Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E79(2)
===

Carly Bader: So I think one of the main things that is most concerning are things like salmonella and E. coli. And often it becomes really easy for me to find the source. Hey, we had a recent positive for salmonella, and we just started using eggshells in our soil as a nutrient additive.

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 Ragushi for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule.

Don't. Eat. Don't eat poop.

Matt: Hello Carly! We are at the food safety consortium and we are with Carly Bader. Awesome. Okay. So Carly, tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your company does and yeah.

Carly Bader: Yeah. Well, I am Carly Bader. I work with Willow industries.

We are a cannabis decontamination technology company that utilizes ozone and have most recently announced our Willow scientific arm of our company that really helps our clients and even consumers be educated on microbial bio burden within cultivations and within the product as well.

And really just support the industry in producing quality cannabis that is clean for all consumers.

Matt: So when you say decam and decam

Carly Bader: decontamination contamination,

Matt: when you say decontamination for cannabis, what do you mean?

Carly Bader: So microbials are pretty ubiquitous in the cannabis space when you're growing agricultural product inside with specific humidity, specific temperatures, really perfect environments for both your plant as well as microbials.

We see a lot of contamination of different microbials within that final product. And so it's important to make sure that The consumers have a safe and healthy product that is free of something like E. coli Salmonella, very similar to the food industry and beverage industry. And this is something that the cannabis industry is equally concerned about.

So we also have in numerous states detection and enumeration around bile tolerant gram negatives, coliforms, aspergillus, total yeast and mold. And really in each state. These regulations can vary. So this is another way in which Willow Scientific and Willow Industries as a whole helps each of our clients understand the bio burden within their facility and how to ensure that the product at its final stages.

is meeting those regulatory requirements for cannabis products.

Francine: So do you see the test results yourself? Yeah, most certainly craziest scene in the way of contamination.

Carly Bader: So I think one of the main things that is the most concerning are things like salmonella and E. coli. And often it becomes really easy for me to find the source.

Hey, we had a recent positive for salmonella and we just started using eggshells. in our soil as a nutrient additive. And sometimes, especially from the food safety side, it's pretty easy to determine the cause and thus the effect of that recent change. And this is something that is just, this is my expertise that can be used in the food and Bev industry, but is a little bit more novel to the cannabis industry.

And again, the tighter regulations that are being enforced in some of these States, um, really require that Education.

Matt: Yeah.

So you said you do ozone. What's the biggest difference between irradiation that we're hearing happening a lot in the marketplace and the use of ozone?

Carly Bader: So I think the main difference is really the support that we also give.

A lot of times there is the use of irradiation as a final step. To ensure product is going out clean, but I think what's really important when it comes to the cannabis quality conference that we're at here is really that the quality of the product and the safety around the product is really from truthfully seed to sale and that we really support these cultivators and understanding their microbial bio burden.

And then you can really just use ozone very quickly as a final step in which we can do a one hour or a two hour treatment with ozone that really ensures that the terpene content is kept preserved, that the cannabinoids are exactly the way that they were prior, because a lot of these treatments, um, At 8, 10, 12 hours can cause negative effects when it comes to quality.

So really ensuring that the product that is put into the Willow 360 to be ozonated is at the lowest microbial bioburden. So we can just have a quick one hour treatment and ensure that your product is going to pass testing, not have to be retested or failed and held into metric, and ensure that really seamless process.

Ensuring that you have a final product that's ready for the shelf and safe for consumers.

Francine: So I'm going to go back to something that you said a couple statements ago.

I actually taught a food safety seminar in a cannabis plant a couple years ago, and they truly didn't understand the food safety side of the business at all.

It was very new to them. So the education from the food safety side is very important.

Carly Bader: Yeah, a lot of these things are organic, but might be a microbial concern, and that's where we really help them understand what is regulated and tested for in their state specifically, because each state has its own variation.

and then tailoring their standard operating procedures around those. I am not against living soil. I'm not against adding beneficials, but if the quantity of those beneficials that you're adding cannot be mediated by a one or two hour ozone treatment, you might need to reduce that just a little bit.

