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Tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode of Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast. Join Francine L. Shaw, the savvy CEO of Savvy Food Safety, and Matthew Regusci, compliance connoisseur and founder of Fostering Compliance, as they serve up the latest in food safety with a side of laughter.
Explore the ins and outs of food systems, responsible food practices, and food safety regulations. Stay informed about food safety awareness and the not-so-occasional food recall. Delve deep into the complexities of the food supply chain with our dynamic duo, who blend expert insights with a pinch of food safety humor. Whether you're knee-deep in the food safety industry or just passionate about what's on your plate, this podcast promises a fresh take on staying safe while eating well.
Expect candid conversations, personal anecdotes, and occasional guest appearances that spice up the discussion. Shaw and Regusci bring their combined decades of experience to the table, making each episode as informative as it is entertaining. From industry trends to must-know food safety news and regulations, they've got your back (and your lunch).
In essence, Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast is not just about imparting information; it's about fostering a culture of food safety. By shedding light on the intricacies of the food supply chain and the latest food safety news, it aims to promote awareness and encourage responsible food practices among consumers and industry professionals alike.
When it comes to food safety, knowledge is power, and a good laugh is the best seasoning. At the heart of every episode is one golden rule: Don't Eat Poop!
DEP E185
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Matt: [00:00:00] This starts putting up, and I'm not a conspiracy type of a person. I'm not. I don't even like listening to conspiracies. Like, my brain just kind of- Yeah, I don't, I
Francine: don't either ... it kind
Matt: of shuts down when people talk about conspiracies.
Francine: But- I'm not that person either ...
Matt: if you are a conspiratorial person, okay, I am not a conspiratorial person, and I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, "This looks like a conspiracy."
And if so, if I'm not a conspiracy person and I'm saying, "This looks like a conspiracy," then conspiracy people, which there's a good percentage of America that look at it, are gonna look at this and say the exact same thing
Intro: Everybody's gotta eat, and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points, from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine [00:01:00] Elshaw and Matt Regusci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule: don't eat poop.
Don't eat poop.
Matt: Hello, hello, Francine.
Francine: Hey, Matt.
Matt: We have v- fantastic news today.
Francine: I'm looking at you like, "We do?"
Matt: We do. We do. Francine and I are doing a lot of batches, so with this cyclospora outbreak, we would record an episode, and it would, like, go live like two, three weeks later, and the cyclospora number that we had listed ended up, like, doubling by the time our podcast came out.
It was like, "Oh, my land, this is insane." But fantastic news, Francine.
Francine: We do. We do.
Matt: We do, because this one is gonna come out, like, I guess in 10 days, so from this recording, and, uh, I s- theoretically, the cyclospora outbreak numbers shouldn't change.
Francine: [00:02:00] Theoretically shouldn't. You know, I hate to sound hesitant, but I just don't have a lot of faith.
Matt: No.
Francine: I don't know.
Matt: But when you get negative, by the time you get negative s- about something, it's F it, I'm out.
Francine: Uh, people only knew how true that was. I am done, a- and once I've reached that point, there's no turning back.
Matt: No, I've seen it happen a couple, few times now, and j- let's just say I don't ever wanna be on the receiving end of that negativity.
And when I see it coming, I'm like, "Oh, that entity or that person doesn't know what's coming to them. They crossed a line." Your line is, like, 14 miles long, and so it takes a lot to cross that line. And the second they cross it, you're done.
Francine: It takes a whole lot to get me there, but you're right. When I'm there, I'm there.
Because, see, there's been a- [00:03:00] ample opportunity to keep me from getting there. Like, and it's not threatening or anything. I don't, by any means, mean it to be that way because I, I am, like, super patient and more than tolerant, but once I'm there... There, it's like there's this switch in my brain that just flips.
Matt: Yep. I saw this happen- Oh, yeah ... like a month
Francine: ago. A couple weeks ago, and he's like, "You did what?" "
Matt: You did what?" You did what? Okay. Everybody said you did what? Your attorney, your husband, me.
