned food, but when it came to like Italian food and milk, 'cause my grandfather was in dairy, we would have always have regular milk. Like that was, but then I, when I was 12 and I moved in with both my grandma, so three days a week with one grandma, four days a week with the other, both were very poor, like my British grandma.[00:07:00]

Would do powdered milk. And I was like, no. And one day she thought she was gonna make spaghetti for me and she put like cinnamon and nutmeg in the spaghetti. And I was like, okay, there are things that you can cook very well, but spaghetti is not one of them. I will make spaghetti for me on out. Like why are you putting cinnamon and nutmeg in my spaghetti?

I understand that you're British and you put cinnamon in. And I never met her until I was 12 years old and she and my dad lived in the same town with each other, so I never knew her until I moved in with her. It was a culture shock to see what fast, cheap food was for British people versus Italians and it's very different.

Francine L Shaw: And Vienna sausages.

Matt Regusci: Oh yeah, Vienna. My wife loves vi Vienna sausages. I never had Vienna sausages until I moved in with my British grandma. Grandmas you would put illa and then her sandwiches were like, she made one time cucumber and mayonnaise sandwiches. I was like, this is the worst thing ever. Like what?

What? This [00:08:00] is not a sandwiched What? What are you doing?

Francine L Shaw: Hot dogs on bread, not rolls. Yes, yes.

Matt Regusci: On like white bread. Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: White folded in half. Yeah.

Matt Regusci: Okay. So that was fast food back then.

Okay. In our world of food safety, I can remember thinking like when I first heard about irradiated food was like early, early, early two thousands.

Right? Because I didn't start my career until,

Francine L Shaw: that's how donated

Matt Regusci: 2000 forward.

Francine L Shaw: Kidding.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. And I thought, this is genius. Wait, we can just zap bacteria out of food. This is awesome. And I started, I started researching it and started talking to my family about this. And they like freaked out. Absolutely what you're gonna nuke food.

That would be the most terrible. What is it gonna taste like? It doesn't change the flavor. It doesn't change the, but, yeah. But is it gonna be all irradiated? Like, I guess we could have done the irradiated shrimp thing at the same time, the food [00:09:00] safety nuclear shrimp. But that's what people think irradiated food is.

This is gonna end up start glowing and they're gonna have multiple eyeballs.

Francine L Shaw: They were worried about it like they were like the shrimp.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, and I don't know, my brain must work differently, but I'm like, well, well, it's a good solution. But I also believe in nuclear energy. I always have. I was like, wait, we wanna be environmentally friendly.

We don't wanna be putting a bunch of coal plants all over the place. Nuclear energy sounds really good. What is wrong with nuclear energy? Well, off of the island over there, things went wrong and the dealer played out. I had a choice

Francine L Shaw: to that.

Matt Regusci: I was like, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. We completely shut down.

No. Okay. So yeah, problems happen occasionally, but it wasn't like a nuclear blast. Like so yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Thank God I wouldn't be here, but.

Matt Regusci: Just to give you how my brain works, I'm like, nuclear sounds good to me. And [00:10:00] if we could do this for food and nuke stuff and then we kill all the bacteria, it basically puts us outta work and I'm okay with that.

Yeah, let's do that. So, yeah. So when we first started in food safety, everybody was freaking out about irradiation, right?

What were your thoughts on irradiated food when you first heard about it?

Francine L Shaw: So, I'm pretty open minded about things. I think it's, I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's a good thing.

I also think that hypochlorous acid is a good thing, but nobody wants to change the way they do things. Everybody's like, it's the same old, same old that we've been doing for years. People don't like change.

Matt Regusci: People don't like change.

Francine L Shaw: They wanna like change, they wanna do things the way we've done 'em forever and nobody likes change.

We can tell them that it is better, that it's more efficient, it's more cost effective, and that it's safer and they don't want to listen to us [00:11:00] and they just don't wanna listen. Because they don't like change. You can show 'em the science you and they just don't want to listen.

Matt Regusci: It's so true.

Francine L Shaw: Everything, it's been around for a long, long time and still people, they see irradiation and they don't see the ir, they see radiation, right?

