Smarter Food Safety

In this special episode of the Smarter Food Safety podcast, Frank Yiannas takes the stage at Ecolab’s annual Food Safety Symposium for a fireside chat with Lisa Robertson, Ecolab’s VP of Global Food Safety & Public Health. Together, they challenge the industry to rethink why outbreaks and recalls persist despite more audits, testing, training, and regulation. Frank and Lisa explore the difference between food safety compliance and effectiveness, the signals organizations may be missing, the role of culture and leadership, and how AI and emerging technologies can strengthen prevention. It’s a candid conversation about what must change to achieve safer food.The Smarter Food Safety Podcast is sponsored by Ecolab, a trusted partner throughout my career. They’re dedicated to protecting what’s vital, by advancing food safety, ensuring clean and safe environments, and enhancing water quality around the world.

The future of food safety demands more than learning from the past, it requires anticipating what comes next. In this episode of the Smarter Food Safety podcast, Frank Yiannas speaks with Dr. Vittorio Fattori, Food Safety Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), about the shift from hindsight to foresight. They explore how climate change, changing consumer behaviors, aging populations, novel foods, microbiome science, artificial intelligence, and evolving food systems may create new challenges and opportunities. Dr. Fattori shares practical guidance for horizon scanning, identifying meaningful signals, building networks, and making foresight a routine part of food safety.The Smarter Food Safety Podcast is sponsored by Ecolab, a trusted partner throughout my career. They’re dedicated to protecting what’s vital, by advancing food safety, ensuring clean and safe environments, and enhancing water quality around the world.

This week on the Smarter Food Safety Podcast, Frank is joined by Dr. Joan Rose, Professor at Michigan State University and an internationally recognized water microbiologist, to explore the overlooked role of water in the Cyclospora story. Could wastewater surveillance provide an early warning of infections and emerging hotspots? Could reclaimed, recreational, or other contaminated water contribute to transmission? And what might the extraordinary summer of 2026 mean for Cyclospora's future in the United States? Frank and Joan examine wastewater surveillance, treatment, research gaps, and the need to turn lessons from this outbreak into foresight and prevention for food safety professionals.The Smarter Food Safety Podcast is sponsored by Ecolab, a trusted partner throughout my career. They’re dedicated to protecting what’s vital, by advancing food safety, ensuring clean and safe environments, and enhancing water quality around the world.

In this episode of the Smarter Food Safety podcast, Frank Yiannas sits down with Dr. Craig Hedberg to examine what the summer of 2026 can teach us about foodborne illness prevention. With major Cyclospora and Salmonella outbreaks occurring at the same time, they explore the challenges of surveillance, outbreak detection, traceback, traceability, and root-cause investigations. They discuss why the scale and distribution of contaminated foods can amplify outbreaks, the importance of timely public health response, and how stronger public-private collaboration can help protect consumers. Most importantly, they look beyond hindsight to identify practical lessons that can strengthen prevention and help prevent the next outbreak.The Smarter Food Safety Podcast is sponsored by Ecolab, a trusted partner throughout my career. They’re dedicated to protecting what’s vital, by advancing food safety, ensuring clean and safe environments, and enhancing water quality around the world.

Food safety begins with leadership. In this episode of the Smarter Food Safety Podcast, Frank Yiannas sits down with Lee Cockerell, former Executive Vice President of Operations at Walt Disney World Resort, to explore how leaders shape culture and turn food safety from a set of rules into a shared responsibility. Lee shares lessons on setting clear expectations, building teams, training employees, removing hassles, role modeling, psychological safety, positive recognition, and paying attention to what we tolerate. Together, Frank and Lee make the case that food safety begins with each of us, and that every person has a role to play.The Smarter Food Safety Podcast is sponsored by Ecolab, a trusted partner throughout my career. They’re dedicated to protecting what’s vital, by advancing food safety, ensuring clean and safe environments, and enhancing water quality around the world.