Francine: My husband was pretty on board.
Matt: Oh, 100%.
Francine: That's true. My ac- my accountant.
Matt: Your accountant. Oh, man. Okay, so back to this. On Marler's blog, an unnamed [00:04:00] federal official told Washington Post they are about to declare the largest cyclospora outbreak in US history over.
The national count is still climbing, so I guess the numbers are still climbing, but it's over.
8,137 confirmed illnesses have a named source, and Congress is still waiting for answers. I think Congress is gonna be waiting a long time for answers.
Intro: Yeah, I do too.
Matt: There is so much that's weird with this cyclospora story. Yeah, I don't know. And the numbers that are claimed are so f- all over the place that if you wanted to create confusion, this is exactly what you would do.
Like, if I wanted to make sure nobody really knew anything factually, this is exactly how I would run this play. [00:05:00] Because the numbers officially, again still climbing, are 8,137 confirmed cases to a named source. Okay? But we have... I'm just gonna read the first opening parts of this article here. "Federal officials are poised to declare the end of the largest known cyclospora outbreak in history of the United States.
It did not learn that from the CDC, nor the FDA. As I write this," this is Bill Marler writing this, "as I write this, CDC's own outbreak page, stamped September 3rd, still lists investigation as open." So as of September 3rd, it's still open. "I learned it the way the country has learned a good deal about this outbreak: from a newspaper Two people familiar with [00:06:00] this outbreak speaking on the condition of animosity, or f- yeah, animidity.
Jesus
Francine: Animosity. It's probably animosity and anim- animidity.
Matt: Yeah. Yes. It was a Freudian slip there, but it was accurate. That was a
Francine: Freudian slip
Matt: there. It was accurate. Told Rachin Rubin of the Washington Post this afternoon that announcement would come as soon as today, though the timing is not guaranteed.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not comment. No kidding. No kidding. It is not the first time the explanation went to a reporter before it went to the public. When people asked why FDA waited nearly a month after naming Taylor Farms to send investigators into the fields in Central Mexico, the answer came from Donald Prater, FDA's acting deputy commissioner for food, an earlier interview with the Post.
[00:07:00] The agency, he said, first worked to reconstruct conditions during the growing and harvesting so it could put its resources where they would count. That's a reasonable answer. It belongs on an agency's outbreak page where everyone can read it
Francine: Yes, 100% it does. Why would we want them to know the truth? I mean, just why?
It's better that they don't
Matt: I- just to reporters? Like, why?
Francine: Sarcasm, by the way, for those listeners that don't know me.
Matt: There's so much ambiguity in this whole entire thing. So instead of posting it on the public page where everybody can read, and then, then reporters could grab and then ask questions about it.
Instead, they're just announcing it to reporters to be written within a national publication and not having it on the actual page. Very confusing. Well
Francine: then, [00:08:00] how can you fact check?
Matt: Right. Right.
Francine: Fact-checking's gone.
Matt: So interesting. '
Francine: Cause we can no longer look at the websites because it's not there. I've said this before.
I've been saying it for months.
Matt: Yes.
Francine: That's where I used to get all my data for the article, uh, the articles that I would write.
Matt: Okay, so the outbreak count stopped. The counting did not. The outbreak FDA and CDC attribute to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms to Mexico stands at 11,458 illnesses in 20 states, at least 495 hospitalizations, and two deaths in Michigan, with onset from June 14th through August 15th.
Neither agency has stopped that number since August [00:09:00] 27th, and on September 3rd, CDC said it would stop updating the weekly page, the page weekly. So they just stopped counting? So does that mean that the victims don't exist if you just stop counting?
Francine: How many times do I have to say? If you don't count them, they don't matter.
