How do the world’s biggest companies really evaluate their suppliers?
Hint: it’s about trust, data, and going far beyond compliance.
Introduction
As global food supply chains become increasingly complex, the responsibility of large companies to ensure robust food safety measures becomes more significant. Evaluating the food safety practices of suppliers—whether they are ingredient manufacturers, co-packers, or producers of private label goods—is essential for maintaining consumer trust, avoiding recalls, and complying with evolving regulatory requirements.
This guide, based on insights from Sara Mortimore (former Global VP of Food Safety at Walmart), offers a comprehensive framework for evaluating suppliers’ food safety programs and identifying opportunities to go beyond compliance to ensure best-in-class safety standards.
The following is our summary of the discussion, highlighting the key takeaways.
1. Start with a Baseline: Certification and Compliance
Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Certification
- Entry Point: A GFSI-recognized certification (e.g., BRCGS, SQF) is a minimum requirement for supplier approval.
- Limitations: Certification alone is not sufficient. Many recalls still occur among certified suppliers, and both speakers expressed serious concerns that some certified sites still show major gaps. Large companies must validate suppliers’ practices beyond the certification audit.
Regulatory Compliance
- Ensure suppliers are up to date with local and international food safety regulations (e.g., FDA’s FSMA, Codex Alimentarius standards).
- Encourage awareness of pending regulatory changes and promote early adoption of revised practices.
2. Conduct Capability and Culture Assessments
Technical Competence
- Evaluate the supplier’s hazard analysis capabilities. Can they clearly articulate what makes their product safe?
- Validate the completeness and scientific basis of HACCP or VACCP plans using reference data (e.g., ICMSF, FDA Appendix 1).
Food Safety Culture
- Assess leadership commitment, transparency in communication, proactive problem-solving, and ownership of safety plans. Watch for signs of complacency and inherited systems that are not fully understood.
- Gauge how engaged employees are with food safety practices and how well they understand the consequences of lapses.
3. Go Beyond Auditing: Direct Engagement and Product-Specific Reviews
Gemba Walks & Site Visits
- Conduct informal, product-specific visits to assess conditions instead of just relying on checklists.
- Ask probing questions about specific controls related to high-risk products (e.g., cold chain integrity for dairy).
- Observe the environment—excessive water in facilities may point to listeria risk, for example.
- Conversations help build trust and offer insight into supplier mindset.
Continuous Learning
- Use visits as opportunities for knowledge sharing. Many smaller suppliers benefit from coaching rather than compliance enforcement alone.
- European retailers are credited with strong mentoring practices—offering repeated audits and rich feedback.
4. Implement Risk-Based Prioritization
Focus on High-Risk Categories
- Prioritize oversight and deeper evaluations for categories with known high-risk profiles (e.g., ready-to-eat products, infant formula).
- Monitor industry data and trends to identify emerging risks.
- Learn from recurring industry failures, many of which still echo decades-old issues.
Root Cause Awareness
- Encourage suppliers to perform thorough root cause analysis when issues arise.
- Require suppliers to demonstrate awareness of category-specific failures occurring industry-wide.
5. Leverage Data and Technology
Questionnaires and Digital Dashboards
- Use supplier self-assessment questionnaires to gather structured data.
- Visualize and analyze this data for red flags, inconsistencies, or missing elements.
Sensors and IoT Devices
- Explore humidity, temperature, and water activity sensors for real-time environmental monitoring.
- Apply AI to analyze trends and anomalies across facilities.
Automation and AI Integration
- Use AI to screen supply chain data, identify noncompliance, and provide predictive risk insights.
- Incorporate machine learning models for anomaly detection and predictive maintenance.
6. Foster Industry Collaboration and Data Sharing
- Participate in initiatives that anonymize and aggregate supplier performance data (e.g., Food Industry Intelligence Network – fiin).
- Share findings and learnings with regulators and industry peers to elevate food safety standards globally.
Support for Smaller Suppliers
- Recognize the challenges faced by artisanal and emerging brands.
- Provide access to extension services, training, or templates to help them build strong safety systems.