And think their meat's going to glow in the meat counter. They think they're going to eat it and their internal organs are going to glow.

Matt Regusci: That is the greatest line ever. They see irradiation and they don't see the ear. All they see is the radiation.

Francine L Shaw: And that's what they think. And finally that's what they just see.

The second syllable.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. They miss the first syllable and they go for the next three.

Francine L Shaw: The brain works backwards.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, I guess you're right. So with theirraditaion. I was like, well, it'll put us out of the job, but that you're absolutely true. [00:12:00] It won't because we would've to convince everybody to change. And that is a huge amount of convincing.

This is interesting.

This is how I ended up in food safety actually. So when I was in high school, I thought, oh, I'm gonna be a priest, right? And then I met my wife, and then I was like, well, there goes priesthood, right? The whole like. Never having sex for the rest of my life is not going to work. So I, I think the marriage thing sounds good.

Then I was going through college and I was like, I thought, oh, I'm gonna be a social worker. Then I started doing social work and realized there's no way in hell I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. Like the system is so death.

Francine L Shaw: Don't just talk the children. You're not gonna be.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, I'll do social work, but I just won't be like my title.

And then my grandfather in-law married my wife and I when we were 20 and like I had an epiphany that I could be a pastor. Then one of my mentors at the church I was going to the Methodist Church was like, you could totally be a pastor. I thought, oh, I'm gonna change my [00:13:00] degree to be a bachelor's in theology.

I thought I'll just do a bachelor's in theology. And then my pastor mentor was like, no, actually business is probably a good degree. And so then I started looking at different seminaries and the seminaries all told me the same thing. Don't get a bachelor's in theology. We will teach you the theology and master's when you get your master's in theology.

You should focus on business. 'cause running a church is like running a business. And this degree that I got, my wife and I got went to night school, so I went to junior college for two years. 'cause my grades in high school were so terrible. And then I went to a night school and this night school was Chapman University on Air Force Base.

And my wife and I would drive through the Air Force base. This was like right after nine 11, before like they just locked everything down. The degree was organized leadership, which is a degree in business with an emphasis in change management. I thought this is perfect 'cause to be a pastor, I need to, not only do I need to know business, but I need to understand [00:14:00] change management.

'cause people have to change. So then. I get out and I realize, oh, I'm not gonna be a pastor. The denomination I was looking to be a part of, I loved the church I was at, but the denomination just didn't fit with me and I didn't really know that. 'cause I grew up Catholic. And so then I realized, oh my gosh, there's all these different denominations and the master's, the Theology A school that I got accepted to was like, well, you need to declare a denomination.

So I deferred for two years. That next week after deferring this company, this. They'd been trying to recruit me 'cause they knew my wife.

It was Primus Labs. They'd been trying to recruit me for like nine months. They knew I was graduating and they kept asking me to do interviews and I kept sending my friends to go do interviews.

They never hired my friend and so I ended up at their house and the guy was like, Brian Mayfield. Never forget, he and I were talking and he was like, the conversation, we were having a beer. The conversation all of a sudden turned into a job interview. I could tell like an hour in like the questions started looking like a job [00:15:00] interview and he was like.

I was like, don't I need a degree in like food safety or food engineering or something like that in order to do food safety? And he was like, no, actually, I mean you do if you wanna be an auditor. But he was like, we're, this is 2004.

Nobody really knows about food safety, like the companies that we're working with or companies that are trying to get to do food safety.

What they really need is change management. So your degree is perfect. And little did I know that was so accurate. Like I just thought, oh, he just wants to hire me. But no, my degree worked out perfectly and it still does to this day.

So to your point, Francine about, yeah, so everybody listening to this, my degree is not in food compliance, food safety or anything like that. It's a degree. The food safety and food compliance thing is the food safety and food compliance of hard knocks. I have learned this over the last 20 years.

But it's more like somebody asked [00:16:00] me the other day, what's harnessing.

Francine L Shaw: I I get up again. What? Wasn't that a song?

Matt Regusci: No, I get down, I get up again. No, now we're gonna keep me down.

