Food Safety Culture to Prevent Recalls, Technology Implementation Strategies, and Supply Chain Traceability for PFAS at IFT First 2025

Erdogan Ceylan (left) and Anza Bester (right) of Mérieux NutriSciencesProFood WorldFood producers may do their due diligence when determining a product’s shelf life before launch, but the real test is how it performs once it’s in customers’ hands, according to Erdogan Ceylan, Director-Scientific Affairs, Global Key Accounts NA at Mérieux NutriSciences.

Running a shelf life study in a controlled environment can’t include variables with distributors, retailers, and customers, which could all impact shelf life, Ceylan explained alongside Anza Bester, Senior Director of Global Key Accounts at Merieux NutriSciences, Monday at the event. If customer complaints start coming in, food producers should take it as constructive feedback to inform improvements.

“What we can do is take all this good feedback, including the digital tools that we have - meaning temperature data, distribution data - take everything back and redesign to improve the shelf life of the product,” said Ceylan. “Once we see the customer thinks that shelf life is much shorter than anticipated, that will indicate the time and we need this done, to run a brand-new shelf life.”

Digital transformation as a cross-functional tool

Mohamed Badaoui Najjar, R&D Senior Director - Digital transformation at PepsiCoProFood World“You don’t have to connect all the data, but you do have to connect the right data.” 

That’s what Mohamed Badaoui Najjar, PhD, R&D Senior Director – Digital Transformation at PepsiCo, said Tuesday at the event.

According to Najjar, digital transformation should be cross functional, which can be achieved by designing for four key areas.

• Generating insights faster: Focus on pulling multi-platform insights from consumers and external competition.
• Supporting innovation and renovation: Design with opportunities for mass change in mind.
• Enabling faster development of better products: Look for areas to augment the physical systems or tighten predictions with AI.
• Enabling productivity and design of value initiatives: Don’t just be reactive; proactively incorporate performance drivers.

Purpose-filled work attracts a younger workforce

Nicole Gallace, Talent Solutions Manager at FoodGradsProFood WorldAmid an aging and retiring workforce, food and beverage CPGs should seek to attract student workers through early engagement, clear career pathways, and embracing peer messaging.

That’s according to Nicole Gallace, Talent Solutions Manager at FoodGrads, who spoke at the event Monday. She explained that providing students with opportunities for purpose-filled work, mentorship, and career growth is key for attracting a younger, Gen Z workforce.

“They want to work in issues that make an impact, and they want mentorship from people who believe in them,” Gallace said. “We need to lean into the problems that they want to solve, the skills they want to adopt and the amazing ways they want to make an impact.”

Responding to chemical contaminants in food

Gulnihal Ozbay of Delaware State University (left), Banu Sezer of Anton Paar (center), and Gulsun Akdemir Evrendilek of The University of Maine (right)ProFood WorldFood processors seeking to avoid product contamination need to consider not only microbial contaminants, but also potentially harder-to-eliminate chemical contaminants like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

That’s according to Gulsun Akdemir Evrendilek, associate extension professor at the University of Maine. Monday at IFT First, she explained that traceability will be key to avoiding product contamination from these pesky chemicals associated with adverse human health effects.

“I think PFAS concentration might be bigger than microbial concentration or microbial foodborne pathogen issues, because more or less, we know how [microbial contaminants] grow, how we can kill them, how we can control them, and then how we can take initiative by developing things like new sensor technology,” explained Evrendilek. “But what are we going to do with persistent chemical contamination? Traceability, and tracking the blockchain all the way down to where the food is harvested, the properties of the soil, sea water, or animal feed. We have to consider how we are going to deal with this, not just microbial safety, but also chemical safety.”

Three Technologies to Improve Food Safety

Jennifer Lott, Technical Development Director at SGSProFood WorldToday’s food systems are significantly more complex than in decades past, and so food producers’ food safety strategies must meet the moment.

That’s according to Jennifer Lott, Technical Development Director at SGS. Tuesday at the event, Lott shared about the FDA’s New Era of Food Safety program, and how food producers can use digital tools to enhance food safety practices. She offered a few key points where technology can be a valuable tool:

• Technology-enabled traceability: This involves following food through every step of the supply chain, from the farm to the consumer’s table, using digital tools. Lott noted about E. coli outbreaks in romaine lettuce, and said, “Could you imagine how powerful it would be if we could say, ‘this grocery store in Cincinnati got the lettuce.’ Everybody else can keep selling it, and we don’t have to pull all the romaine lettuce off the shelf in the country.”
• Digitalization and automation: Lott described the benefits of tools like digital management sensors, which “gather and organize data from farms, from plants, from stores, so that we have a continuous digital trail of how the product is being treated.”
• AI and machine learning: These technologies are game changers in food safety, according to Lott. “They enable autonomous monitoring and analyzing data without human intervention and can intercept problems earlier. They also are very good at spotting patterns that we as humans may not see, because they can crunch through data so quickly,” she said. “Predictive analysis helps us forecast risks before they even happen, so we have proactive prevention. This tech means that we have faster, better control of actions to keep our food safe and reduce consumer impact.”