Food for Thought: Why Better Data Matters in Food Safety

[00:00:00] Ideally, we should never have food safety recalls. The goal should be zero by anybody and everybody. Tracability is not going to fix that. It's going to be about you understanding food safety practices and prevention upfront so you don't even have to go backwards and trace it. Hello and welcome to the Next Level Supply Chain with GS1 US, a podcast in which we explore the mind-bending world of global supply chains, covering topics such as automation, innovation, unique identity, and more.

[00:00:26] I'm your co-host, Reid. And I'm Liz. And welcome to the show. Reid and I just had a great conversation with Brian Shainberg, the Executive Director at Illinois Tech Institute for Food Safety and Health. Brian shared so much information about food recalls, food safety, how data is so very important in our food ecosystem, what different types of food outbreaks or recalls there could be because sometimes it's food related

[00:00:54] and sometimes it's just a label and sometimes it's allergens, which is so very important. We talked about what's coming up, how 2D barcodes can help and how data is so very important. Hey Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. We're really looking forward to this conversation. It's really important. We all eat food. So talking about food safety and recalls is something near and dear to all of our hearts.

[00:01:20] Before we jump in, share a little bit about your background and the work that you're involved in. Yeah. And I would agree. We all love food in some form. And so we always hope it's going to be safe and wholesome in some way. And that's kind of what the mission is that we drive towards here today at the Institute for Food Safety and Health. But my journey never took me to food. My food was never in my forecast. It wasn't even in my radar as a kid growing up. Nature, outdoors, science, plants, how plants can benefit you.

[00:01:47] So there's that tie a little bit, but it was always kind of going that way. And of course, parents are like, you're going to do this because this is where the track is. Engineering is this big world back in the eighties. But within the first semester, I'm like, I don't like calculus. I don't like numbers. I like chemistry. It's just a different mindset than calculus. And so fell into chemistry and biology as a degree. Didn't know what I was going to do. Probably pharmaceutical research of some sort, right?

[00:02:12] Kind of when you think about that back then, because you're not really told back then that food science is even an option or even that it's a degree in the United States. Much more recognized outside the U.S. and other countries than here in the U.S. And so I just kind of looked at it and said, yeah, I'm just going to keep going to grad school because I didn't know where I wanted to work. And then I went to Virginia Commonwealth University and did a Ph.D. in organic natural products chemistry. So it started to tie together the idea of folklore and medicine and how they're used and taking plants and then finding out why.

[00:02:42] Right. So what's the benefit in them? And can we then create anti-cancer drugs with things like that or even anti-insecticitals? So that was kind of some of the work that I did as my Ph.D program. The journey then took me to a postdoc at the University of Mississippi. And that was at the National Center for Natural Products Research, one of the FDA centers of excellence, which I'll talk a little bit more about once I talk about iFISH. And that was actually dietary supplement and natural products based.

[00:03:06] So as the GOPs and everything was moving in the dietary supplement rollout in the 90s, they needed methods for adulteration and safety and identity and all those things. So that was a great step up in that direction for me in the natural product space. It just kind of fell into place. Had a great time there for a few years. And Eli Manning was quarterback, so couldn't complain about the football time at Oxford there at Ole Miss during that period. But knowing I wanted to continue on into industry at some point, ended up at a contract research lab, which most of them have been bought up.

[00:03:34] But it was in the natural products, dietary supplement space, but also helping a lot of the big food companies looking at actual ingredients and what they're going to start using portfolios. Then Mars came calling, Mars Incorporated. They wanted to launch their first dietary supplement onto the market. And so I got the pleasure of actually helping with that great team based on their great science. Again, the research are usually cocoa and the cocoa flavanols and what that history was around the science and health and bubbles. Then on I went to Starbucks into the regulatory and science fair side of things.

[00:04:04] So now I'm in the food space. Then that's where Mars kind of gave me that eyes into food and food safety is because leading kind of that group of experts in supplements. Then it put me on their global stage of contacts and their programs, whether that's documentations, their auditing systems, understanding what hazards are. And that truly started me on that food journey. And then Starbucks, of course, being authored where they do that. And again, health and wellness hazards. What's coffee for us? What's the state of the building look like?