7. Maintain an Internal Infrastructure for Oversight
In-House Expertise
- Develop category-specific technical teams (e.g., dairy, produce, meat) to provide deep domain knowledge.
- These specialists can effectively evaluate product-specific risks and support supplier improvement initiatives.
Ongoing Engagement
- Promote regular, informal dialogue with suppliers to strengthen relationships and build trust.
- Use supplier visits and communications as continuous checkpoints for food safety and operational maturity.
Conclusion: Striving for Excellence, Not Just Compliance
Large organizations must lead by example, not only enforcing minimum standards but also promoting a culture of excellence in food safety. By combining certification, technical evaluation, digital tools, and proactive engagement, companies can significantly reduce risk and deliver safer food products to consumers worldwide.
Technology, data analytics, and industry collaboration are game changers. When applied strategically, they enhance visibility, strengthen accountability, and enable scalable oversight in global supply chains. Food safety is not just a regulatory requirement—it’s a moral obligation to protect public health and maintain consumer trust.
Full transcript (Headings are ours):
How Large Companies Evaluate Suppliers – Creme Global Webinar with Sara Mortimore
Introduction and Guest Overview
[00:00:00] Cronan McNamara: Hello everyone. I’m delighted to welcome you all to our webinar series on how large companies evaluate suppliers. I’m delighted to be joined today by Sara Mortimer, who I’ll introduce now. And we’re going to go through. A lot on understanding how companies, retailers, manufacturers, and even regulators evaluate food producers.
It’s critical obviously for food safety, for quality operational purposes. And Sara had a wealth of experience in this area. Sara she’s a leading expert in this area with over 40 years of experience in food safety, quality, and regulatory. She’s co-authored many books on the sub on successful book, or, sorry, many successful books on chapters on HACCP and food safety management.
She was the global Vice president of Food Safety for Walmart, which had a very large footprint of 10,500 brick and mortar stores. So significant scale and responsibility for huge amounts of food safety and a very fast developing business. Even moving into online e-commerce. As so was a recipient of the IAFP Black Pearl Award during your time at Walmart, which is a very excellent achievement.
And previous to that, having been on the retail side, previous to that, she was on the manufacturing side with working with many different organizations including Land O’Lakes the second largest agricultural co-op in the US And previous to that, companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Grant Metropolitan Foods, which was eventually acquired by General Mills.
Now Sara sits on many advisory boards, including Musgrave Group, food Safety Advisory Board, and the Camden BRI Advisory Council. In fact, that’s where we met. I’m fortunate enough to be also on that council and it was great to meet Sara there. I’ll just say a brief word about myself. So I’m Cronan McNamara, I’m the founder and CEO of Creme Global and we’re a scientific data and AI company based in Dublin, Ireland, but working with industry and government all around the world, trying to help with the science of food safety, quality and using risk models and data to help I suppose safeguard reputations, ensure food safety and protect consumers all around the world, we take a very scientific approach to gathering data, structuring data and setting up collaborations between industry groups and regulators using the best available data and ai. So this will be a fascinating discussion. I think coming from, we’re coming from the data side, really trying to understand the on the ground experience that Sara, you have from your experience.
So welcome Sara, and, maybe, tell us a little bit more about your background and then we’ll jump into some Q&A.
Sara Mortimore’s Background and The Importance of Consumer Trust in the Food Industry
[00:03:08] Sara Mortimore: Thanks Cronin. Yeah, I have a lengthy background and I, I feel really fortunate to have worked both in manufacturing and in retail. A little bit in food service with Häagen-Dazs in the Häagen-Dazs days in Di Azure as well.
But it gives you such a good perspective of the supply chain, the industry. I also worked in distribution for a bit, I’ve got that whole farm to fork with Land O’Lakes right through to consumer with the latter job in reading. So I’ve got a really good lens on the industry and I’m glad you mentioned consumers.
Corona because it’s totally about consumers and getting the safe food on the table, on the shelf for them. And we sometimes lose sight of that, I think in whether in manufacturing or retail. It’s about the product, but it’s actually about food. Food which is meant to nurture, to sustain life. And it’s something that goes into us and becomes part of us.
