Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Welcome to Area 51: Supplements, Claims, and the Product Safety Nobody Validates | Episode 191

A company gets caught. A new LLC shows up in Suite 108, and Suite 107 quietly stays open as the “warehouse.” Welcome to Area 51 of product safety, the place that officially doesn’t exist.

Recorded live at the Food Safety Consortium, this episode features Trevor Morones, president and chief quality officer of Control Point Holdings. He talks with Francine and Matt about supplement claims, unpermitted operations, process authorities, and why leadership has to show up at every level. Spoiler alert: if you can’t validate it and keep verifying it, you can’t claim it, no matter how good it looks on Instagram.

In this episode:
💩 Cold open: Suite 107, Suite 108, and Area 51
💩 Meet Trevor Morones and Control Point Holdings
💩 Product safety starts with one question: “Who’s your team?”
💩 Supplement claims and the FDA’s attention
💩 Probiotics: the count at what point?
💩 New LLCs, unpermitted spaces, and coffee roasters who think they’re exempt
💩 Mom, Instagram, and mushroom supplements
💩 Drug interactions, heavy metals, and supply chain verification
💩 Becoming a process authority under 9 CFR
💩 Cosmetics, serums, snail secretions, and collagen
💩 Meeting Dr. Darren Detwiler and the Thought Leader Product Safety Innovation Summit
💩 The four A’s and how to join the Control Point community
💩 Seek and Destroy: a Listeria tabletop exercise with a cybersecurity twist
💩 Food and cannabis under one roof at the Food Safety Consortium
💩 What conferences need more of: leadership at every level

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

• Control Point Holdings

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“It’s important that operations don’t try to market something they can’t actually validate. We have to validate and then continue to verify something.” – Trevor Morones

“If we’re trying to provide supplements to people for health and well-being, let’s do it in a way that’s transparent and it can be traceable.” – Trevor Morones

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We’d love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine, Matt, Trevor, and the “Don’t Eat Poop!” show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine’s book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

Produced by Don't Eat Poop!

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Securing What Feeds Us: Why Every Food Cyberattack Is a Food Safety Incident | Episode 190

When hackers took over refrigeration systems in grocery stores across France, the cybersecurity world focused on how they got in. Almost nobody asked the bigger question: what happened to the food? Kristin King says that blind spot is exactly what puts our food supply at risk.

Recorded live at the Food Safety Consortium, Francine and Matt sit down with Kristin King, operational technology security expert, host of Bites and Bytes, and author of Securing What Feeds Us, to talk about where cybersecurity and food safety collide, and about what it is really like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry.

Spoiler alert: In the food industry, a cyberattack is a food safety incident until someone proves it isn’t.

In this episode:
[01:39] Live from the Food Safety Consortium with Kristin King
[03:37] Animal food safety, zoo commissaries, and “gorilla salad”
[07:32] The JBS ransomware attack and food and agriculture as critical infrastructure
[08:44] Founding her firm, launching Bites and Bytes, and writing Securing What Feeds Us
[16:48] More than 400 publicly reported food sector incidents in seven years
[17:50] The book’s atlas of global food and ag cyber incidents
[25:25] If it doesn’t need to be on the internet, don’t put it there
[27:25] Insurance, nation-state attackers, and “acts of war”
[36:30] Allyship and finding your advocates
[40:40] Where to find Kristin, her book, and her podcast
[43:37] The book’s dedication to everyone who touches food

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

• Securing What Feeds Us by Kristin King
• Bites and Bytes podcast
• Kristin’s firm, AnzenSage
• JBS ransomware attack coverage
• French grocery store refrigeration hack coverage
• Food Safety Consortium

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Anytime there is a cybersecurity incident within food, it is automatically a food safety incident until someone tells me otherwise. And it needs to be treated that way first.” — Kristin King

“Things have to change, but it is not my responsibility to change it. My responsibility is to remind people to be good human beings and that when they see something they need to say something and that’s the truth about it.” — Kristin King

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We’d love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine, Matt, Kristin King, and the “Don’t Eat Poop!” show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine’s book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

Produced by Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Infant Formula Botulism: One Supplier, Two Brands | Episode 189

Two infant formula brands, made by different companies on different continents, sickened babies with botulism seven months apart. The thing they had in common wasn’t a factory. It was an ingredient, sourced from the same organic whole milk supplier and spray-dried at the same facility, and nobody in the chain was testing for botulism.