They're like, what's the biggest thing right now in food safety? And they were thinking I was gonna talk about food traceability or cold change or something like that. And I said, change management. That's the hardest thing in food safety. That's the hardest thing in food safety. It was 20 years ago. It's still the same today. Change management is the hardest thing because getting people to change their habits is exactly what we do in food safety and it is the hardest thing to do over and over and over and over again.

And so when we look at this irradiation study that we're about to talk about, it's crazy 'cause it's taken 30 years.

30 almost. Yeah, 30 years. But people are starting to see that irraditaion may be the thing. So, okay, this was on Food Safety News September [00:17:00] 4th, 2025. The article is Review Reveals Growing Support for Food Irradiation. The article says Acceptance of Food irradiation appears to be increasing according to an analysis of previous research, a total of 27 peer reviewed articles in English covering 24,474 people in 15 countries.

Provided a survey-based data that is a lot of people in a lot of countries and a lot of peer reviewed data, so this is very interesting. Results showed a large increase in acceptance of irraditaion food from 33% of the population in 1992 saying irraditaion food was something that they were okay with to 67% in 2004.

Francine L Shaw: That was 33 years ago, Matt.

Matt Regusci: 33 years ago. Yes.

Francine L Shaw: 33, [00:18:00] right?

Matt Regusci: 33 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a almost exactly amount of increase. It's a 34% increase in 33 years. Show you

Francine L Shaw: a year

Matt Regusci: goes to show

Francine L Shaw: you

Matt Regusci: change management, right? Like it's incrementally increased an average of 1% a year over 33 years. Oh, my land. Crazy.

Francine L Shaw: That's the 50% were what, another 17 years?

Matt Regusci: Yeah, and I think it's probably increased significantly over the last few years as opposed to incrementally a year, up until 2020 or 22 thousands, two thou early 2000 tens. I think people were still freaked out about irradiation. Yeah. Okay, so.

Refusal to purchase irradiated food decreased from 19% to 16% in the same period.

It's interesting, the hardcore, I would never buy [00:19:00] irradiated food has not changed much, right? So 19% of the population in 1992 said, I will never buy irradiated food to now it's 16%. In 2024, so that's only changed 3%, which still, if you are dead set, 100%, not going to buy irradiated food to decrease by 3% is still a huge drop because people who are really set in their ways and their beliefs, that's the hardest to change.

Familiar with technology remained relatively unchanged. About 50% of the population understand irradiated food. Which still, I don't even think 50% of the population really understand irradiated food. It's hard to understand these plants. It's crazy. It almost looks like a nuclear power plant sometimes. Food irradiation using ionizing radiation to kill bacteria, virus, and other pathogens in food helping to extend shelf life.

The process does [00:20:00] not make the food radioactive. We're not talking about glowing shrimp. We're talking about killing bacteria and viruses and mold with irradiation, but yeah.

Okay. So now that the population is more in line with the majority, and when I say majority, this is like a super majority at 64%, I believe that Iirraditaion is okay.

And that they would buy irradiated food.

Do you think that the companies will change?

Francine L Shaw: 68%.

Matt Regusci: 68% of consumers.

Francine L Shaw: Overall? No.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Not as an overall. No, I do not. Might there be one or two that are willing to give it a shot? Maybe.

Yeah.

Here's the thing, and I think fame would be, I don't think that they would be existing companies.

I think there might [00:21:00] be one or two new companies. Yeah, that might be willing to try it. I don't think existing companies would be willing to go to the expense of changing their operations to take that risk.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: My God, Cracker Barrel just changed their logo. ISN said that. Holy crap.

Matt Regusci: Oh, what a good analogy.

And she, well, yeah. People lose their over the craziest stuff.

Francine L Shaw: Their stock dropped some crazy number over changing their logo. Yeah. Let's not do a rebrand.

Matt Regusci: Wow. What a good point.

Francine L Shaw: We can't change the Don't Eat Poop logo go ever.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, it's true. I mean, we were. You were saying we should change it to I Ate Poop, but who knows? Maybe we'll lose all of our listeners over that one change.

Francine L Shaw: That's when I [00:22:00] was saying not change it to I Ate.