They don't exist. I've been saying that for over a year
Matt: There's more. The national count keeps going. On September 8th, CDC reported 19,595, 19,595 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporas acquired in the United States since May 1st, with 1,043 hospitalizations in 49 states and the District of [00:10:00] Columbia against 1,180 for the same stretch of 2025.
One week earlier, that figure was 18,445.
CDC also lists 9,355 laboratory-confirmed cases still being sorted into domestic or travel-acquired, and at least 6,149 more that are not laboratory-confirmed or are waiting on the patient's interview. You know, for like epidemiology purposes is what I'm guessing for the interview. Right. Health departments.
The agency's own page says reports take about six weeks to arrive, and that it will keep finding cases after the season August 31 close. Michigan alone reported 14,718 cases and 366 [00:11:00] hospitalizations as of September 3rd. So many numbers, Francine.
Francine: It takes six weeks because they stopped funding those departments.
Matt: Well, they stopped counting cyclospora.
Francine: Well, that too. Because now they don't have anybody to count. So while they're saying that the outbreak is over, and it may be, do you know what isn't over? The drop in consumer confidence of our food safety. Americans' food safety. That is not over It is still dropping
Matt: Wow.
Wow.
Francine: It is still dropping.
Matt: Truer words have not been spoken.
Francine: Newsweek says, "Recent data shows 94% of US adults worry about the frequency of food recalls, [00:12:00] while confidence in recall effectiveness has fallen to 80%", according to Newsweek.
Matt: Uh, read that again.
Francine: Recent data shows 94% of US adults worry about the frequency of food recalls, while confidence in recall effectiveness has fallen to 80%, according to Newsweek.
Matt: Yep. W- and of course that would be the case. The 20% that are not worried about recall effectiveness aren't paying attention, and the 6% that aren't worried about, you know, food safety in our system probably have Alzheimer's or something.
Francine: The frequency of recalls. Right. Well, that was bad. Bacterial outbreaks.
Foodborne illnesses like E. coli, salmonella, and listeria remain top consumer worries, alongside chemical additives and pesticides.
Matt: Yeah [00:13:00] This is insane. Here's a question, and, uh, Congress is asking questions, right? And they're not getting any answers. So between July 14th and August 3rd, members of the House and Senate sent 13 letters about this outbreak to HHS, FDA, and CDC, and twice to the chief executive of Taylor Farms.
Eight set a deadline, you know, for a response back. All eight have passed. The last on August 27th. As of this afternoon, I cannot find a published answer to any of them, and I cannot find a hearing notice on any committee. I laid out the record yesterday. Nothing in it has changed except that HHS, the Health and Human Services, now has one more question it declined to answer at this time from the reporter.
This is Marler writing this in his blog. So they, they've just gone total radio silence. [00:14:00] Like, I'm like, "No, nothing's here, folks. Nothing to see. Like, you can ask us all the questions you want. We're not even gonna answer. It got lost in the email someplace. Our firewall got rid of it. I don't know why we didn't find your question.
Oh, the deadline's passed? Ah, okay, well, we don't really need to answer it now, 'cause the deadline's passed."
Francine: So that falls right into my next statistic. A perception that not all parts of the food system work together to ensure food safety, that's 50%, 54%. Insufficient government regulation, 46%. And too many food recalls, 43%.
A belief that profit is prioritized over safety, 59%.
Matt: Yes.
Francine: That came from International Food Information Council.
Matt: Here's where they are wrong. I don't believe that there needs to [00:15:00] be more food safety laws. Okay? I don't- I actually don't think there needs to be more food safety laws.
Francine: I don't think I said that.
I don't think I
Matt: said that. I think we should just follow the laws that we have. Like, I-
Francine: Yeah, I don't, I don't think I said that.
Matt: No, no, no, but the consumers. You said, what was it? 54% say that we need more food safety laws or something like that?
Francine: A perception that not all parts of the food system work together to ensure safety.
Not more need to be created. They don't work together. 100%. I agree with that.
Matt: 100%.