Francine and Matt break down how the outbreak was traced upstream, why “we never tested for that” keeps showing up in outbreak investigations, and what it would take for companies to get ahead of risks they don’t even know exist yet. Spoiler alert: food safety keeps getting treated as an expense until an outbreak forces it to become an investment.

In this episode:
💩 01:16 The CDC names the supplier behind the infant formula botulism outbreak
💩 06:56 The Marler Blog breakdown: one ingredient, two brands
💩 10:49 The sub-supplier problem: brands may not know where their ingredients originate
💩 17:09 Risk assessments by product and region
💩 22:44 Food safety budgets: investment or expense?
💩 33:31 Francine’s experience auditing for insurance companies
💩 41:40 From The Jungle to Jack in the Box
💩 44:54 Matt’s advice: get out of your silo

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

• Marler Blog: Infant formula botulism outbreak supplier traceback
• Food Safety News coverage of the infant formula botulism outbreak
• CDC outbreak notice: Infant botulism linked to infant formula
• Previous episode: The WanaBana lead-in-cinnamon recall
• Previous episode: Cyclospora outbreak
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“They see it as an expense until they have some kind of major outbreak. And then suddenly it’s important for a while.” – Francine L. Shaw

“If you’re bored in food safety, you’re really doing something wrong.” – Matt Regusci

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We’d love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine, Matt, and the “Don’t Eat Poop!” show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine’s book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

In India, Santoshi Muriki watched inspectors stay quiet and management toss her proposals in the trash. In the US, she found unannounced audits, stricter rules, and the same old problem: people cutting corners when nobody's watching.

In this episode of Don't Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine sit down with food safety manager Santoshi to compare food safety culture in India and the US, from scheduled-only audits and quiet bribes to the risk-based supplier program she built to get ahead of recalls.

Spoiler alert: Perfect paperwork doesn't prove a strong food safety culture. Sometimes it's the biggest red flag in the building.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Meet Santoshi: From Produce Processing in India to US Warehousing

💩 00:04:15 Food Safety Culture: What People Do When Nobody's Watching

💩 00:08:27 Food Safety in India vs. the US: Traceability, Enforcement & Audits

💩 00:12:19 Being a Woman in Food Safety Leadership in India

💩 00:16:32 Quality vs. Operations

💩 00:21:33 When Food Safety Records Look Too Good to Be True

💩 00:26:17 Building a Risk-Based Supplier Program to Prevent Recalls

💩 00:31:23 Advice From Frank Yiannas & Preparing for FSMA 204

💩 00:33:45 Women in Food Safety & Getting Junior Pros to Conferences

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Connect with Santoshi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lakshmi-santoshi-muriki-39974946/

Women in Food Safety: https://www.womeninfoods.org/

Food Safety Consortium: https://foodsafetyconsortium.org/

Santoshi's articles on Food Safety Tech: https://foodsafetytech.com/?s=santoshi

Check out episode 187 with the Food Safety Girl from Jamaica: https://savvyfs.com/machetes-hostages-jerk-pans-food-safety-inspections-in-jamaica-with-food-safety-girl-allison-richards-episode-187/

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“ Food safety culture is what people do when nobody is watching.” – Santoshi Muriki

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Ever had someone sharpen a machete while you work through your inspection checklist? Allison Richards has. With over 15 years of food safety inspections in Jamaica, she has also been told by owners to take her shoes off at the door and has been locked inside a store until they decided the inspection was over.

In this episode of Don't Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine sit down with Allison, better known as The Food Safety Girl. They swap inspection war stories and dig into consumer education, food insecurity, cold chain, canning, street food, and the new Caribbean chapter of Women in Food Safety.

Spoiler alert: Fear doesn't fix food safety. Education, relationships, and informed consumers do.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Meet The Food Safety Girl, Allison Richards

💩 00:04:37 Food Safety Has to Be Fun

💩 00:06:53 Allison's Crazy Food Safety Inspection Stories

💩 00:17:10 Cockroach Popsicles and the Kangaroo Oxtail Rumor

💩 00:19:50 Food Tourism and Consumers as Agents of Change

💩 00:23:45 Food Safety Compliance Through Relationships

💩 00:27:35 Food Insecurity Is More Than Food Production

💩 00:34:11 Canning, Frozen Plantains, and the Processed Food Debate

💩 00:36:48 Street Food in Jamaica

💩 00:40:07 The Caribbean Chapter of Women in Food Safety

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Connect with Allison Richards on:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok

Learn more about Women in Food Safety: https://www.womeninfoods.org/

Check out our episode with Melody Ge on Women in Food Safety: Food Safety Insights From Both Sides of the Audit with Melody Ge, CTO at EAGLE Certification Group | Episode 142

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Consumers are really the agents of change. They're the ones spending. They have the spending power.” – Allison Richards

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Everybody knows the food safety rules. So why do we keep screwing this up?