Matt Regusci: Our monumental stock value will decrease.

No. Okay, so here's the crazy thing though. Okay. So like after our conversation with Bob about the milk process, right? Like it's just a thing that gets attached to the line. It's not even radiation and okay, so that's taking him forever to get through the FDA, right?

So here's the issue. So I did some consulting work for a company that does electrolysis. So it's similar to irraditaion, but it's not irraditaion. But because of their process and what they do, it's a huge plant and it's so expensive to create these plants. It's like irraditaion, but it's not irraditaion. But they started off as irradiated food and so then they changed their process a bit. So it's electrolysis, but whatever the FDA on any fresh product that [00:23:00] is going to consumers.

So we're not talking about product that's going into restaurants or whatever like that. This is like direct into retail, into for retail purchases. The FDA requires them to put the nuclear sign on their packaged goods. So even if 67% of the population are okay with buying irradiated food, would they be okay with buying irradiated food with a nuclear logo attached to the packaging?

I don't doubt.

Francine L Shaw: So, and this is the thing people don't read, right? They don't read. I'm guilty sometimes. It's a personality thing. Some people will read every word and other people can, don't read all the words and.

Matt Regusci: It's crazy.

Francine L Shaw: And we deal with it a lot with, it's so funny because when you talk to people and it's certain [00:24:00] personality types, and it's by talking to them, you know, when you meet them, you get to know them.

They just look at the pictures or they'll read, they skim and read the important detail, what they think perceive to be the important details. So they may not pick up on it.

Matt Regusci: And even if they do read, which I think a lot of people read, but they, they read headlines and headline. I.

Francine L Shaw: Okay, same thing. They read the headline.

They may not read the whole... Matt, come on. I know we do what they're saying. I am not being critical. It's just as a society, a lot of people don't read all the details. No,

Matt Regusci: I'm not. No, no. They're sensationalized right now. And we do the same thing like our titles on our podcasts are designed for people to actually listen to it, and so we have sensational taglines and headlines for our podcast.

Then you listen to it and you get more context, but you have to [00:25:00] actually listen to it or you have to actually read it. But even that, TikTok is designed to just be sensational, right? It's a psychological drug. You watch a TikTok for however long, a minute, 90 seconds, two minutes, and then you think, oh. Now I am an expert in whatever it is that they're talking.

Francine L Shaw: What's funny about those videos is people often watch them with the sound off and will read the type the words rather than, listen. It's so crazy the way we are is a human species.

Matt Regusci: Yes.

Francine L Shaw: It's so crazy.

Matt Regusci: It's crazy.

So I think a lot of things have to change. First off, the technology has to get to a point at which you can irradiate or zap or whatever, yet they able put some sort of machine attached to the line. I don't think we're there yet.

And then the other thing is, in the United States, the FDA has to get out of its own way and stop [00:26:00] making irraditaion food look like it's radiate. Like literally radiation food, like the nuclear shrimp dump.

Yeah. Like you're at a hospital or you're in a doctor's office and you see like the irradiation sign for things that go into that or whatever, and you're like, yeah, I don't wanna be anywhere near that. So what? What's it gonna be like when you see that on your food.

Francine L Shaw: Glow in the dark? When I walked out?

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Walk over the trash can and start breathing it in. Maybe I'll turn into a new teenage mutant turtle or something.

Francine L Shaw: Didn't drop up out in sewer tonight.

Matt Regusci: What green goo is coming from this trashcan. And then you're like, oh yeah, well I'm just gonna eat that from my food. Yeah, no, that's not gonna, that's not gonna work.

So I think while consumers are okay with it, I think that now allows more technology to be done, become more efficient, smaller, easier to use. Easier to add to lines because if you have to send all your [00:27:00] product to a plant someplace else to be irradiated, that market now shrinks significantly and the cost becomes significantly larger for the food.

And just doing things the old way is gonna be way cheaper and easier for companies to do so there's gonna keep doing it, but if a radiated food could be attached to existing food lines, and you don't have to put irraditaion logo on your finished package goods, then I could see this being a good technology.

