Leadership Panel Discussion: The Future of Food Supply Chains Registration

Duration:60 minutes

Your supply chain is critical to your food safety program. Having full control and traceability of your raw materials and end products is no longer an option – but a requirement. Furthermore, in the past two years, we’ve watched as the pandemic has exposed new weaknesses and made visible the business risks you face from an unstable supply chain.

Tune in as Bob Ferguson, President of Strategic Consulting leads an in-depth discussion of these issues with two food safety leaders at the forefront of this change, Frank Yiannas, Deputy Commissioner, Food Policy and Response, FDA and Sean Leighton, Global Vice President, Food Safety, Quality and Regulatory Affairs, Cargill.

Join us as we discuss:

The future of supply chain control and what the “New Era of Smarter Food Safety” will mean for you and traceability.
Why supply chain control is a critical business risk management imperative and why “Just-in-Time’ is giving way to “Just-in-Case.”
Insights from leaders who each have broad responsibility and a unique vantage point on these issues – and find out what they see as critical in this transition and where you can expect to see change in the next 3-5 years.

Speakers

Frank Yiannas

Food Safety Culture Expert and former FDA Deputy Commissioner of Food Policy and Response

Frank Yiannas is a food safety culture expert and advocate, having advanced global thinking on the subject with his pivotal 2008 book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-Based Food Safety Management System. He is also the former Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response at FDA, having resigned from the agency in February 2023. While at FDA, he was instrumental in creating the New Era for Smarter Food Safety blueprint and many other initiatives related to the implementation of FSMA. Mr. Yiannas has also held leadership roles with Walmart and the Walt Disney Company. He has long been recognized for his role in elevating food safety standards and building food safety management systems based on science and risk.

Sean Leighton

Global Vice President, Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory

Cargill

Sean Leighton is currently Vice President of Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory for Cargill based in Wayzata, Minnesota. Prior to joining Cargill, Sean worked for over 13 years at The Coca-Cola Company in various roles across Quality, Food Safety and Environmental Sustainability, working in the US, Canada and Europe. Sean has a BS in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MS in Food Science from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from Emory University. Sean sits on the advisory board of many organizations including, but not limited to, IAFP’s Journal of Food Protection, The Center for Food Safety (UGA), GMA’s Science & Education Foundation and the Food Fraud Think Tank (MSU).

Bob Ferguson

President

Strategic Consulting International Inc.

Bob Ferguson is President of Strategic Consulting, Inc., a company that since 1996 has been the leading resource for market information in industrial diagnostics, focused on global microbiology markets in food and beverage safety. Bob has more than 30 years of experience in microbiology and laboratory businesses. Prior to joining Strategic Consulting, Bob was Vice President and General Manager for Becton Dickinson’s (BD) Industrial Microbiology and Microbiological Media Business. Bob serves as a member of the Food Safety Magazine editorial advisory board and is the contributing author of the Food Safety Insights column.

Stacy Atchison

Publisher

Food Safety Magazine

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