After a summer shaped by the Taylor Farms Cyclospora outbreak, Francine and Matt dig into whether the real problem is training, behavior, leadership, or culture. They use Taylor Farms, Taco Bell, and Chipotle to show where accountability really lands and how to win buy-in from the people who make the decisions.

Spoiler alert: Knowing the rules has never been the problem. Getting people to buy in is.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Three Years, 186 Episodes of Food Safety

💩 00:03:05 Training vs. Behavior vs. Leadership vs. Culture

💩 00:06:47 Taylor Farms Food Safety Culture

💩 00:10:53 The Parent Company Owns the Outbreak

💩 00:14:17 Food Safety Culture from Corporate to Facilities

💩 00:16:41 Hiring for the Right Food Safety Behaviors

💩 00:21:41 Fire Them or Move Them? Positional vs. Personal Influence

💩 00:27:39 Building Food Safety Buy-In From the Middle

💩 00:30:16 Where Food Safety Pros Fail

💩 00:33:11 Speaking the Language of the CEO, CFO, and COO

💩 00:36:36 Cadence and Dialect Matter in Food Safety Communication

💩 00:44:04 No Food Safety Culture Without Leadership

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg: https://www.amazon.com/dp/081298160X

Missed last week's conspiracy talk? Catch up here: https://savvyfs.com/largest-cyclospora-outbreak-in-us-history-over-what-the-cdc-isnt-saying-episode-185/

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

"Everybody knows the rules, so why do we keep screwing this up?" – Francine L. Shaw

"Most of the time you can't play by the rules to change a culture." – Matt Regusci

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

The largest Cyclospora outbreak in U.S. history is over, according to an anonymous federal official who told a reporter before anyone told the public. The CDC's own outbreak page still says "open." In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop, Matt and Francine dig into the numbers nobody's updating and ask a question they've never asked in 185 episodes: is this incompetence, or something worse?

This episode breaks down the outbreak data agencies stopped counting, the consumer trust numbers still falling, and the case for and against a full-blown conspiracy.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Cyclospora Outbreak Declared "Over"

💩 00:08:21 The Outbreak Numbers Nobody's Updating

💩 00:11:19 Consumer Confidence In Free Fall

💩 00:13:03 Congress Sends 13 Letters, Gets Zero Cyclospora Outbreak Answers

💩 00:16:05 Incompetence or Food Safety Conspiracy

💩 00:20:54 Is The Whole Food System Broken?

💩 00:23:08 Could Someone Be Weaponizing A Broken System?

💩 00:36:45 How Matt Got A Broken Industry To Adopt Compliance

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Check out Bill Marler’s article discussed in this episode:

Unnamed Federal Officials Told the Washington Post They Are About to Declare the Largest Cyclospora Outbreak in U.S. History Over. The National Count Is Still Climbing, 8,137 Confirmed Illnesses Have No Named Source, and Congress Is Still Waiting for an Answer.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

"If you don't count [the victims], they don't matter. They don't exist." – Francine L Shaw

"This is either absolute pure incompetence, or it's a conspiracy, and I could believe in both, or both simultaneously." – Matt Regusci

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Over 30,000 confirmed Cyclospora cases this summer, and the CDC's own math says the real number could be over a million. So why did it take so long to get straight answers about where it came from?

In this episode of Don't Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine tear into the Cyclospora outbreak tied to Taylor Farms lettuce and Taco Bell, and the industry-wide habit of pointing fingers instead of fixing problems. They break down how the contamination likely happened, why Taylor Farms' size makes it nearly impossible to avoid its product, and what Roger Hancock's crisis-communication playbook gets right.