[00:04:34] And it's a global platform. And so I had a great time with them for almost 10 years. I wasn't looking to leave Seattle, but then sometimes doors open and you kind of have to step into that and take a chance. And here I am now as an academic here at the Institute for Fitment Safety and Health, which is part of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute programs of research. So we are part of the university. We are almost 40 years old on the program that we are in.

[00:04:57] We were the first FDA center of excellence formed almost four years ago, which that led to the Mississippi one. There's one at the University of Maryland and another at UC Davis. And we're going to do this again with food safety in mind in the various aspects of what we have as expertise. But it was with the notion here of bringing together industry, academics, and then having FDA and government connect and work together,

[00:05:22] trying to solve the pressing food safety questions of the time, whether that's looking at technologies that could be used and validating those technologies. Or it's things happening in the moment. We need to figure out why they're happening in the moment. Like why are more peaches recalber salmonella? That made no sense. We're able to step in and do some of the research to understand it became airborne from the chicken plant or chicken farm next door. So it's interesting how you learn about all these little microbes and pathogens, how they survive through their systems.

[00:05:49] So it's kind of fun being back into the science world, the academic world, but still getting to really touch base with the regulators, working closely with the scientists at the regulatory side that's helping guidance, build these programs, as well as trainings, which really kind of leads us to where we're going to talk more around traceability data and what that whole means from recently from farm to table. How do we then connect all those dots to try to make a safe product? So again, that's a long journey. Just kind of took it as it went and landed where I did.

[00:06:20] But I'm also an Illinois native. So really it's coming back home after 25 years, you know, living all over the US. That's amazing. So we're here today talking about food safety and recalls is a big part of this. And you don't have to look far in the news to find that recalls kind of seem to be everywhere now. We've talked about this and really kind of teeing it up. But from your perspective, are we actually getting worse?

[00:06:49] What's the part of the story that, you know, the general public might be missing because it's just boom in your face, another salmonella, another this, another that, you know, don't eat the spinach, you know, all of it. So understandable that people are starting to feel that way. In part, it's the blessing of having this little piece of a device or technology in our hand. It's got all this great information, but also because of that information, we're getting overloaded and a lot of things coming at us.

[00:07:16] So the answer is a yes and no. There's never an easy way to say that. Right. But the reality is when it comes to recalls or things like that on the market and one year does not make a trend as well. Right. So it's also looking at the whole data set as a whole. So FTA has a great dashboard they built now. It goes all the way back to 2011 for recalls. Does a great job of showing the trend and you can look at it. You can look at it in two buckets. One is the actual events, meaning a firm has an event. So they track that as one single number.

[00:07:46] And then you have actual total products from that event or recall. So then you'll see another chart specific to the total of products. So with that being said, their fiscal year, if you will, goes October to September. So when you look at that, you know, put that in context as well. So, yes, between 24, 2025, there was an increase in recall events, but a decrease in total products recalls. Oh yeah.

[00:08:13] When you look at the class, meaning one, two or three, one being the worst, right? If you read it, it's caused or will cause death illness or severity. Class two, probable. And then class three, not going to cause a problem. That's usually mislabeled or something or quality issue. You would see also a decrease in class ones and an increase in class two. So you're seeing a shift in the more severe over that time period to less severe.

[00:08:40] Ideally, you want to get all the way to three or just not even have them recalled at all, but you're seeing a change. And if you really also look at the data set and go back to 2015, 2017, we were way higher in recalls of both. So we've already been down and been on a downward trend. We will have to see what this 2026 looks like to see if there's another trend starting to happen. And why? Right. So we'd also have to then ask the question, why is this happening? It could be a lot of things. And what I find interesting, just kind of looking at the data today.

[00:09:08] So we've six months into 2026 under their calendar. If we stay on trend, we will have more events than last year. It'll be slightly higher again. It seems like there's more physical hazard events taking place now. Plastic, metal or things being found in product. You know, if you see a lot of, I've been seeing a lot of those pop. A lot of them are prevented. So if you really also want to see what's actually impacting a consumer head on, CDC is going to track that, right?