And that’s a huge responsibility. Incredible responsibility. So we have to do. The best we possibly can to make sure that we maintain that trust that consumers have in the food industry as a whole. And the supply piece is a really important part of that. Seeing that whole supply chain and looking back up the supply chain in each of our roles, whether you’re in manufacturing, looking at ingredient suppliers or.
Contract manufacturers for your brand or when retailing, putting national branded products on the shelf or private branded. It’s about trust. Trust with the company above you in the supply chain, the distributor below you in the supply chain, and ultimately with the consumer. So it’s a really important topic and I think we’re all part of that.
Continuum, that ecosystem that makes that happen. And we’re not getting it right yet either. So there’s a lot more work to be done and so I’m really interested in this conversation.
Ongoing Challenges in Food Safety
[00:05:07] Cronan McNamara: Exactly. We’re all food consumers. We all have family and friends, and we have to trust the food products that we all love and the brands that we’ve, grown up with and admire.
So it’s it, and as you said, we’re still not getting everything right. And I always think, it’s such a massive industry and there are so many variables. We’re gonna get into that. There’s always going to be some incidents that occur and there’s, but at the same time, and I think we discussed this last time, there are too many incidents that are occurring that shouldn’t be happening.
Even at the recent GFSI conference in Dublin a few weeks ago, they had a talk called Back to the Future and they looked at incidents that have been happening for the last 40, 50, 60 years. And they’re reoccurring and they’re not. Seeming to get any lower in prevalence, which is disappointing.
So it’ll be good to figure it out. Maybe discuss that as well. But the main topic, we want to talk about today is how that relationship, between the large companies who are buying either. Products or ingredients or supplies of any sort that goes into the Food Manufacturing Pro process.
What are they looking for to try to ensure that quality and safety and going, above and beyond perhaps even just regulation and regulatory standards. What are they and how can we, then think about what data could be used to monitor that. Surveillance that you’re talking about.
So that’s really what I’d love to get into today. So let’s jump in then, I suppose from your experience over the many different organizations that you’ve worked for. What do you think what are, how do large companies, go about that? Monitoring those. Suppliers and manufacturers. And how do they balance those requirements with other pressures that they might be under from, for example, cost or, need the need to have product ready to go.
Evaluating Suppliers: Going Beyond Compliance
[00:07:05] Sara Mortimore: Yeah. I’ve been on both sides ’cause I’ve worked in manufacturers that also supply private label to retailers as well as being a retailer that was on the other side of the fence. And I think today it’s, I’d say we recognize more that trust is what you are buying. You are buying that, and you’re buying reliability.
So in my experience, it’s today with the bigger companies, with the companies with high integrity, it’s less about that cost pressure. You have to be efficient, but it isn’t about necessarily getting the cheapest. You can whack onto the shelf. You want to make sure it’s always gonna be on the shelf.
It’s reliably going to be produced, and it’s, and that means it’s gonna be safe. There’s nothing worse than an empty shelf in retailing because the product’s been with. On recalls. And we know that only too well from a couple of years ago with the infant formula crisis where there was so little infant formula available.
It was just awful. Being in Walmart and seeing our customers coming in looking for baby formula and that’s, they had to have it.
[00:08:12] Cronan McNamara: Yeah. Yeah. And it was
[00:08:13] Sara Mortimore: just just awful. So trust is important and I think we’re willing to pay for that. Reliability and trustworthiness. As a purchaser, as a specifier of those goods.
And what we’re looking for when we’re evaluating suppliers. ’cause it starts with that supplier approval. Then monitoring comes later, but the supplier approval, the GFSI is a good thing in that it as that evolved, what, 25 years ago it raised the bar and there was, there’s no an entry level. So for many companies they’ll say they’ve got to have a GFSI certified scheme, benchmark Scheme Certificate.
So you need that as a starting point. And that’s part of ongoing monitoring and surveillance.