Spoiler alert: the companies that survive an outbreak aren't the ones that dodge blame, they're the ones that communicate fast and own it.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 The Food Safety Blame Game

💩 00:08:51 The Real Cyclospora Outbreak Numbers

💩 00:11:10 How Cyclospora Likely Got Onto The Lettuce

💩 00:13:52 Taylor Farms, Private Label Confusion, And Dodging Blame

💩 00:17:37 Article: What Restaurants Can Learn From The Lettuce Recall

💩 00:21:43 Supply Chain Consolidation And "Too Big To Fail"

💩 00:26:02 Restaurant Recall Plan: Communicate Quickly And Clearly, Or Lose Consumer Trust

💩 00:30:49 Taco Bell Vs. Taylor Farms: A Case Study In Doing It Right

💩 00:33:36 Why Mock Recalls Fall Apart Under Pressure

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

What Restaurants Can Learn From the Lettuce Recall: https://www.fsrmagazine.com/feature/what-restaurants-can-learn-from-the-lettuce-recall/

Episodes with Roger Hancock:

• Creating a Recall-Ready Food Safety Industry | Episode 42
• All Recalls Are Not the Same, But Here’s How You Can Be Ready For When One Comes with Roger Hancock, CEO of Recall InfoLink | Episode 114
• How the FDA Wants YOU to Fix Food Safety Recalls with Roger Hancock, CEO of Recall InfoLink | Episode 126

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Today's topic is the food safety blame game, and the industry has been doing this probably since its inception.” – Matt Regusci

“Can we just stop arguing about whose fault it was and try to figure it out?” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Cyclospora cases have topped 30,000. Eggs, jalapeños, blueberries, and infant formula are all being recalled at the same time. In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine ask the question everyone's TikTok feed is already joking about: is there anything left in the food pyramid that hasn't been recalled?

The episode walks through every major outbreak of the summer, one pathogen at a time, before digging into the supply chain quirk (the terminal market) that makes some recalls nearly impossible to fully contain.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 The New Food Pyramid

💩 00:05:16 2026 Outbreak Update by Pathogen

💩 00:09:21 Driscoll And The PFAS Strawberry Whistleblower

💩 00:11:02 The Egg Recall: 19 Million Eggs

💩 00:14:01 Salmonella In Jalapeños Hits Over Two Dozen States

💩 00:17:28 How Consolidation Created The Terminal Market Workaround

💩 00:21:51 Who's Liable When A Recall Traces Back To A Terminal Market

💩 00:29:52 Starbucks Sandwiches And A Trunk Full Of Egg Salad

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

The FDA Is Investigating 11 Foodborne Outbreaks Right Now — Here’s What to Know About Each One: https://www.foodandwine.com/fda-foodborne-outbreak-investigations-12034027

CDC Current Outbreaks: https://www.cdc.gov/foodborne-outbreaks/outbreaks/index.html

Get the Facts: Is the number of food recalls rising? What data shows: https://www.kcra.com/article/us-food-recalls-trend-analysis/73415731

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Francine and I do not lack content, but we would really like it if these outbreaks came out every other month or so, so we could keep up with them.” – Matt Regusci

“We'd be talking about the eggs right now if the lettuce wasn't so bad because the eggs are bad, too. The lettuce is so bad that the eggs are kinda just sliding under the radar.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Nearly 21,000 Americans are confirmed sick with Cyclospora, and three different government sources can't agree on the actual number. When the administration finally addressed it, the best they offered was a joke. In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine break down what accountability was supposed to look like, and the eight concrete fixes still sitting on someone's desk.

They walk through the math behind the conflicting case counts, why the government's own numbers may be undercounting sick Americans by a factor of 10 or more, and the specific policy changes that could stop the next outbreak from disappearing into a spreadsheet.

Spoiler alert: the real number of people sick could be well over a million, and nobody in Washington wants to say so.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Bill Marler's Article: Govt’s Response to Cyclospora

💩 00:06:09 CDC's Three Conflicting Case Counts

💩 00:08:32 The Government’s Flawed Food Safety Advice

💩 00:09:48 The White House's Silence So Far

💩 00:11:15 Extrapolating The Cyclospora Case Count

💩 00:13:42 Eight Recommended Fixes For The FDA

💩 00:19:51 Reviving The Microbiological Data Program

💩 00:24:48 FSMA 204 And The Water Rule

💩 00:29:06 The Economic Cost Of Outbreaks

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Use the code POOP for 25% off the Food Safety Consortium Conference: https://www.eventleaf.com/e/FoodSafetyConsortium

Check out the article we’re discussing in this episode:

• Food Safety News: The Fifty-State Cyclospora Count Is 20,927 This Morning. The President Has Said One Thing About It. The Secretary Says It Is Under Control. Here Is What They Should Have Said Instead.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“ I do believe the states should be able to make their own laws, but I do think that the federal government should also have laws pertaining to food safety, and those laws should be statistics.” – Matt Regusci

“Food safety's not political. We're talking about people's well-being.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Over 20,000 people sick, five different versions of the same denial, and a produce giant that helped write the very traceability rules it's now dodging. In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop! Matt and Francine dig into the Cyclospora outbreak tied to Taylor Farms lettuce and the Taco Bell connection everyone's talking about.

