FoodChain ID – The Packaging Decisions You Make Today Will Set Your EPR Costs Tomorrow: Data, Specs, and Eco-Modulation

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With EPR regulations, reporting requirements, and eco-modulation schemes coming online, the packaging decisions you make today will determine what you pay tomorrow. In this session, FoodChain ID will explore how companies can turn regulatory compliance fees into a competitive advantage by strengthening packaging specifications, automating data and EPR reporting, and planning for long-term source reduction. Join us to take a deeper look at the practical considerations behind everyday packaging decisions, including how to evaluate design and material trade-offs, improve data quality, and connect these choices to real compliance requirements and cost outcomes.

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USDA Logo
USDA Logo
Beltway Beat

USDA Announces Food Safety and Inspection Service Reorganization, Establishes National Food Safety Center in Iowa

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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USDA will establish a new National Food Safety Center (NFSC) in Urbandale, Iowa, which will serve as the primary hub for FSIS administrative, technical and support operations. Opponents, including some Democratic lawmakers, have raised concerns that these types of reallocations are used to downsize agency effectiveness and affect morale, rather than improve services.

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Manufacturing productivity, efficiency
Manufacturing productivity, efficiency
Ask The Expert

The Hidden Cost of Repetition

By Azure Edwards, M.S.
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Fifteen years of preventive controls investment has produced something many organizations are positioned to use more fully: a record of operational performance detailed enough to begin reading these costs as a pattern with a common origin rather than as isolated inefficiencies belonging to separate departments. That reorientation is available, and the infrastructure for it already exists. This five-part series examines food safety through the business realities that leaders already navigate: profitability, risk, growth, brand trust, and organizational function. Not to reframe food safety as a business problem, but to make visible what the industry has earned the right to see clearly.

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Biros' Blog

Food Safety Fate

By Rick Biros
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How a chance meeting lead to the sharing of an emotional and powerful food safety story. Was this random hotel elevator connection fate or divine intervention? I don’t know. What I do know is because Dana was willing to talk to a stranger, she was able to share her daughter, Kayla’s food safety story to an audience of food safety professionals and now to you. 

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Ask The Expert

Food Safety as Business Infrastructure

By Azure Edwards, M.S.
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Fifteen years after FSMA reoriented food safety around prevention, the technical infrastructure is largely in place. What is becoming visible at this maturity point is the layer beneath it — the business decisions, governance structures, and organizational design that determine whether that infrastructure actually holds under real operational conditions. This five-part series examines food safety through the business realities that leaders already navigate: profitability, risk, growth, brand trust, and organizational function.

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Track and Trace, traceability, supply chain
Track and Trace, traceability, supply chain

Benefits of Traceability Solutions Research Results Announced

By Carlos Alejandrino, Wiggs Civitillo
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Starfish Network recently conducted an analysis of the benefits of traceability solutions. This study surveyed professionals across various food-related sub-industries, including produce, meat, seafood, dairy, eggs, packaged & manufactured goods. The surveyed companies spanned across production, logistics, retail, and services functions across the industry value chain.

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Women in Food Safety

Self-Care for the Safety-Savvy Woman: Why Taking Care of You Protects the World

By Kim Ring
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Joan Menke-Schaenzer, Chief Quality Officer at Van Drunen Farms says to be a strong leader and advocate in food safety, you must first be an advocate for yourself. A deliberate, consistent commitment to self-care is the best defense against burnout, the loudest silencer of imposter syndrome, and the fuel that keeps your passion for protecting public health alive.

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Big data
Big data

AI Is Becoming a Practical Food Safety Equalizer for Small and Mid Sized Manufacturers

By Matthew Kang
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For small and mid sized food manufacturers, the real food safety challenge is often not the absence of programs. It is the difficulty of executing them consistently with limited people, limited time, and limited system support. AI does not replace food safety culture, trained employees, or management accountability. What it can do is reduce documentation drag, connect fragmented records, and give small plants better visibility into the daily factors that affect both compliance and performance.

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