Francine: We don't need more laws. We don't need more regulations. We don't need more freaking certifications. We just need to follow the stuff that we have. And we need the people to do that.
Matt: Yes. Yes
Francine: That's what we need to do
Matt: 100%.
Francine: And we need people to be on board to make everybody aware of what's happening.
And I'm, I'm very proud of [00:16:00] what we do in accomplishing that.
Matt: Amen. Amen. And e- okay, and, and so this is a perfect example of not everybody working together. Okay, so this right here, showing all of these different numbers From all the different states, the CDC, the FDA, the HHS, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All of them have like different numbers, and then them just saying, "Ah, the outbreak's over," and then they just stop counting. But that doesn't mean the numbers aren't climbing. Okay, so-
Francine: Wait a minute. It's over, so we're not gonna count anymore. We're done. It's over. Nobody else will get sick.
Matt: I don't get it.
I don't get it unless... Okay, so the other statistic you said was 59%, I believe it was 59% of Americans believe that profit over food safety. I 100% agree with that.
Francine: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Matt: 100%.
Francine: I've been on the end where they say, "I'm [00:17:00] sorry, it costs too much." Oh, I've heard that time and time again.
Matt: I'm not even talking about the-
Francine: Yeah, you're not-
Matt: industry
Francine: I get it. Right.
Matt: I'm talking about the regulators. This starts putting up, and I'm not a conspiracy type of a person. I'm not. I don't even like listening to conspiracies. Like- Yeah ... my brain just kind
Francine: of- I don't, I don't either. I-
Matt: It kinda shuts down when people talk about conspiracies.
Francine: But- I'm not that person either
Matt: if you are a conspiratorial person, okay, I am not a conspiratorial person, and I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, "This looks like a conspiracy." And if so, if I'm not a conspiracy person and I'm saying, "This looks like a conspiracy," then conspiracy people, which there's a good percentage of America that look at it, are gonna look at this and say the exact same thing, because I'm like a normal dude that's like, "No, everybody's really trying to work together to figure things out."
And I look at this and I [00:18:00] go, "This is either absolute pure fricking incompetence," which I can 100% get on board with if that is the case, 'cause I tend to think that large entities like this, while there are a lot of competent people, become real stupid when you put a whole bunch of them in a committee.
Like, it's fascinating, right? All of a sudden their IQ drops-
Francine: Okay,
Matt: so- ... collectively like 100 points when you put them into, uh... You have a two, somebody who's an absolute genius, 180 point IQ, and all of a sudden they become 80 when they get into a committee. So that could be the case, or, or it's a conspiracy, and they're purposefully trying to hide all of the entities that are involved in this and make it complicated to get what, what is due to the victims because they don't want this to happen.
I could see either side of this, and that's scary to me.
Francine: When you said you believe that they're all working together to solve this, I don't know that I 100% believe that. I'm sorry. I try to, [00:19:00] I
Matt: try to have faith in people.
Francine: I, I want to believe that, but I just, I just don't I'm sorry. I want to believe that. I think that there are some people in each group that want to do that, but as a whole, if they wanted to do it, they could.
Matt: Yeah. If, okay, if our show became a conspiracy show, our show would grow so fast because people are intrigued in that stuff, like absolutely. And we're not. We- we're on episode 185. I think this is the first time we've ever said anything about a potential conspiracy. So we're not that show.
Francine: I don't think... I don't think we've ever said the word.
Matt: I don't think we've said the word either, and we say a lot of words. You and I both talk fast. This is, this... But this is either absolute pure incompetence or a conspiracy, and I could believe in [00:20:00] both, or both simultaneously. So it could be absolute, absolute incompetence and a conspiracy, both. So there's three options here.
This is it. There's, those are the only three options. This is not done well. There's no option for they did the best they could. Okay, even if they did the best they could, it's still pure incompetence, and that's also scary. Okay, so number four is actually the scariest. If they did the best they could and it's pure incompetence, then holy cow, we have a lot of problems in our entities.