They break down how Bill Marler builds a case against a company, why epidemiology (not a lab test) is what actually proves where an outbreak came from, and why Taco Bell's fast, transparent response is saving its reputation while Taylor Farms' spin is making things worse.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Lettuce Ordering Mishaps

💩 00:05:05 Bill Marler's IAFP Article and Cyclospora Update

💩 00:10:32 How Epidemiology Proves an Outbreak's Source

💩 00:13:31 Taco Bell vs. Taylor Farms' Response on Cyclospora

💩 00:17:12 The Jensen Farms Cantaloupe Case

💩 00:21:02 Lettuce Sales Drop 20%

💩 00:22:35 Taylor Farms' Shifting Statements

💩 00:26:38 Taylor Farms Helped Write the Traceability Rules It's Now Sidestepping

💩 00:30:52 Why Taylor Farms Will Be Remembered in This Outbreak

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Use the code POOP for a 25% discount for the Food Safety Consortium Conference: https://www.eventleaf.com/e/FoodSafetyConsortium

Take a look at the Bill Marler articles mentioned in this episode:

• At IAFP I Was Told It Was American Sewage, Not Mexican Lettuce. That Gets the Parasite Half Right and the Continent Entirely Wrong.
• Here Is Everything Taco Bell Has Said About Cyclospora. The Company Was Already Pulling Lettuce When It Told Reporters Nothing Had Been Confirmed.
• Taylor Farms Has Now Written Five Different Versions of the Same Statement. The Newest One Says It Ran Two Thousand Samples and Found Nothing. Ohio Just Added 1,437 Cyclospora Cases in a Week and the Fifty-State Count Crossed Twenty Thousand.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“If you needed a positive test for a product to confirm that product really was sold and consumed and got that person sick, consumers would rarely get compensated for anything. And you don't. In food safety law, epidemiology works.” – Matt Regusci

“I'm astounded at the arguments that people are coming up with about why it's not and why it can't be Taylor Farms when there's so much evidence pointing to the fact that it is.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Food safety culture has been the industry's favorite buzzword for years, but what does it actually look like once you're standing on the production floor?

Food safety writer and consultant Azure Edwards joins Francine and Matt to talk about the real gap between the policies companies write down and the decisions people make when the pressure is on to get product out the door. This episode covers training, data feedback loops, and where AI genuinely helps versus where it falls short.

Spoiler alert: the industry's problem was never a lack of data. It's turning that data into something the floor and the C-suite can actually act on.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Introducing Food Safety Consultant Azure Edwards

💩 00:05:07 The Gap Between Training Requirements and Production Floor

💩 00:06:31 Food Safety as a Business Structure

💩 00:09:07 Building Actionable Modules for Food Safety Culture

💩 00:10:44 Food Safety Data Feedback Loops

💩 00:15:29 Why Floor-Level Reality Gets Diluted Before It Reaches Leadership

💩 00:21:16 Getting Food Safety Into Decisions Earlier

💩 00:28:15 Azure’s Career Across Produce, Beef, Seafood, and Lab Testing

💩 00:35:18 Where AI Actually Helps in Food Safety

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Connect with Azure Edwards on LinkedIn and on her website (Pacific Blue Horizon Group).

Azure’s Food Safety Tech Articles: https://foodsafetytech.com/?s=Azure+Edwards

Azure’s Food Safety News Articles:

• The food industry’s training problem is the system it keeps paying for
• Food safety and the Campbell Soup Company

Episode discussing Azure’s article: The Failures of the Food Industry's Pizza and Stick Approach to Food Safety | Episode 154

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“ When people are in a situation where they have to make a decision, it's gonna be the one that's gonna give them the result that they need, and oftentimes that's just getting it out the door and keeping their job.” – Azure Edwards

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

The FDA's top produce safety post sat empty for over a year, and when it comes to leafy greens, berries, and bagged salads, that's not a small gap. Now Dr. Donna Garren has the job, arriving with a three-decade resume that reads like a tour of nearly every food trade association in the country.

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine ask the question nobody else seems to be asking: does the person in the seat actually change outcomes?