[00:09:35] Any event that's one or more or more than one person to that, that's an outbreak from a foodborne illness perspective. And they track that. And so that's your pathogens and those things like that, whether it's Salmonella, E. coli, and so forth. You have a lot of push now on allergens creating that space of recall. And that's usually been where the most had been is mislabeled product on accident within the firm or wrong ingredient used or a cross-entamination of unintended consequence.

[00:10:05] And so, again, it's all nuanced in some of how this is all flowing. And I think it's interesting when I look at it. If I think back to do we see a trend potentially going up? So one, you had Food Safety Modernization Act, which really started us on a journey of prevention. And FDA having full recall authority now. They never had that before, the Food Safety Modernization Act, which most consumers probably would be like, are they kidding? Is that real? Yeah, it's real. They actually didn't have legal authority to force a firm to recall.

[00:10:34] They can still take them to court, but they couldn't force them in that sense. Now they can. And when you're seeing these preventions, so anytime now a company finds that, hey, we found this study, we found the test, it's telling or indicating something, they now really prevented recall. And so a lot of the products on the market that have been recalled haven't actually led to an illness that's been traced or tracked or confirmed within the system. So that's that. So I know I've been talking a lot, but I keep going, but I'll let you go out and read with any next questions or comments.

[00:11:04] No, just staying on this topic, I kind of feel like it's one of those statistical kind of mathematical things where we weren't looking at it as much before. Now we are. And I feel that there's a lot more of self-imposed recalls by brands and manufacturers, even facilitators, if you will. It's not the brand, but we make the product for the brand.

[00:11:27] And they're like, hey, we're going to recall this batch and lot because we had a problem in the facilities and somebody dropped the bag into the mixer bowl and we're not going to take a chance. We're just going to pull it off. So I feel like it's twofold, whereas you just said, you know, the FDA finally has the full capability to invoke a recall where before they didn't and you had to go to court and like, oh, great, let's go to court.

[00:11:52] Let's spend a couple of weeks and months and, you know, quarters trying to figure this out while things are happening. Now it's I think because of this, we're seeing both sides being proactive and yes, you might have more recalls, but they're more isolated for better reasons. I would much rather have that than go back to the 80s. It's the prevention mantra, right? I mean, the whole idea of physical prevention, everything before that was about reaction.

[00:12:23] And so you have that and regulation put the onus where it always should have been and probably always was. But if you're making food and it's your brand, you're going to put it on the shelf for a consumer to eat and consume. You're responsible, period, for the safety of that product. And so that's also part of that, right? That, hey, I found this. I've got the data based on my food safety plan, my controls and my processes that tells me I've got something.

[00:12:47] I better take action because if I don't and something happens or FDA comes in and does their typical audit, finds that you had an event and did nothing about it, you're also going to get dinged pretty hard on that and potentially use your FDA license for 95-tran food. Yeah. Right. So it's again, it's about putting the onus back where it should be, which is industry. If you're going to make this and you're going to profit off the consumer, it's your job to make sure it's safe.

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[00:13:40] Okay. Okay. So it's a few less than I've been to. It's all good. All good. I love going to Connect to meet our attendees every single year who bring so many great examples from grocery, food service, retail and healthcare about how they solve supply chain visibility challenges. And in 2026, Las Vegas gives us the perfect excuse for a few puns about how GS1 standards can help you make bold moves that lead to big wins.

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[00:15:07] It's time to take your supply chain game to the next level. As a podcast listener, we are able to extend a special discount. That's right, Liz. As a podcast listener, you can get 10% of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price. That's right, Liz. From the next few minutes to get 10% off the registration price. Go to connect.gs1us.org to register and enter the promo code GS1USPOD10 to take advantage of this offer.