Francine: Should I even comment on that?
Matt: Yes, please.
Francine: I think there's a whole hell of a lot of incompetence happening. I'm sorry, but some of the stuff that is coming out of Washington...
Matt: You know what? It could be option number five, too, now that you say that. It's just broken. [00:21:00] The system is just
Francine: completely broken. It is absolutely broken.
Matt: Okay, that could be number five. It is absolutely broken. We have so many options here now. We have so many options. We just keep adding them. I think we stopped at a handful. Okay, the system is just completely broken, and if it's completely broken, then you can have incompetence, you can have people trying the best that they can, you can have conspiracy all at the same time, and it's just called it's broken.
Holy cow. It's just broken It's broken. And you know what? With all the outbreaks that we've had in the past that we've talked about, they've all been small, relatively small. Hundreds of people, hundred people, blah, blah, blah. It's hard to hide an outbreak that is up to, like, 30,000 people. It's... Yeah. And so then you really get to see on the magnitude of scale how broken the system is because it's scaled.
Francine: So [00:22:00] when we have a Department of Health and Human Service, Services that clashes with traditional food safety outbreaks and the way they're reported, that is absolutely broken. It's broken. Absolutely broken.
Matt: Okay.
Francine: Look at the number of outbreaks and the severity of them that we have had this year. And we might say, "Okay, well, we have outbreaks every year."
And we do. We do.
Matt: Every year.
Francine: And we're never gonna stop them
Matt: No
Francine: But the things that have happened this year have been beyond what typically happens. I mean, we talk about these every year. This year has been beyond what we normally see, and we are having so much trouble getting information. If it wasn't for the states and Bill Marler, we'd have nothing to talk about.
Matt: Yeah
Francine: I mean, we'd have plenty to talk about. We always have something to talk about. [00:23:00] As far as actual content involving the outbreaks, think about it.
Matt: Oh, I am, and every thought is... So my family, and you could probably relate to this, Francine, because yours and my brain, while very different, works in similar ways.
My daughter and future son-in-law said to me a couple weeks ago, "It's really a good thing that you are a good person, because if you were evil, you would be able to do a lot of evil things." Okay, 'cause my brain just works I have a strategic futuristic brain
Francine: So do I
Matt: So i- like on strength finders, my strengths are woo, individualistic, communication, strategy, and futuristic.
It's not in that order, except for woo is in that order. So basically, my strengths are I have the [00:24:00] ability to woo people, I have the ability to relate to each individual person individually as that person. So I can see like, you know, where, you know, what is their religion? What is their race? Where were they from?
Where were they born? How were they raised? All this different type of stuff. I can quickly group things together to kinda understand how they may relate to what it is that I'm saying. But then individually, 'cause each person is individually, how their brain works, I can, I can communicate to them directly to that.
And it's because I actually care for them, right? So I actually care to learn about each individual person. But then I also think strategically, and I look into the future. I like think things, where are things going in the future? If I didn't wanna use this to save people's lives and wanted to do this for evil, I totally could.
And so if the system is broken, and I'm using this in reference to what I'm gonna say [00:25:00] next, if the system is broken, and there are people like me, which I'm sure there are, in Health and Human Services, in the FDA, in the CDC, they could use this system to do evil things. So not, I'm not saying the system itself is evil.
I think the vast majority of the people in these departments are trying to do good. But okay, if you were trying to like, say, I don't know, get campaign financing from all the different groups that could be implicated in this massive outbreak, and you wanted... Okay, so now my brain is actually acting conspiratorially right now.
And you wanted to design this to have the least amount of impact, you could totally use the system to do this. You could get committees together to lower everybody's IQ Create decisions on things. You could figure out ways [00:26:00] of hiding all the different organizations that are part of this, minimizing the ones that have been implicated, like Taylor Farms.