This episode is a deep dive into Garren's career, what the Office of Produce Safety actually does, and whether decades of political skill can move an agency stuck in reactionary mode.

Spoiler alert: She's not bringing a magic wand. She's bringing decades of relationship capital, and that might be exactly what this role needs.

In this episode:

00:00:00 Meet Dr. Donna Garren, FDA's New Director of Produce Safety

00:04:25 Garren's Food Science Roots

00:07:24 Two Decades of Lobbying

00:17:55 What the Office of Produce Safety Actually Does

00:22:57 Garren vs. Her Predecessor: Political Skill vs. Scientific Pedigree

00:28:33 Stakeholder Engagement and Training ( Industry Outreach and Consensus-Building)

00:34:47 Translating Science for Farmers

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“I think the FDA has been in reactionary mode as opposed to preventative mode.” – Matt Regusci

“You can't keep doing what we've been doing. You've gotta do something different.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Fountain soda ice that turns pink overnight. Gas station sushi. A charcuterie board that's been sitting out since noon.

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, our hosts Matt and Francine play a rapid-fire game of "Would You Eat It?" testing real-world food safety risks like bacteria growth, mold contamination, and foodborne illness exposure against their own personal judgment calls.

From the five-second rule to bulging cans of chicken broth (a classic botulism red flag), the hosts debate food expiration dates, cross-contamination, safe food handling, and where their personal risk tolerance lines actually sit.

Spoiler alert: even two food safety experts have their guilty-pleasure blind spots when it comes to food poisoning prevention (raw cookie dough, anyone?).

In this episode:

00:00:00 Would You Eat It? The Five Second Rule

00:04:06 Gas Station Sushi, Rare Burgers and Childhood Habits

00:06:54 Bacteria Contamination in Self-service Ice Machines and Soda Fountains

00:09:21 How Long Is Too Long in the Temperature Danger Zone?

00:10:59 Sell-by Dates, Expiration Dates and Real Life

00:12:54 Cross Contaminaiton Prevention and Salmonella Risk

00:17:03 Moldy Bread and Wild Mushroom Foraging Risks

00:17:56 Sharing Food and Drinks: Saliva Transfer Risk

00:20:09 Bulging Canned Goods and Botulism

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“Anything that's been in the car overnight, no. Disgusting. Yuck. There's no redeeming value.” – Matt Regusci

“They can kill you quickly. You grab the wrong mushroom, you'd be dead very quickly.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Nearly 7,000 people are sick, the CDC's own case count can't keep up with what individual states are finding on their own, and six months ago the agency quietly stopped requiring labs to track Cyclospora at all.

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, our hosts Matt and Francine break down how an outbreak this size is unfolding in near-total darkness. This episode covers what Cyclospora actually does to the body, where the current outbreak started, and the funding cuts that gutted the surveillance system meant to catch it.

When you stop counting the sick, the numbers go down, but the problem doesn't.

In this episode:

00:00:00 The Educated Food Safety Guess That Turned Out to Be True

00:04:46 A Food Safety Project Three Years in the Making

00:08:04 Tracking the Cyclospora Outbreak

00:12:27 What Is Cyclospora? Symptoms, Transmission, and Sources

00:17:53 1,645 Confirmed Cyclospora Cases and Nearly 7,000 Suspected

00:19:03 Suspected Sources and the Taco Bell Connection

00:23:49 CDC Funding Cuts and the FoodNet Tracking Rollback

00:28:28 How a Systemic Contamination Event Actually Happens

00:35:29 The Supplier is Confirmed — It's Taylor Farms

00:47:02 Taco Bell's Statement and IFPA's Pushback on the Produce Link

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Have a look at the articles mentioned in this episode:

• Two Friends Warn About Cyclospora. In the Morning I’ll Carry the Same Message to Puerto Vallarta: We Stopped Counting the Sick and Holding those to Account
• Cyclospora by State: Three Different Counts — the CDC’s, the State’s, and the Media’s
• CDC, FDA link Taco Bell lettuce supplier to multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak
• The Cyclospora Outbreak Now Has Two Names on It — Taylor Farms and Taco Bell. Both Have Been Here Before and So Have I
• Parasitic Outbreak Linked to Taylor Farms Lettuce Supplied to Taco Bell

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“When you have 7,000 potential cases, it is a systemic problem.” – Matt Regusci

“Of course the numbers are gonna decline. They're not counting them.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

A crowded elevator in St. Louis. A stranger's badge. A conversation that led food safety consortium founder Rick Biros to a mother named Dana and to Kayla, her daughter, who died of E. coli O111 in 2007.