But I think you’ll find today that it’s more than that. That’s not enough because we’re seeing these recalls come from by and large certified companies, so something isn’t working and. To me, it is about the baseline.
GFSI is able to set standards for benchmarking against pest control consumer response or complaints handling that you’ve got your documentation in order that you’ve got a cleaning program, that you’ve got a, has a plan. They’re not necessarily going to be able to go in and validate the contents of that house at plan.
And I think it’s taken us a while to understand that and understand that actually that is the role of the company who’s buying the product, the large company or a smaller company, who’s the specifier, who owns that specification, who’s purchasing the product? We’re, I think, going in more often than maybe we did when the GFSI schemes first started up.
’cause we’re going in and now validating against specification that we own and really looking at the capability of that supplier to meet our requirements. And those requirements might be over and above. What’s in the GFSI benchmarking requirements. So they pretty much are, because they’re all around the product that you are purchasing, if that makes sense.
[00:10:23] Cronan McNamara: For sure. So the GFSI certification is a good baseline, but you’re finding that, there’s different levels of quality around how people are, delivering the, are developing their HACCP plans. So therefore you have to go a step further and inspect or validate those facilities, which obviously is a massive challenge with it, the scale you would’ve been dealing with in.
Walmart and even in your previous roles. Yeah, so I think, I’m thinking about how what maybe further data could be gathered to help, prioritize, the risks of different suppliers or even ongoing monitoring of the quality of their, implementation of their plans.
Understanding and Validating Supplier Capability and Common Gaps in Knowledge
[00:11:05] Sara Mortimore: it’s an interesting thing to think about. When I’m looking at a supplier, I want to, I really want to know that they’re capable.
[00:11:11] Cronan McNamara: Are
[00:11:11] Sara Mortimore: they capable of making a safe, quality product and doing that every real time? So there’s the integrity piece, which leads somewhat into food safety culture. There’s also, it’s also about transparency of communications, and then there’s also.
The technical aspects their quality of their hazard analysis, the validity of their hazard analysis as they put their hazard system together, or their food safety plan together, or in the US whether it’s HARPC hazard analysis, risk-based, preventive control. It’s all based on a hazard analysis risk assessment approach.
And so I’m looking at whether the supplier has the capability for that. And when I was in Walmart, we were testing out some different ways of doing it. Certainly supply questionnaires, which many organizations have, but also we were homing in on the product and what was making the product safe and asking our suppliers that same question.
Do you understand what’s making your product safe? Please articulate that to us. And we did start to see some key themes as we did that. Firstly, not all of them could answer that very simple question.
Which is quite interesting. Yeah. But you can crosscheck that against industry reference materials.
There’s some really good, ICMSF or really FDA appendix one. There’s some plenty of good data, published data for which our people could be cross-checking, cross-referencing. Could you automate that? Yeah, I think you, you could across look at what the supplier’s feeding into you against what the recognized sources of of information would tell you.
So it’s about technical competency. So we were asking suppliers that and you’d really see whether they understood whether the regulations that applied to them were uppermost in their mind. Did they understand what was changing in regulations? Are suppliers really looking at what failures are occurring in industry?
And you talked about the Back to the future. I did The Camden Lecture a few about five years ago actually, and I talked about that same topic five years ago.
Can’t lose sight of the basics of foundational, ’cause those things are what’s causing quite often the recalls. So you know, it’s really understanding some of those aspects as well.
What’s the root cause analysis telling us. What failures are happening in the category that you are making.
Are you aware of that?
[00:13:49] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, exactly.
[00:13:50] Sara Mortimore: Some companies aren’t doing that surveillance and so they’re not aware and they’re not really digging back into their facilities to say, could that ever happen to us?
Because complacency is the enemy. If you are complacent and think it’s never happened here, that’s not us, then that’s not a good place to be ever.