[00:15:36] If you've never been to GS1 Connect or if you've gone a dozen times, there's always something new to learn and new people to meet. Absolutely. Again, the website is connect.gs1us.org and the promo code is GS1USpod10. See you there. You mentioned FISMA and I kind of have a two-pronged question. So Food Safety Modernization

[00:16:03] Act or FISMA has been around since 2011. We have been hearing more about it because of FISMA rule 204, Section 204 and the traceability rule. Can you just give us a quick overview of FISMA as a whole? And then Section 204, and I know it's in effect, it's not into compliance, that's in 2028,

[00:16:27] but it's not going to limit recalls altogether. Can you just talk a little about how FISMA overarching and then how FISMA, this specific traceability rule, play with industry? Absolutely. So yeah, FISMA, it's kind of thing when you say 2011, that was a long time ago, right when this was signed into law. But within that, of course, it doesn't just trigger a switch in 2011 that everything is this, right? So under the law, a bunch of actual rules had to be developed

[00:16:56] based on Congress's mandate in specific areas. So one of those is provided controls for human foods. There's another one for animal foods. There's foreign supplier verification, intentional adulteration. So they have a lot of these areas to think about where there might be risk in the food supply chain. And so as those rules were put out, then the compliance states were propagated based on usually size of companies to meet those. That's where you start to see,

[00:17:23] and that could be partly why you saw some recalls really heading hard at 2015 to 17, right? You started, people started getting in there and really developing food safety plans and finding out more, that they need to take more action. Possibly, right? I don't have the full root cause of all those, but potentially that's why you saw that bump up. And then as people started getting better at it and understanding it better, you saw that then slide back down and kind of plateau off. So that's kind of FISMA as their rules are coming out. And now here we are at the one you're talking about,

[00:17:52] which is the food traceability rule many years later, which is really kind of the last one out of the FISMA bucket of compliance and the act itself. And the intent of it is, it's not necessarily that it's going to change or reduce recalls because this is all about data. Yeah. Food traceability is nothing about food safety actually, it's a data exercise.

[00:18:15] And the idea is by having better data, better traceability, better knowledge, I can get product off the market faster. And I can be much more surgical on what needs to be taken from market. So it's going to be twofold. It's helping the consumer. It's also helping you as a company because you're not going to be throwing away as much waste in some instead of a broad recall, because you don't know where it came from and you don't know where it spread out in your actual

[00:18:43] supply chain. So ideally that's what this should play out. The trainings for this is now all launching. The Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance, which is part of the Institute and was funded through the FDA programs was designed to build these training across multiple roles to help small and medium come up to knowledge base. Doesn't mean you're going to comply just because you take it, but it's going to get you on the journey of answering the right questions like the

[00:19:10] Food Safety for Preventive Controls for Human Foods. It's going to teach you how to do a food safety plan. It's going to teach you how to understand risk and hazard assessment. And so make sure you have a preventive control qualified individual on staff and that's just to get from that, right? So it's just trying to give you the tools and the understanding, but understanding it's not a one to done. It's your journey to continue and build that toolbox of food safety knowledge. So it's a great challenge because what was 10 years ago is different than today. We can look at

[00:19:38] powdereded formula being one of those unexpected things in the most recent recall with spores being found in the products in Europe, right? Some things that we just didn't expect or the McDonald's large recall where the onions in Colorado had E. coli. I think it was E. coli if I remember right. Again, unexpected. These are things that typically aren't found in that commodity. And so it has to then you've got to re-now assess your hazard programs and understand, okay, now I have to consider this

[00:20:07] in my plan for prevention. So it's all a learning journey, but this and FTR, I think where it's really important for you in GS1 will always be, it's a data exercise. It's going to be from beginning to end under the products and things that are under the rule, right? So there is actual list that it must comply with FTR. Many things are exempt from FTR because they aren't as high risk conceptually as what these products would be. Yeah.

[00:20:34] Two things I'm taking away from this. I'm going to jump into a question about the data, but you mentioned journey a couple of times and we talked about 2011 and then you have to like, this has to get out into the world and it has to get out into our states and all this stuff. And I think we have to keep that in mind. It's not like, hey, this is 204, boom, done, flip the light switch on and it's all over. Liz and I've been talking about this for a while. She's been educating me for

[00:20:59] a long time on this. And each time it's like peeling back the onion a bit more as to a step, a process, a procedure, you know, an update. So let's just talk, you mentioned that it's all about the data and it's a data exercise. So how important are the data sets and traceability?

[00:21:21] How's this going to help recalls become more targeted, less disruptive? Because a lot of folks, general population, a factory that's making food and it's, oh great, another regulatory thing. But in the end, it might actually help me. It might make me more efficient, might make me better. I think that, you know, we look at it from a lot of different angles. So I'd love your take on this.