In this third installment of the 2026 Food Safety Consortium preview series on Don’t Eat Poop!, Matt, Francine, and Rick sit with a story that silenced a room of industry veterans, then turn to what's ahead at this year's conference.

This episode blends raw human stakes with a practical look at what's coming to Food Safety Consortium, from AI adoption and allergen transparency to the traceability deadline barreling toward the whole industry.

Spoiler alert: the best food safety conferences aren't built on data alone — they're built on stories that make the stakes impossible to ignore.

In this episode:

00:03:29 The Power of a Food Safety Story

00:06:50 The Elevator Encounter: How Rick Met Dana and Heard Kayla's Story

00:14:30 Food Safety: From a Job to a Career, to a Passion

00:17:02 Business Outcomes From Investing in Food Safety

00:20:59 Allergen Panel featuring Marriott, Universal, Aramark, and Red Lobster

00:22:19 Risk-based Pest Control and the Search For a Produce "Kill Step"

00:23:46 Alpha-gal: The Tick Bite That Can Mean No More Red Meat

00:29:30 AI at the Food Safety Consortium

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Connect with Rick

Take a look at Kayla’s story on Food Safety Tech: Food Safety Fate

Use code POOP for 25% off the 2026 Food Safety Consortium

Check out the rest of the series with Rick:

• Behind the Scenes of the Food Safety Consortium: Curation, Speakers & 15 Years of Evolution with Rick Biros from Food Safety Tech | Episode 170
• Food Safety as an Investment: Inside the 2026 Food Safety Consortium with Rick Biros | Episode 173

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“There wasn't a dry eye in the audience. I read the story, and I just said, ‘Wow, folks, that's why you do what you do.’” – Rick Biros

“These situations are 100% preventable. Somewhere along the way, somebody did something wrong. We are never gonna stop all of them. We're not gonna eradicate all of the foodborne illnesses. But we could certainly reduce them significantly.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Every corporate food safety crisis seems to follow the same script: a somber press conference, a pledge to prioritize safety, a promise to retrain the people at the bottom. But what if the missing ingredient isn't more data or policy — it's story?

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Dr. Darin Detwiler and Gennette Zimmer join Francine and Matt to make the case that food safety culture is built on the stories we tell, and the ones we're afraid to.

They explore how storytelling shapes food safety culture, why credentials don't always equal true expertise, and why so many food safety conferences still don't reflect the people most affected by failures.

In this episode:

00:00:00 Storytelling as the "Mortar" of Food Safety Culture

00:03:57 Darin's 30 Years of Teaching Comes to a Close

00:12:39 Teaching Through Storytelling

00:19:43 Peanut Corp, Baby Formula, Boar's Head: A Pattern of Ignored Warnings

00:24:00 The Corporate Crisis Playbook

00:26:48 The Families' Food Safety Forgets

00:31:00 Storytelling Talk at the Food Safety Consortium

00:40:46 How Storytelling Impacts Audiences

00:44:15 Diversity and Representation in Food Safety

00:49:34 The Three Dimensions of Storytelling

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Connect with Dr. Darin Detwiler on LinkedIn

Connect with Gennette Zimmer on LinkedIn

Confessions of a Food Safety A**hole podcast

Take a look at our past episode with Darin and Gennette: What Happens When You Speak Up For Food Safety with Food Safety Icon Dr. Darin Detwiler and His Wife Gennette Zimmer

Get 25% off the 2026 Food Safety Consortium with discount code POOP

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“ When the people who are your intended audience do not see themselves reflected in the conversation, that's hard for buy-in.” – Dr. Darin Detwiler

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

A janitorial contractor forged IDs for 336 of his 353 workers, and two dozen of them were children as young as 13, cleaning industrial equipment inside a Perdue Farms slaughterhouse.

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine dig into a case that took six years to reach sentencing, exposing how easily child labor laws can be circumvented when a subcontractor controls the paperwork. Along the way, the story opens into a much bigger problem: stolen identities, the real people left cleaning up the damage, and what food companies should be asking their staffing vendors.

Hiring the cheapest staffing vendor might be costing you a lot more than you think.