Lagging Adoption of Technology and Best Practices
[00:14:11] Cronan McNamara: Exactly. Trying to learn from the. The knowledge that’s being gained around the industry, either through things going badly or going well. And I think these food safety conferences are great for that, but perhaps not everybody’s attending those conferences. And we talked about it the other day that you were sometimes amazed that people weren’t using technologies that had been around for a decade, that you thought everybody was using them, but they’re not. Yes. It’s about that. Those types of newer approaches, getting into the industry into the far reaches of the industry to make sure that everybody’s coming up to speed with the latest and thinking and the latest approaches to food safety.
So I’m just wondering, do the regulations reflect that, in that they get updated from time to time. And would those play a role in trying to disseminate that knowledge out to the broader aspects of the food sector?
Regulatory Limitations and Industry’s Role in Knowledge Sharing
[00:15:09] Sara Mortimore: Only if you’re looking, and of course it takes a long time to get a regulation put in place.
So the US is doing. A decent job, I think, in having draft regulations out there. But I was at the the BRCGS Connect conference in Milan a month or so ago, and giving a session on the new Codex. General principles of food hygiene and HACCP, the foundations, back to the future, that document’s been, it was overdue, a refresh.
It took 10 years to get done through Codex, which works through multiple regulators, and we did a quick poll of the audience. How many people have read the new Codex document? It took them nearly 10 years to get published. 10%. 10%. And these are auditors, these are professional food safety people at high integrity because they’re honest about whether they’d read it or not, which is fantastic.
But in GFSI now it talks about some of the detail isn’t in there. It’s really saying, and the schemes must comply with the latest codex document. If you’re not familiar with that’s not gonna be terribly helpful actually. Yeah. It’s gonna be quite damaging. Yeah. And so I think that’s a role that large companies can play, continue to play in making sure their suppliers are aware of what’s available.
It means the onus is on the large company, the large organization to help disseminate that information. But. It is a what can be taken quite seriously, whether it’s going into suppliers of infant formula and saying you, you need an auto sampler here so that we’ve got, a much more accurate read on on what’s going on in your finished product as opposed to offline periodic sampling.
I think that’s something that we can do as, as large organizations, whether you’re in retailing or manufacturing.
Making sure that we are familiar with those technologies, and that takes people power of course, as well. But it’s something that can be done. But it’s not everyone. There’s an awful lot of smaller artisanal companies popping up, which go into retailers under their own brand initially, and then if it does well, then it might convert to a private brand, but who’s helping them?
[00:17:26] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, exactly so.
[00:17:27] Sara Mortimore: Extension services in the US but I don’t know globally.
[00:17:30] Cronan McNamara: So yeah, the regulations move slowly. They take time to get updated and then not everybody’s familiar with, those , or always keeping up to date with them and not even, especially not the ones that are potentially coming down the line.
So I think that is an interesting role, that industry can play too. Force those requirements down the chain, onto manufacturers. To make sure they have that knowledge are using the best available approaches and technologies in their manufacturing. But I think you’re saying that’s not necessarily happening, right now in a broad enough way to, to adopt those latest approaches.
The Importance of Category Expertise
[00:18:10] Sara Mortimore: it’s a big responsibility then on the purchaser, the specifier, to make sure that you’ve got all the things that you think ought to be in place. And we’re not experts. Certainly when you go into retailing Walmart we had some category specialists. That’s something we put in place.
[00:18:24] Cronan McNamara: Yeah.
[00:18:25] Sara Mortimore: And so a good, in a very good way. So we had produce people, dairy people, meat people.
[00:18:30] Cronan McNamara: Yeah. So they
[00:18:31] Sara Mortimore: could go deep into those categories. As the US becomes more and more into private brand, I think that will probably happen more. That’s very much the model that European retailers have. And the European retailers, I think, did an excellent job in passing a lot of knowledge onto their suppliers.
That was, I was one of them.
Many years ago, I probably had, 20 audits a year. But my gosh, that was a rich teaching moment every time. Yeah. A technologist or an auditor came into my facility much more so than a single annual GFSI audit. We have to think about how to close that gap. Actually, that’s left by, in a good way, the certification, but the less contact with your your multiple auditors, but the technologists and the people that go and discuss the product are the people that now have to be that link.
And have to be conversant in what the most current, best practices and technologies are because you need to be looking at what’s best practice.