You could do all of those different things, and you could get a couple few people to m- manipulate this broken system to do this. Now, the thing is, this is so huge that if there was follow-up and, oh man, an investigative reporter that wanted to create another Netflix show, this would be a fantastic multi-part series just on this Cyclospora outbreak to do a deep dive into this, and that I would watch.
Not, I don't, not, I don't, don't watch a lot of conspiracy shows. In fact, the only time I watch a conspiracy show is if I know that person or if my wife and daughter force me to watch it. This I would 100% watch, and so would the rest of the world, because this would be fascinating. Is it just incompetence?
Which would still be interesting to watch, because that would be- put a highlight on where [00:27:00] the incompetence is. But are there some evil geniuses that have some sort of political connection and are trying to minimize the issue? Boy, that would be fascinating to find out who those people are Fascinating.
Did I go too far on this, Francine?
Francine: No. So we have very similar results on the strength finder. I can't remember what all five of mine are, but I, I do remember strategic and futuristic. I would know if you told me what all they were across the top, but I can't remember, I can't remember what they all five are.
I can tell you that one of them is not woo.
Matt: Yeah, that's where our strengths combine with each other. Okay, you know what, though? It makes sense for you to have strategic and futuristic, 'cause our partnership would, would be very hard to do the things that we're doing if [00:28:00] we did not have those two things. Because it's true, you and I track. I'll say something and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I can totally see that working.
We just need to do this, this, this, this, this, and to get to here." And then you're like, "Yes, but you haven't figured out all the details." You are more, whatever your strengths are, I bet one of them is very detail-oriented. Us, that is not mine, and that's where you are very, very good.
Francine: I, I wish ... I was trying to find mine while you were talking, and I just, I, I couldn't find it.
Matt: Yeah. And so why I could see that there could be people in here manipulating this is because I could see, like if I was that type of a person, like if I didn't care for consumers as much as I care for consumers, and have made a whole career out of caring for consumers. If I did not care for consumers and all I did was care about power, okay?
I could see how that individual would think and how they would act, because I would be that person. Like, totally be [00:29:00] that person. If I wasn't grounded in faith, if I wasn't grounded in family, if I wasn't grounded in country, if I wasn't grounded in just love of people and wanting to take care of people that can't take care of themselves, oh man, I could be
And so, so could you, Francine. Like our brains. And so we, I could think like that person. I could see how that person would move the pieces on the chessboard, what they would do, because I could see that because I would do the same thing. Golly, this should be a multiple part Netflix series. This would be
Netflix.
Francine: So, Netflix. Netflix, reach out to us. Anybody at Netflix, listen to us. So I found, I found mine. My number one is strategic.
Matt: Yep.
Francine: Number two is ideation. Number three is self-assurance. Number four is- Hmm ... competition.
Matt: Ah.
Francine: And [00:30:00] number five is futuristic.
Matt: I totally see the competition side of things, too Totally see the competition side of things I am 100%
Francine: competitive, but not in sports
Matt: Yeah
Francine: I'm very competitive
Matt: You know what is, where I see that too, is why the whole F it, I'm out thing.
If you, Francine, if you see that the rules are rigged against you, and you cannot win, even though you are the number one in what you do for another entity, I don't wanna describe this in full detail, but if they're listening to this, they're sure gonna know. If you're number one in that entity, and you believe the rules are rigged against you, done.
You won't even think twice. I'm done. The rules are rigged against me. I'm out.
Francine: And if it's not ethical, and it's not fair in the way it's being handled, and when I say fair, I mean, [00:31:00] you know, balanced and fair for both parties, I just don't want any part of it.
Matt: 100%. I am exactly the same way
Francine: Even if I'm winning on a personal level.
You know what I mean? E- even, even if I'm doing well and I'm winning on a personal level, I, I don't care. I'm done.
Matt: Oh my gosh. I almost... I don't know if this is interesting for the, uh, listeners, or if we're just talking about so much inside baseball right now that we can't actually describe. I'd just go to Francine's Savvy Food Safety website.