[00:21:48] Like how disruptive is it going to be? The disruption will be probably within companies that just haven't updated a lot of their internal technology, meaning we all use codes. You know, everybody in this industry is using a code to track something within their company, whether it's handheld or handwritten or on a spreadsheet, or they've got some technology that's old and it automatically assigns a lot number of code or things based on some format.

[00:22:16] So the disruption will absolutely be a cost in some form because there's going to be a required data set that must now meet the requirement under the rule. And it must match from basically the beginning to end for any products on the list. So that would be the big disruption. So people are going to have to have time with that to understand. And I will tell you, even myself, as I've sat in on the trainings and learning as we've been building the program, it's a whole new set of acronyms on top of that. Yeah. So I'm not even in my brain now having to learn a whole new set of acronyms of

[00:22:46] wait, what is that? It's a what? And you know, we even have, they even list them. If you go to the website, it's great, it's great because they have really good two, a four, sorry, four pager. Great way to look at food traceability in a simple format that details some of that, but like a critical tracking event, a CTE that I'll talk about, or a KDI or a food traceability list or KDE events, right? There's all these things that they start to define within processing the food and it will determine when you must trigger

[00:23:15] your food traceability process. And I think it'll be interesting with farms and restaurants. So if I look at the two ends of the spectrum, that's going to be new for them because the farms are going to now be required to basically map their entire farm. If they've got a product on that list and not just that they do it on their farm, they now have to map it to the location it's grown on their farm. That FGR will define how they must list the food to find that within their scope and file it and have

[00:23:45] it on record for traceability. Then that number and value will transfer to the next person that takes the product, transfers and transfers, but it's gotta be the same. It cannot change. Then you get to the restaurant where products are now impacted, which typically you think of FDA, you don't think of restaurants because you think more packaged way, infection foods, things like that. Well, no, this rule actually impacts restaurants, meaning when they receive a product from this list,

[00:24:12] they now have to maintain that record of that product for it. I can't remember the timeline that each of them has a different timeline to hold onto the record, but they now have to follow that, keep that in their system. So you can see it from farm to your restaurant and you can trace it. I would say up to you at least in the technology world, when they do request information on this topic from you, they basically give you 24 hours to turn around a searchable electronic spreadsheet.

[00:24:40] So, right. So at least it's simple in that way. You just got to be able to pull out what the information is from your file to get it in simple form for them. And that you can negotiate the 24 hours. It just depends, but that's the rule right now is within 24 hours. Right. So there's going to be some learning there on major. And it's, again, it's not a lot of data on the spreadsheet, but how do you take potentially data from your database and get it in a way. And maybe AI plays a role in that to help you within your company. I don't know. All the technology is moving very

[00:25:08] quickly. So I think over time we'll get there pretty quickly. It's just more, what's the cost it's going to be to your small and medium guys to try to get up to compliance. Hence the reason it's moved to 2028. Because again, they realized if they tried to, it would have been in compliance already. 2026. Even the big guys are, you know, are still struggling a little bit with their data set. 2026. Yeah. Change is inevitable, right? I mean, change is going to happen. If you're trying to fight change, then you're fighting an uphill battle. It's like death and taxes. It's

[00:25:35] coming. It's going to happen. And add to that change thing, Reed, it's also the want and need by consumers for innovation, new ingredients, better, healthier for me. I put that in quotes because whatever that means is a different for each person. But the more complexity you add to the supply chain, which was used to be very simple in one plant, making one product. And now you've got 20 products

[00:26:00] with 50 different ingredients with potential allergens. We have also had consumers push us in a way that's also created a much more difficult and strenuous part of the manufacturing system. I've always been taught, you know, look at a problem as an opportunity. And here you go, you got the FDA coming in saying, hey, okay, farmers, now you got to map everything out. We've never done this. This is a big problem. But now it's recall. I haven't mapped out. I might only have to recall

[00:26:29] a certain section of my farm and not all of my farms, which could be, but some of these farms across states. This is not like a little farmer. This is like corporations. And so you see it today, you know, I live in outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, and two minutes, you're out in the rural areas and you see the signs. Here's the seed that was used for this corn. And the next field is a

