Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership | Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership

One of the contributors to this blog is Dr. Randy Huffman, who joined our company in early 2009 as our very first Chief Food Safety Officer - a position we created after the Listeriosis outbreak of 2008 that resulted from products made at Maple Leaf.  Bringing Randy on board was one of many steps we undertook to improve as an organization.  He oversees and leads our activities in food safety and quality systems, sanitation, testing, and technologies.  But he also helps us keep up-to-date with industry and that’s vital to our commitment to food safety - to share information and learn the latest in food science, microbiology and nutrition.  

Another sign of what Randy brings to our organization is the fact that he assumed the role of President of the American Meat Science Association just this week. The AMSA has a membership of over 1800 meat scientists from 32 countries representing major  research and teaching institutions and  food companies .  It s core purpose is to be the global source of scientific information on meat science by holding forums and  conferences that share the latest science and  the association publishes the peer reviewed journal  Meat Science.  It’s a career milestone for Randy and shows what a leader he’s been in food science going back many years and with many collaborators.

It’s a real asset for us to have someone who we know is respected in his field and up-to-date in working with international partners in sharing research and state-of-the-art industry information. And we congratulate him on his achievement.

This week I participated in my very first “bloginar” - a meeting with about 15 bloggers in the Vancouver area. These were parents who blog regularly about a range of topics of interest to moms and dads and are read by parents across North America and beyond.  Healthy eating and food safety are high on the list of topics of importance to them.  We spent the evening talking about their concerns about the safety of the food system and what Maple Leaf is doing to advance food safety.  

Top concerns and questions raised by these bloggers focused on the recall of 2008 and the discovery of Listeria in Maple Leaf products. They wanted to know about the training programs that are in place now to make sure we’re following best practices. They asked what will help ensure we remain motivated to continue to raise the bar on our standards. One very good question on that topic was whether or not employees feel comfortable taking action if they have a food safety concern in our plants.

These are important questions for Maple Leaf. We went to great lengths to determine what happened in 2008 that caused the death of 23 Canadians. In responding to their questions I had a chance to explain the new practices we put in place to ensure better sanitization based on what we learned from detailed investigations. I talked about how we continue to submit our plants to regular and random audits and are working towards certification under the internationally recognized standards (specifically what’s known as GFSI or Global Food Safety Initiative standards).  And we actively encourage employees to let us know if they have a food safety concern or ideas to improve how we do things…it’s a critical part of building a culture of food safety.   

We also talked a bit about what consumers should know and can do to protect their families, and the types of home cleaning products such as bleach or even vinegar that can act as antimicrobials.

We’re really grateful that people came out and shared candid feedback last night. It was informative and good conversation and I think participants enjoyed it; I know I did. We have to stay in touch with what consumers expect of us bacause it’s going to help us do a better job.

After about 30 years in this industry, I joined Maple Leaf in late 2009 as SVP Food Safety and Quality Assurance, in part because I was impressed with the company’s commitment to lead in this area. I want to thank those Vancouver bloggers I met for coming out to the event. I’m looking forward to more sessions like this as well as continuing the discussion on-line. Keep visiting this blog as we’ll be sharing more updates. We want your comments!

Our Food Safety Vision is to provide consumers safe, great tasting food produced in a safe environment.  The foundation of this is building and maintaining a strong food safety culture, which requires strong leadership.  To this end we are delighted to announce the immediate appointment of Sharon Beals as the new Senior Vice President, Food Safety and Quality Assurance.

In this role, Sharon will be responsible for the continuous development and implementation of Food Safety, Regulatory and Quality Assurance initiatives, including mandatory common systems, compliance, technology development, and audit across all fresh and processed  meat and poultry plants at Maple Leaf Consumer Foods.

With a Bachelor of Science (Nutrition and Food Science) from Cornell University, Sharon brings over 25 years of experience in Food Safety, Regulatory, Quality Assurance and Process Development.  The scope of this experience encompasses crisis management, government relations, HACCP, SPC, lab services, QA and food safety systems. 

In her most recent position as Vice President of Technical Services at Smithfield Packing, Sharon was responsible for Food Safety, Regulatory Compliance, Research and Development, Product Innovation, Quality Assurance, Laboratories and Corporate Sanitation across all facilities.  Prior to this role, Sharon garnered senior food safety expertise at Tyson Foods, Orval Kent Food Company, Arby’s Inc  and Land O’Frost.

Welcome Sharon we are pleased to have you join the team.