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.

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 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
_______