[00:26:56] little bit different and still owned by the same farmer. There's upside there too, but change is tough. Still tough. Yeah, change is tough. And I think that as you get more digital, as these organizations go from paper and handwritten, there are efficiencies that will be gained, including more precise recalls when and if something happens. In the end, it's going to be a return on investment that ideally will save

[00:27:21] you money in the long run because you don't have the recall or smaller. You don't have the lawsuit. Because I mean, if you start to get in there and it's going to be tracked to you and it was your fault for whatever reason, right, you've got the loss of potential. So although that's a hard number to really project, it's a true number because we know we've seen big companies and big cars get impacted by it, whether you look at cantaloupes and peanuts and things like that in the past.

[00:27:47] I think we already touched on this a little bit, but from a food recall perspective, and I guess going a little bit away from the food traceability rule, and you talked about class three, why are so many recalls like precautionary instead of reactive, more that proactive? We talked about allergens or cross-contamination. I'm assuming those are examples, but are there other examples too of why companies

[00:28:15] would want to get products off the shelf that aren't like foodborne illness related? Sure. I mean, there are triggers that do require recall once you find out the information. Okay. And so allergens are a automatic, you're not going to get a three with an allergen. It's at minimum two, class two. Right. But if you go to the database, there's barely any threes. So that tells you, a three would be if you did mislabel something, but there wasn't an allergen issue, there wasn't a physical hazard, there wasn't all these other things. It's just going to taste different.

[00:28:44] That's going to be a three because it's still misleading to the consumer because you're currently knowing that it tastes like something that it's not. Yeah. That's where a three would be. Anything allergens is going to be based in two and could potentially be a one because we know it's in there. And if somebody consumes that product, they will die. So that, you know, kind of plays you in your scope of the one to two. Hopefully that helps you at least clarify that aspect. In terms of precautionary, it's really not as much precautionary as though the law requires you

[00:29:10] when you know X, you recall. And some, we call it precautionary because it's preventive. So it's more, we found and go all the way back. I think a couple of years ago, we had all that chicken recall. And I'll just do a quick side note. Also, we're talking FDA right now for the most part, they have a lot of the products that are part of that. USDA has their own process different. Again, they have their product lines. So meets and things like that meet there. Cosmetics have their own. They're all different in that stream of things. But within the food and

[00:29:39] the precautionary principle is if we stop it and that chicken that was found to have listeria in a post-test, even though nobody had gotten sick, but because they found it in the post-test, they have to call it from a market. Right? Because it's called precautionary. That's where it's prevention and precautionary because although we didn't find it in terms of illness, we have found it in our testing. Thus, we can't take the risk and now it becomes a

[00:30:08] recall because of that. The traceability rule is a big shift as we're getting into with all of this. Based on the companies you've worked with most, what should they be prioritizing right now to stay compliant? Well, the big guys are already on it. They've been on it. They're already developing the processes and procedures in their data flow. And again, these are only the products on the traceability list. Now, I think this could help them long run on everything. Right? In theory,

[00:30:34] you have one good internal tracking system. In the old days, it was always the one step up, the one step back kind of mantra, even though it was never really written in the regulation. But that's kind of how you would look at it. I know my supplier behind me. I know where I'm sending it up front. That's my traceability. That'll still really work for products not on the traceability list. The big guys now, and it'll be interesting to see where the intermediaries in there, meaning the suppliers, right? That don't want to give up their secrets. Right? Is what they'll tell

[00:31:03] you. There's going to be a little more openness that they're not going to have to share with the vendor in that. Now, they may still work out how to best balance the data and information to protect IP. But there's going to be more transparent flow of information. So I think it'll be interesting to see how much the big guys are able to get those suppliers to comply to that. And then with that, hopefully it trickles to where the small medium guys who don't necessarily have as much leverage in scale will benefit from that as well. As we're kind of looking forward, and we talked about data,

[00:31:32] and we talked about supply chains getting more complex, I would love to hear your thoughts around the future of food safety and tools like the 2D barcode or the QR code, because they contain more, they have the ability to contain more data. How is that going to push industry forward from a traceability perspective? Well, I think anytime you have one source of truth, you're going to be better off. Now, whatever technology that's going to look like, and