Not what’s just, okay. I think you need to, as we said at the beginning, what’s the best we can do for the consumer and. It’s not just Okay, it’s really the best that we can be.
Supplier Site Visits: Gemba Walks for Deeper Insights
[00:19:46] Cronan McNamara: Yeah. So you mentioned that walking the floor and just observing the plant was a valuable resource of, or knowledge, inspection for yourselves to do.
What types of things would you be looking for in particular when you’d be re reviewing a plant like that?
[00:20:02] Sara Mortimore: Yeah. What we were doing in Walmart and was a. Almost an A gemba walk. A gemba walk. We were not auditing. We were leaving that to GFSI, which we supported. But we were looking at, over and above that what was very specific to our product, whether you are purchasing a pulled pork product or a pizza or a filled sandwich.
What was specific to that product for food safety and really focusing in on that. Looking at what the controls were that we expected to be there. Through pre-work, through supply questionnaires, through a form that we asked them to fill out. That was very product specific.
In food safety.
And then we are really going in and discussion. Lots of discussion, communication. A food safety culture, if you will. Now that’s got a label, but really it’s a technical assessment and capability assessment and a trust assessment. Of those suppliers, but you can do an awful lot in a half day or a day by, by being with the people, talking with them, discussing, having these sorts of conversations actually.
What do you think about, what are your challenges? What are you thinking about codex and regulations and you’re just gauging all the time. How much do they know? All the time, and it’s very informal, but it’s very effective at building a picture. Of that supplier and we had a, yeah, no checklist at all in our Walmart approach because it was product specific and we’d go with where the day took us.
Much harder to do.
[00:21:40] Cronan McNamara: Yeah.
[00:21:41] Sara Mortimore: I don’t see that you could easily replace what GFSI schemes do with that, but I know there’s some interesting work going on with an alternative style of audit. I’m keeping a close eye on that, but. It’s complimentary. Very complimentary. But for a purchaser I think worked very well.
And focusing on the high risk products too. ’cause as you rightly said earlier, you can possibly get everywhere. Yeah. So focusing like the FDA has with the traceability rule, you’re starting with the highest risk ones and then you can expand out.
Prioritizing High-Risk Products
[00:22:16] Cronan McNamara: And so it’s a Risk based approach, which makes a lot of sense of Data you were gonna intuitively looking for on those walkarounds and maybe what kind of iot sensors or other types of data collection devices would you think could be complimentary, I suppose to what you’re doing there that could help a database system do that same kind of not in the way you’re talking to people and understanding their knowledge, but all just looking at maybe the operation of the facility humidity, moisture, yeah.
Temperatures. Could some of that, be automated into a data collection process? I’m wondering.
Potential of IoT and Remote Monitoring
[00:22:56] Sara Mortimore: Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think it’s early days and then that comes back to transparency and trust in the communication. But I think that’s a very interesting area ’cause you can’t be there all the time.
And you think, gosh, when I’m not here, are they doing the right things? So having access to the data. And nearly all the companies I’ve worked in, we’ve been big advocates for the supplier owning the verification. So that’s, whether that’s product testing, environmental testing, environmental monitoring, testing but looking at sensors and some of the big companies, Nestle is one I believe, that are really putting sensors in their plants and thinking about how they do internal audits because they’ve got access to that data.
It’s not necessarily putting cameras in. I think you can do that internally. And I have worked in companies that have done that, but but you can certainly collect data on cold chain or heat data. And have visibility of that. Yeah, I was thinking too about War on Water. We talk about that a lot.
And many facilities I go to are way too wet.
Possibly because. I know the queen in the UK used to say everything smells of paint, because it all gets painted before she got there. I used to think everybody’s cleaning the plant before I step into it, so it’s wet when I get there.
It’s sopping wet.
[00:24:15] Cronan McNamara: Is it always this wet? Yeah.
[00:24:16] Sara Mortimore: Quickly can clean it, but you think, gosh, it’s way too wet. This is encouraging, encouraging growth of listeria here, this is not good.
