"Silver" Summit Celebrates Community, Promotes Food Safety Leadership

The 25^th annual Food Safety Summit, held May 8–11 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, was an energizing week full of new connections, insightful conversations, and top-level talks from industry, regulators, academia, and legal professionals. Our "silver anniversary" was also a very busy week, as anyone who witnessed our staff running around the conference halls can attest! Our team was so pleased to see many familiar faces among the crowd—and we were delighted to welcome a large number of new (and especially early-career) attendees to the Summit this year. It was a pleasure to be surrounded by such a passionate, energetic community of food safety professionals.

The 2023 program featured an extensive number of educational sessions for attendees to choose from, as well as a few general sessions that gathered everyone together. The Summit provides numerous opportunities for attendees to meet and network, so if you weren't able to attend all of the general sessions, read on for our recaps below. Also, you can still view the recorded livestreams of select sessions on demand for one year!

Opening Workshop: Got Root Cause?

The Summit educational program kicked off with the interactive, informative "Got Root Cause?" workshop on Tuesday morning. The all-star panel of industry and regulatory experts included Deb Kane, J&J Snack Foods Corp.; Tim Jackson, FDA; Natalie Dyenson, M.P.H., Dole Food Company Inc.; Angie Siemens, Cargill; John Butts, FoodSafetyByDesign LLC; Tim King, Quality Matters LLC; and moderators Brendan Niemira, Ph.D., USDA and Robert Prevendar, Yum! Brands.

The panelists discussed the importance and implementation of root-cause analysis, and attendees applied their learnings by collaborating to get to the bottom of a hypothetical food safety incident scenario. The breakout session gave attendees the chance to get to know one another while working together to problem-solve. The three-hour workshop left everyone buzzing with ideas—to the degree that root-cause analysis became the unofficial "theme" of the 2023 Summit and was frequently referenced by other speakers throughout the sessions. If you missed the workshop but would like to view the recording of the session, you can register to do so here!

Keynote: Balancing Risks

The Keynote presentation on Wednesday morning focused on a conversation with food industry executives on the topic of balancing risks for the safety of consumers, team members, and the environment. Moderated by Lone Jespersen, Ph.D., Principal of Cultivate, the session featured Michael Eckhardt, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal and Risk Officer, and Secretary for Wawa Inc.; Randy Huffman, Ph.D., Chief Food Safety and Sustainability Officer at Maple Leaf Foods; and David McDonald, President and CEO of OSI Group.

The panelists discussed how successful food companies manage risks that sometimes compete for investments and leadership attention, including learning how to partner with colleagues from human safety, sustainability, and animal welfare to improve food safety performance and deepen food safety culture. The executives also shared specific challenges and wins from their respective organizations, along with the cultural solutions that help them successfully manage risk. If you weren't able to attend the Keynote discussion, you can still watch it on demand here.

Prior to the Keynote panel, Stacy Atchison, Publisher of Food Safety Magazine, and I presented Michael R. Taylor with FSM's Distinguished Service Award for 2023. You can watch the video (with transcript) of Mike's acceptance speech in our LinkedIn post here!

Town Hall with Regulators and Advisors

The Town Hall session on Thursday morning centered on a conversation with top food industry regulators and advisory groups about the key issues, updates, and initiatives happening within their organizations. Featured panelists included Donald A. Prater, D.V.M., Acting Director of the Office of Food Policy and Response at FDA; Sandra Eskin, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at USDA; Steven Mandernach, Executive Director of AFDO; and Robert Tauxe, M.D., M.P.H., Director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at CDC. The session was moderated by Gillian Kelleher, CEO of Kelleher Consultants LLC and Chair of the Food Safety Summit Educational Advisory Board. Attendees were also invited to engage with panelists in a robust Q&A session. If you missed the Town Hall, you can catch it on demand here!

Closing Keynote: Legal Insights

The closing session of the 2023 Food Safety Summit, which took place on Thursday afternoon, featured a panel discussion among prominent attorneys who work on behalf of consumers and industry, with all advocating on the side of food safety. (View the on-demand version here!) Panelists included (left to right, below) Bill Marler, Managing Partner at Marler Clark: The Food Safety Law Firm; Shawn Stevens, Founder of Food Industry Counsel LLC; Sharon Lindan Mayl, Partner at DLA Piper and former Senior Advisor for Policy to the Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response at FDA; Matthew Lash, Assistant Director of the DOJ's Consumer Protection Branch; and Maile Gradison, Partner at Hogan Lovells. The session was moderated by yours truly, from the podium.

“Structural changes in routine activity patterns of food producers, suppliers, workers, and consumers can impact food fraud by increasing or decreasing the opportunity for fraud.”

The five expert attorneys shared their legal insights on what successful food safety leadership and culture look like, as well as the common gaps and weaknesses they see in company operations and regulatory adherence that lead to adverse events, such as foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls. The panel discussion generated a frenzy of note-taking, an animated Q&A, and an almost total absence of phone-scrolling. Clearly, those of you who were in attendance took away some valuable insights! We're happy you did, and we're even happier that you took time in your week to be with us in Rosemont. It was an unforgettable 25^th anniversary event, and it's now up to our esteemed Educational Advisory Board and our team at BNP Media to top this year's program in 2024.

Speaking of next year, we hope you'll join us for the 26^th annual Food Safety Summit from May 6–9, 2024, right back at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Mark your calendars—we'll see you there!

References

1. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Adoption of the FDA Food Code by State and Territorial Agencies Responsible for the Oversight of Restaurants and/or Retail Food Stores." 2021. https://www.fda.gov/media/107543/download.