Francine: So you can tell that you know your industry very well, and you obviously are very educated and understand what you're doing, which is great.

You should in your business, and that's refreshing to hear. I'm sure for a lot of people.

So at the Food Safety Consortium, is this your first year?

Carly Bader: Yes, this is my first year here.

I love that we're here together. I heard last year it started with the food safety and ended with cannabis. And I think having us integrated together and being here and being able to visit both Of these talk tracks is really exactly this.

It is the synergies of our industry. And I think we are in the same place now and people are investigating their environments within their cultivations. They are putting in environmental monitoring systems. They are taking QA, QC samples to ensure their inputs are low microbial bio burden. And this is something that I think with federal legalization and just the future of our industry, really tightening.

Those loose nuts is really important. And what I see in the future, we're getting so many more calls from clients who just want to reach out and learn more. And I'm always open to talking and consulting and working with each cultivator to ensure that. Their product is exactly the way that they want it and that it passes regulated testing.

Matt: That's awesome. What do you like most about Food Safety Consortium and where do you see opportunities for improvement?

Carly Bader: I think the best thing is really seeing that synergy, really seeing how we do overlap and how the environmental monitoring systems that have been perfected by the food industry can be so easily and quickly adopted.

And even in a very economic way, some of these things are not expensive. And so they're really low hanging fruit for some of the cultivations to pick up and integrate into their processes. So I think that overlap is what's really most important here. And again, not a far stretch. We really are speaking the same language.

I think the coolest thing here is that I was in the elevator with Pepsi yesterday. I was drinking a Diet Coke, which I tried to hide. But these huge companies in the cannabis industry, we talk about MSOs operators that are in multiple states. But when you talk Pepsi, now we're talking global. So I think this is something that I so optimistically see in our future and then get to see right next to me in the elevator as well.

Matt: Jason's just a cool guy. . He's a really good guy. So, and it's interesting too, 'cause you talk about. Pepsi being here and Hershey is here and there's a lot of really big companies. Wendy's is here. And then you look at them and you're like, Oh my gosh, these are like, these are brands that, and then you find out, Oh, they're just run by people, really knowledgeable, smart people.

Carly Bader: So open and wanting to have these discussions. I feel like for some time, the cannabis industry was the redheaded stepchild. And Now, is there a way to integrate cannabis into Pepsi products? Maybe that's a next step. We know we can't put them into alcoholic beverages, but hey, wouldn't it be nice to have a nice can of Pepsi that has a little CBD in it?

Matt: Yeah. So instead of Pepsi zero, maybe Pepsi high.

Carly Bader: Oh my gosh. I love it. Level up.

Matt: Francine's shaking her head right now.

Francine: Trust.

What does trust mean to you?

Carly Bader: Oh, gosh, that's huge. I feel like that's even bigger when it comes to the cannabis industry. I think as a scientist, a lot of my decisions are data based, right?

But when it comes to recommendations for our clients to get a better understanding and then take action on that data, I think it really is important that we come to these conferences, share this information, Share the data and really be able to build that trust within the cannabis community internally, as well as education outward education, even here, I talked with Pepsi a little bit about cannabis, and maybe he feels a little bit more comfortable around using consuming or having cannabis in his home.

And I think. The trust around people is really important and being able to see each other and hang out and see that we're real people. And you know, that we're not the redheaded stepchild, that we are just scientists, just like anyone else. And I often have said, you know, if it was, you know, Tortillas or bread or meat, you know, on my side of the industry, like it's just the same, you know, if it's a leafy green or a green bud of weed, I feel like we all have here a collective trust in consumer safety and a trust in science.

Very cool.

Matt: Very cool.

Well, Carly, it was a pleasure talking with you and we have some advice. Don't eat poop.