At all. And it’s also acting now as a vector of transfer of any pathogen that you have in the environment, this is bad. So could we monitor that remotely?
Maybe we could in a way that we don’t today, whether it’s moisture sensors, as you alluded to, Cronin. Yeah. Interesting. But also, having access to data, you’d have to have time to look at it. So that’s where I think the AI tools can really come in and help us because during so many hours a day, and I think if we can really look at what can AI do for us to extend our capacity.
That’s what becomes really interesting. Whether it’s screening those supply questionnaires that we get in to see what’s missing, what data’s missing that we expect to be there, or looking at remote monitoring data and making sense of that for us. I think that’s something that is really exciting as it develops.
Expanding Oversight with AI and Data Automation
[00:25:21] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, that’s a great lead into, I wanted to say a few things about AI and your. It’s true, like all of this data can be then fed into a system, even just to visualize the data and spot anomalies or simple analytics like that. But as you build up enough data and if you have multiple plants or and in fact if those, plants can share data or aggregate data over different aspects and supply some metadata. For example, the information on maybe the temperature or the time of year, the seasonality, et cetera. You can actually potentially build up some. Predictive models that can help I suppose, target the riskier times of year, different environments D and try to monitor those on an ongoing basis.
Now we’re only a few minutes to go and I see there’s one question on the chat already, so I might jump to that if we have one here for Sara. From bza. Thanks very much for the question. You, he’s asking you mentioned that large companies at times go even beyond the standards set by regulators.
When this happens, do the large companies share the data with regulators, for example, what extra measures are implemented and how those measures improve or not the safety of foods, if that makes sense.
Data Sharing with Regulators
[00:26:45] Sara Mortimore: And I know regulators would love to get more of the data that large companies have and so some of the data trusts that I know Creme Global is involved in is a really good way of making that data Anonymized. Walmart was a member of the fraud one based outta the UK at Camden, ‘fiin’ (The Food Industry Intelligence Network ).
Which I really was happy about, but I think it’s more a question of yeah. Meeting with regulators as some of the big companies do quite, periodically and help them understand almost like the state of the nation what’s really happening out there because they don’t have enough inspectors to get out there.
They’re not really al, we’re not always category specific like we can be and really hone in on. Should be doing and is it being done? And I know one of my last meetings with FDA really talking about, I’m really worried about the inability to do a hazard analysis. I just don’t see the capabilities out there and it’s,
It’s almost going backwards because people are inheriting their food safety plans and their food safety systems and don’t own them like they did when they had to develop them. So being able to be part of that pulse. Intelligence, if you will, with regulators, I think is a role that industry can, when you’re large enough to have that one-on-one platform, I think can be very helpful for regulators to, to hear that.
And of course, as a large company, you do get to play in giving feedback and comments on organizations like Codex. I know. Been part of that as well. Very appreciative to be able to do that, but we do have that ability and we take that responsibility quite seriously.
[00:28:23] Cronan McNamara: Yeah.
[00:28:23] Sara Mortimore: Hope that answers somewhat to an insight into what you’re asking.
Yeah.
[00:28:27] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, for sure. And yeah, I think the mention of data trust, data sharing is a great way to share knowledge in an industry group. Yeah. And learn from each other. If there’s an incident that happens in a certain supplier in a certain region, if you can share that information broadly and anonymously, perhaps through the, throughout the industry, it’s a great learning opportunity.
And it immediately where it raises awareness of. All the other members of the group to be vigilant for such a risk in the future. So I think, yeah, I think data trust and then though that data can be anonymized, aggregated and we have enough data, have big data now to feed more detailed visualizations.
And potentially AI models. To then predict those anomalies or predict the higher probability at least of those anomalies happening in the future, in different times of year or different regions. Yeah, helps us know
[00:29:18] Sara Mortimore: where to look, where to focus, where to look.
[00:29:20] Cronan McNamara: Yeah. It’s that sharing that intelligence.
So I think those data trusts have hu huge potential and they’re you mentioned the fiin one, which is all about food integrity. Yeah. We’re working on another one on food safety with the with the Western Growers Organization in California. And others around different different types of ingredients and chemicals of interest too.