[00:32:00] technology is changing rapidly. In the end, it's data. Where's the data sit? So when we talk artificial intelligence, it's no different than our human brain, right? We have a brain full of stuff. But it only comes out when asked the question. Now, sometimes it comes out because we feel we see something, we trigger a response, but it's still reacting to something, right? So there's a stimulus that tells our brain, you've got this information, here's the dump. It's going to be the same with AI, right? So it's going to be all the right information in the brain of the AI. And then it's going to be the

[00:32:28] right questions that you ask of it. So if bad data is in, you're going to get bad data out. So I think it'll be interesting to see how the barcodes and all these technologies build the right structure that gets the right data into it. So people can ask the right question. And I think if we think about food safety in that, ideally, we should never have food safety recalls. The goal should be zero. Yeah. By anybody and everybody. Traceability is not going to fix that.

[00:32:54] Really. It's going to be about you understanding food practices and food safety practices prevention up front. So you don't even have to go backwards and trace it back, if you will. That's the ideal world. But that's a reality that doesn't exist today because food is dynamic, the environment's dynamic, and we can't get to a place of zero. Especially when you're talking about healthy, wholesome produce that comes from the ground. It's just the natural environment we live in. And that keeps changing. Micropes, the pathogens, they evolve, they change, they move,

[00:33:25] they do things. So we just have to always be vigilant in our science to try to get better at controlling it. Where data might help here is the more data you start to track in this cone, will suppliers or manufacturers be able to use that to maybe say, hey, I have a weather event or a weather season or a dry season. Does that start to trigger more risk or prevention questions from this region compared to another region? Yeah.

[00:33:50] Yeah. Or you can even look at Fukushima when all that happens. They start to look at all the seasio being found in the shrimp coming from Asia. That's the data that now starts to tell you my supply chain might need to shift in that to make sure I could complete good product to my consumer, whatever that might be. It doesn't mean it's necessarily unsafe, but it's still triggering things to stop the flow, which is going to be at the bottom line, loss of money. So I think that's

[00:34:16] where that will help. You just brought me back to a previous life where I used to do environmental consulting and we used to go in and test for Legionnaires. And you'd go into the HVAC systems and into the drip pans and take the water and test it for Legionnaires because of temperatures and precipitation rates and all these other things. It's really no different, right? Like you could be pulling the same potato out of the ground all the time, but a new weather event might have a big

[00:34:44] impact that could, you know, you didn't plan for. Right. A flooding event, it moves water through a place you didn't and it also brings all this bad stuff with it. Yeah. Yeah. Like a hurricane with a farm right in front of your house. Now all the cows, you know what's in your yard. That is where I think this helps to potentially barcoding this information is if you can put the data with it. So when I say food safety, it's not going to solve food safety. It could help food

[00:35:10] safety. Right. So maybe it's data that's in there. So if I think about farming, so when I mentioned the peaches where you didn't expect to find salmonella on peaches, but then now you see that it can be airborne coming from a chicken farm because it can defecate and dry out and fly. And then once you reactivate it, you get sick. That now tells you, I need to think about the farming system different and I need to grow different. And so maybe peach trees should not be next door to

[00:35:38] downwind of X radio. Right. Yeah. And so that, and that could be any commodity, whether it's apples or oranges or things that you you're going to take me. And if people are not good at washing when they get home, you can see where some of this is. And we are, I can guarantee you most consumers aren't really good at taking product home and following the typical guidance of washing their produce. Sometimes all of these conversations make me never want to eat again, but I still eat it. I love my sushi and I will go to town on any day.

