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
_______