Tech Podcast on AI for food safety: reflecting on FDA’s key takeaways
A few months ago, I joined Maria Velissariou (Mars) and Cronan McNamara (Creme Global) for a Smarter Food Safety TechTalk Podcast hosted by Donald A. Prater & Frank Yiannas (FDA). The question that we tried to answer seemed to be [...]
Using AI to boost supplier & ingredient risk assessment
Let's talk about food risk assessment. The process through which food safety or supplier compliance teams need to calculate a risk indicator for thousands of ingredients and hundreds of suppliers, so that they rank them in terms of priority and [...]
How can AI revolutionize traditional horizon scanning?
There are different ways in which food safety teams can stay informed about what is happening out there that could be critical for their supply chain. For example, regularly checking official, trusted websites like the European RASFF portal and the [...]
“By accelerating food risk predictions, we improve strategy & help society”
How can AI and predictive analytics contribute to food safety? This is a question I keep asking myself and my colleagues for a long time now, trying to comprehend the versatility of food safety predictive analytics and find new ways [...]
Top 5 food risks to expect this summer
Food companies want to avoid major incidents, be more proactive and less reactive in their food risk mitigation actions. They also want to increase the amount of data that they can have access to, in order to be able [...]
We Need to Talk About Lettuce
Oh dear green salad. Do still people get sick from contaminated leafy greens? Last year, the Canadian Public Health Agency officially asked consumers to avoid consuming romaine lettuce, until their investigation of some serious illness incidents was completed. During the [...]
Promise & perils of food safety predictive analytics
Every time that a food recall takes place, I get extremely frustrated. What if there was a way for food companies to be notified about emerging risks that really need their attention and action, before such a recall happens? Not [...]
“Remote audits have come to stay”
Let me introduce you to a fellow Canadian and former Culinary Ambassador to Russia. This is Paul Damaren, Senior Vice President Food Safety & Supply Chain at Perry Johnson Registrars Food Safety, Inc. (PJRFSI). Paul is working for an organization [...]
How could one predict the ethylene oxide recalls of sesame seeds?
I love sesame seeds. They have a nutty, slightly sweet taste and aroma which are enhanced by toasting. They are a popular ingredient of many cuisines and bakery products in the world. Unfortunately, a massive recall of sesame seed containing [...]
“Becoming more predictive means having actionable data”
Very often, I look back and realize that this pandemic got me very much interested into the digital transformation that COVID-19 has brought to the food sector. I wanted to better understand the impact that it had to all food [...]
Let’s break down the data silos
Let's find ways to break down the data silos. The food system is rapidly changing, becoming more and more digitized. Data is being generated about all food supply entities. It is critical to combine, process and extract meaning from all [...]
“There are still a number of areas where we don’t have tech solutions in place, yet”
Let me introduce you to the VP of a multi-billion company that, during her recent Link Magazine interview about the impact of COVID-19, said: "Food has ended up being in a perfect storm." It was so interesting to read [...]
5 changes in the market that are here to stay
"We are not going to think our way out of this crisis. We need to talk ourselves through it" Following the wise advice of Verne Harnish, I have spent the past months talking to people in the market. Numerous [...]
Can we really prevent food fraud and safety incidents from happening?
Predictive analytics are so cool. Nowadays, you can find their application in many sectors, for many critical business decisions. Everyone seems to be discussing the so-called ‘Prediction Machines’ that promises to enhance any type of software system with cheap and easy-to-use AI algorithmic [...]
“As the food system becomes more digitized, safety and quality tools will be much better”
It was back in 2014, while preparing for a meeting of the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP) leadership group at the World Bank headquarters. I let some people in my network know that I [...]