[00:36:07] Okay, good. Well, that makes me feel better coming from you. I think that's always the important part is, you know, when we started this conversation front end, should we be worried about recalls and all those things going on? No. No. We all are getting all this overload data. We still have one of the safest food systems in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And people need to feel good about the food that we eat. Yeah. That's not talking about the wholesomeness of it. That's talking about the safe product that you get in your hand and eat in that sense. It truly is amazing when you, when you look at the amount of food that is grown and transported

[00:36:36] and produced and moved and touched by, you know, countless hands before it reaches your table. Like it's quite unbelievable. Let's not lose sight of it. So we don't like we stay on top of it. It preventative versus reactive. And it's not even the fruit itself. It's changing in the model of the packaging that we start to use in the food, right? You can start to see all these other attributes that start to connect, right? The packaging should be just as traceable on that food as the food itself. With the whole sustainability

[00:37:05] mantra that we're in and the compostability things that we want to have, well, what does that now mean? Is it going to have a cross contact of contamination that it's the food that we just didn't expect? So there's a whole systematic process that's going to be looking at. And if it is compostable and it goes into the environment, does it then recycle itself up into the plant in another bad way, right? There's so many bigger questions that we still always have to use. And this is where science is always going to play a role in understanding that and trying to best look forward to prevent

[00:37:35] the best we can. But the human mind is not perfect. And AI won't be perfect either. They're just all tools that hopefully will help us be stronger and better. Yeah, exactly. All right, Brian. Well, this has been enlightening. I'm still like Liz, I'm having lunch after this. I mean, I'm going to go, you know, I'm starving. We're running out of time. We have two last questions for you. The first question I'll go with and what we'd like to know is just what's your favorite technology

[00:38:03] right now? For me, it's actually getting on the AI bus, not slow to adapt, but just hadn't really started to play with it. I've started to play with it just in the last few months. And it's really helped more from a writing perspective and using AI to help ask questions. It's better, more efficient, I'm finding than just the general internet search. But I can have it write things and do things. Now still, you got to go through it, do all the review and the quality check and all those things

[00:38:28] to make sure. But man, the efficiencies it's bringing, I'm finding it to be amazing. Even just in generally asking simple questions at home. An example, I talked to a lawyer because I needed a document for something. They still never could answer my question. I never could figure out in this in estate planning. I asked one of the AI models, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm like, that makes sense. I need to call this person. This is the piece of paper I need. It's going to really stream mine. So that's where I'm more excited is how to make my life a little more efficient,

[00:38:57] faster, and better in that sense. Yeah, I'm getting there. My kids are... It's going for all of us to change, right? Yeah. You need to think of my mom or think of us. Or when I talked about myself back, I'm like, we didn't have phones. We didn't have them in our hands. We had to go figure out in the country how to have fun on the farm. Yes. With no cable, three channels to maybe get from. That you had to get up and change. Exactly. And hopefully the antenna, you had to maybe change that to get it to change. Yeah.

[00:39:25] We're all deeming ourselves on this conversation. I know. But we all have to change. This just shows you who can. And accepting that change is actually more powerful than holding back and getting scared of it. Yeah. I agree. Reader's not saying anything. He's just looking at us and laughing. Well, I'm just laughing because I'm the youngest in my family and they would call you remote. That meant you had to get up and change the channel. They're like, use the remote. And I was the remote. That's awesome. Do they still call you remote? No.

[00:39:55] No. Okay. Brian, last question. What is something new that you would like to learn, learn about in the near future? That's always a hard one because I feel like I'm always wanting to learn. I still try to really understand how best to communicate what we do effectively to this

[00:40:18] really new generation of technology savvy, how they take information in, how it comes out. And that's where I still want to get better at, right? I can simplify a concept, but that still doesn't mean it resonates. So what is it that we need to do? And so that's where I've been really trying to figure out how do I really best leverage the information I have for the audience that needs it correctly to make change. And it's hard to do because every audience is going to come with a different lens.

[00:40:48] Right. A different story, a different why. Yeah. Different perspective. And so that's for me always the journey. And I find that to be always my objective and adventure of learning is like, okay, this is going to be a tough task. Now I'm going to see how I get people there. Yeah. That's really cool. Awesome. Well, that's all the time we have. Brian, thank you so much. And thank you for the work that you do. This way, I mean, I'm going to enjoy lunch today, but I think it'll put Liz a

[00:41:13] little more ease that we have people out there being focused on the prevention of food issues. Right. So, but this was great. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. And thank you for having me. It was a great conversation. Thank you for joining the Next Level Supply Chain with GS1US. If you enjoyed today's show, you can subscribe to our feed or explore more great episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to share and follow us on social media. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.