Francine L Shaw: Can you grandma, when you bring something home?

Matt Regusci: Oh my gosh, no. No.

Francine L Shaw: Put it on the counter with that logo on it.

Matt Regusci: What type of nuclear stuff are you getting? Do you want me to die? Do you want my inheritance?

No, grandma, I know there is no inheritance. I'm paying for your bills.

You want it off me, don't you? You want me to get cancer faster?

No, actually, I'm trying to save you so you don't die from e coli or stuff. Vanilla island, [00:28:00] whatever.

Francine L Shaw: In her account. There is no inheritance. I needed a talk gun. Not good.

Matt Regusci: You trying to kill me all faster because I'm costing you money. No, grandma, we're not worried about cancer. We're worried about you dying acutely of listeria.

Can you please just eat this and drink it? No. Okay.

Francine L Shaw: Just eat that liverwurst, we made sure it was safe.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, you say that. Can you imagine one of your grandkids giving you some irradiated food Francine? Well, uh.

Okay, so there we go. Irradiated food may be in the cards in the future. Probably not tomorrow.

Francine L Shaw: Probably not.

Matt Regusci: At this rate.

Francine L Shaw: I don't know. I think something else is being called recalled because of Listeria. How many Listeria recalls do we need? I think that there's another recall today.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. That is the biggest food safety issue is listeria. Everybody's salmonella, e coli. Those are big issues, but they tend to be risk based.

Francine L Shaw: Listeria's come to the forefront.

Matt Regusci: Because it's so hard [00:29:00] to kill. It's so hard to kill listeria. Listeria can grow anywhere in a plant and it will dig into drains, dig into cracks in walls. If you're not on it all the time, it's just going to keep growing in your plant. And so listeria is different. Like when we are looking at salmonella e coli, those are risk-based products, right?

So we know that e coli is going to be in certain vegetables, certain fruits, it's gonna be on meats, it's gonna be anywhere where fecal coliform could be listeria, the same thing. And if you could control it easier. Listeria, sorry, salmonella could be the same thing, but listeria is ubiquitous. It's all over the place.

And so it could be in any food plant, every food plant could have listeria, and it's a nightmare for food safety people. And it's expensive because you're testing. Seek and destroy. You're testing and testing, finding and finding, killing and killing and the son of [00:30:00] which keeps one back. That's where like irradiation, I think is going to be awesome is, or something like Iirraditaion some sort of technology that zaps the food, like what we were talking about with Bob at the, with within dairy, which is not irraditaion, but it's another way, it's uv, some sort of thing that can kill the, these pathogens very regularly successfully over and over again. That is going to be the technology of the future. Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: It seems so obvious.

Matt Regusci: Uh, right.

We have to get the FDA to move out of its own way. You wanna talk about change management? They need more change management people in the FDA, that would be awesome. But those people, like Frank Yiannis was one of them.

Frank Yiannis was a change management guy. I don't think he made a lot of friends and influenced a lot of people in the FDA. He made a lot of change. He did great think. Yeah, he [00:31:00] did great work and he forced them to do a lot of stuff very fast and I think they hated him because of it.

Francine L Shaw: He did good work.

Matt Regusci: He did. The, the amount of stuff that he and Andy Kennedy and his team got done in the, like that new era of food technology stuff he was building out.

Francine L Shaw: They started and it was like the whole blueprint. Yeah.

Matt Regusci: The whole blueprint.

Francine L Shaw: Did they burn that?

Matt Regusci: Yeah. I think it's being implemented over time, but they keep pushing it. Are they still working? Yeah, we hit a little episode, like part of it was FSMA 2 0 4 that came out of that. That was just,

wasn't sure where

that literally, one of the big reasons why I stopped drinking was because of that.

Because I was like, oh, shoot. There's a lot of work to do. Let's go. I, they pushed that off another 18 months, and then in 2026 when they're supposed to implement [00:32:00] this, or 2027 when they, when their new date is gonna be implemented, they'll punt it again. They'll punt it again. So like trying to get the FDA to take itirraditaion off of food packages.

Yeah. I'm not sure that'll happen. Okay. Well on that note, don't eat poop.