In this episode:

00:00:57 Child Labor Laws in the Food Safety Industry

00:09:35 A Janitorial Manager’s Guilty Plea for Forged IDs

00:13:17 Why Slaughterhouses are No Place for Kids

00:18:50 Forged Licenses, Birth Certificates, and Stolen Social Security Numbers

00:23:58 Déjà Vu: The 2023 Packer Sanitation Services Case

00:25:54 Identity Theft Victims and Corporate Security Fallout

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Take a look at the two articles we mentioned in this episode:

• Sentence scheduled for former janitorial services manager who forged IDs for hundreds of workers
• Workers for slaughterhouse cleaning firm that hired children repeatedly used stolen identities to get jobs

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“A slaughterhouse is not for children. These places are dangerous for adults. I'm not saying they should be shut down. I'm just saying you have to be 100% aware of your surroundings in a slaughterhouse.” – Matt Regusci

“It's like everything else. You get what you pay for.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

Rick Biros, founder of Food Safety Tech and the Food Safety Consortium, is back with our hosts Matt and Francine to make the case that food safety needs a new narrative — one built on ROI and recognition instead of checkbox culture, with buy-in that has to reach all the way up to the C-suite.

This episode of Don't Eat Poop! previews what's new at the 2026 Food Safety Consortium: a storytellers panel with Francine and Darin Detwiler, a brand-new award for food safety teams that can prove their bottom-line impact, and an update on the growing Women in Food Safety community.

In this episode:

00:00:00 Abstract Submissions for the Food Safety Consortium

00:03:55 Storytelling as a Food Safety Leadership Tool

00:07:04 The Real Food Safety Culture Challenge

00:12:19 The ROI of Food Safety

00:21:04 Introducing the Food Safety Tech Excellence Award

00:26:12 Women in Food Safety: Mentorship & Growth

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Use the discount code POOP for 25% off your ticket to the 2026 Food Safety Consortium.

Enter the new Food Safety Tech Excellence Award at http://foodsafetytech.com

Take a look at our previous episodes with Rick:

• Behind the Scenes of the Food Safety Consortium: Curation, Speakers & 15 Years of Evolution with Rick Biros from Food Safety Tech | Episode 170
• 15 Years of Food Safety Tech: Food Safety Compliance vs Reality with Rick Biros | Episode 161
• Behind the Scenes at the Food Safety Consortium with Rick Biros: Conference Culture, Compliance & Community | Episode 123

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“As a food safety community, we have to start changing the narrative about food safety. This is not just about compliance. Compliance should be the bare minimum. That's not what you shoot for. That's the floor. That should be expected.” – Rick Biros

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms

_______

🍽️ Francine and Matt are building a global, fun, and inclusive Food Safety Family! From the C-suite to the kitchen, they’re making safe food the norm everywhere.

👉 Follow Francine and Matt on LinkedIn for more food safety insights and updates.

The FIFA World Cup is coming to Atlanta, and with it, up to 10 million visitors, thousands of temporary food vendors, and a food safety infrastructure that is already stretched thin.

In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Francine and Matt pull apart the logistics of feeding a city-sized surge of international fans, from inspecting pop-up tents in 100-degree heat to the very real norovirus scenario that could turn one food truck into a multi-city outbreak.

When you pack 10 million people into a city with 28 health inspectors on the clock, something is going to fall through the cracks — the question is how much.

In this episode:

00:00:00 World Cup in Atlanta: The Numbers

00:09:25 Atlanta Health Inspectors’ Impossible Workload

00:16:01 Potential Novovirus Scenarios

00:17:59 Temperature Control and Food Safety Blind Spots

00:25:27 The Reality of Food Safety Inspections

00:28:42 Approved Vendors and Traceability

00:37:39 Atlanta is Preparing for the World Cup

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Take a look at the article we’re talking about in this episode: Atlanta health inspectors prepare restaurants and vendors for World Cup crowds

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“ Moral of the story is do not be a jerk to your health inspector.” – Matt Regusci

“The volume of people is one thing. [...] So now they've got to inspect all these temporary vendors that are gonna come in to be permitted for the World Cup.” – Francine L Shaw

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Together, we can raise awareness and make a positive impact in the world of food safety!

Share your thoughts and feedback on the show, and feel free to offer any topics you would like to hear discussed.

We'd love to hear from you!

📲 Connect with Francine,Matt, and the "Don't Eat Poop!" show on LinkedIn!

📕 Check out Francine's book Who Watches the Kitchen?

🎙️ BE A GUEST ON DON’T EAT POOP!

Fill out this form to tell us more about yourself. We’ll reach out via email within 30 days with next steps if you’re selected.

_______

Produced by Ideablossoms