And the other benefit then is to have that sensible conversation with the regulators by showing here’s the data the industry has and there’s far more data that. Than they could have had access to before. And perhaps aggregating that with public data to, to really get the value of the big data.
[00:30:00] Sara Mortimore: That’s very exciting.
Vision Systems and Label Verification
[00:30:01] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, I think that is an exciting area to bring in. I think we’ve, one more question and I think then we’re almost outta time. This has come from Noel. And the question is, I assume correct labeling and vision inspection systems also play an important role in food safety.
Any thoughts on that?
[00:30:21] Sara Mortimore: Absolutely, and I think Cronin can answer that as well as I can. ’cause that’s, here’s an area where I think AI can really help us. Certainly in vision sorting systems, but labeling too. It’s, I remember putting barcode scanners o on on lines and I couldn’t believe the number of labels that, we suddenly found that actually weren’t correct.
Very simple technology, but surprisingly not everyone has that. Automated and online still. That’s a good example of a technology that’s been around forever. But for label, the correct label being on the product that it’s on. Simple technology, but yeah, absolutely. So for allergens, not least.
But anyone with any sort of intolerance, food intolerance it’s highly important to make sure that those labels are correct of course. The vision sort is to Cronin, right? I think those are starting to be able to gather data through AI in manufacturing as well now.
[00:31:14] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, exactly. These, I’ve, we’ve seen some of these in operation and they’re just, the capabilities are incredible.
The speed they can operate at and the, the level of quality that they can. Operate at, that can avoid those mistakes. So as you’re saying, these technologies have been around for a while. There’s more and more sensors and iot type devices that are getting cheaper and cheaper. But a lot of those data sets are still a bit stuck in silos and it’s sometimes hard to pull them all out into a system where you can actually learn from the big data.
So that’s going to be, I think, a challenge, but, there’s plenty of like technology there now that’s getting more and more affordable that can be used. So I think it is exciting to see how. Those questions that are still arising can be dealt with by getting some more data and trying to provide predictive analytics to supplement that knowledge and the human aspect of, reviewing the facilities and the capabilities and the culture as you called it, of the suppliers.
[00:32:17] Sara Mortimore: Yeah. And I think if, yes, I think it can help enormously when we’re not there. But if you are in, you’re in a role and you need help, whether it’s through the technical aspects of hazard analysis and you’ve got tools now iot, that can help you gather all the best of the knowledge from around the world in a simpler way, that’s got to be a good thing.
And that’s got to be better than where we are right now. I think.
Closing Thoughts: The Role of AI in a Safer Food System
Looking Ahead: From Reactive to Predictive Safety
[00:32:42] Cronan McNamara: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So hopefully if we revisit the GFSI conference in 10 or more years, they still won’t be talking about the recurring incidents of Food Safety failures.
[00:32:53] Sara Mortimore: I think the technology is the difference actually.
I think that’s a game changer.
[00:32:57] Cronan McNamara: Yeah, exactly. Like the knowledge is there and needs to be disseminated, but we need of more data and more systems that can ensure that those operations are actually operating with the right quality at all of the time. And that’s, I think where data and AI has a strength and that it never gets tired of.
Supervising systems, it’ll go on and on and operate at great scale and great speed and scale that knowledge that we need, especially with organizations as large as you’ve worked in with 10,000 plus facilities to keep an eye on, which is incredible, so I think we need to wrap up at that point.
So I want to thank you, Sara, for joining us. It’s been very interesting. Thank you for discussion. Yeah. Between the real on the ground operational issues and then trying to figure out how we can connect data to help join up the manufacturers and the retailers and even the regulators. So we can all have better transparency and understanding of the science and better quality and safety.
So thank you very much.
[00:34:01] Sara Mortimore: You’re very welcome. I think we could have gone on for hours. A fascinating subject, but thank you. Yeah.
[00:34:06] Cronan McNamara: Time flew by. Thanks everyone for joining. Bye now. Bye
bye.