Is it still up, Francine?
Francine: Part of it is. Or it might not be by the time this airs.
Matt: F it, I'm out. Okay. Okay, so am I wrong, though? Like, 'cause of all the people, like there's only a handful of people that would, that truly could tell me that I'm wrong, and you're one of them. Am I overseeing this? Am I putting too much into this?
Francine: [00:32:00] I don't know. I mean, something's going on. I think there are times when I would say I think you're crazy.
Matt: Uh-huh. You tell me, straight up.
Francine: But there is absolutely, positively something going on. And you know, to the point that we are one of two of the few people that will even talk about it.
Matt: I know.
Francine: Publicly.
Matt: I know. That's why I'm like, it did- there may be a conspiracy.
Francine: Like, some of the papers are writing about things, but yeah, how can this much stuff be happening? Normally everybody would be all over it, but they're terrified to even talk or write about it. I mean, are Men in Black gonna pop in my window any minute now?
I don't know.
Matt: We're not that big. We're not that big. We're not that big.
Francine: I don't know.
Matt: They're gonna go after Bill Marler before they go after us But you know what's interesting is are Men in Black gonna [00:33:00] go after any reporter that would try to make a multiple part series on this? That would be an interesting thing.
I don't think so. This is not that big of... I mean, this is a big deal, but in terms of like if a couple people have to fall for this, this is not like national defense type of a, a thing. Like the last conspiracy thing I watched had to do with one of my, one of my partners in a different entity. That was a conspiracy that people died from because it would, had to deal with national defense.
I watched that and I- I wonder
Francine: if I watched it ...
Matt: you probably did. It was the octopus-
Francine: Yes ...
Matt: on, okay, so yes. So Molly Hamilton from Clean Label Project, that's her dad. And I- Really? ... watched that and I was like, "Oh, I get it. I get where you come from." She's the perfect person for Clean Label Project, by the way, [00:34:00] because of that.
Like everything that has to do with the food side of the world, like she just believes that it's like there's this massive conspiracy of the whole entire industry of food to hide all the chemicals and heavy metals and everything that's happening in our system. And you know what? After watching that with, with-
Francine: We know some fascinating people.
Each of us know some really fascinating people. I know somebody that a movie was made about as well. It wasn't a documentary, it was a movie, but...
Matt: But man, it gave me true insight into, into her, which is great 'cause she directs my lab, me and my lab into what to test for. What is Clean Label Project gonna be doing in the future?
What are we gonna be doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And she has a pulse on this stuff is bad. These things that we have built the whole entire mult- I mean, it's got like our food system's [00:35:00] in the trillions of dollars, and beauty and everything like that. And yeah, I, well, I am not a conspiracy person. I d- and I just believe everybody is doing what is best for themselves and the consumers.
I look at this, I go, "Maybe there is. I don't know."
Francine: It's because we don't think like that. No. Not that we can't, because we both have, we both have minds that could go there. But it's not in our nature to think that way.
Matt: You know why? It's probably because- And that's because- ... it's not productive ...
Francine: we're strategic.
Matt: Yes.
Francine: Well, and we just- Exactly correct ... 'cause we're very strategic, so if we had to think like that The strategic part of us could do that.
Matt: Yes.
Francine: We're very capable of doing that.
Matt: We can understand the strategy around
Francine: how to make that work. We're, we're very strategic, and we're both, not to pat ourselves on the back, but we're both very smart.
Matt: Yes.
Francine: And, and the strategy goes [00:36:00] together. So we can look at things and figure it out, but we don't typically think that way So that's why if something's going wrong in our businesses or something's missing or something isn't working like it should be or somebody's doing something they shouldn't or a company has a problem, we can figure out- Yeah
what is happening because there's strategy involved in that. So it's beneficial that we can think like that.
Matt: Right. It- but we use it for productive purposes, and so the strategy- Right ... is for productivity, not for... Okay, I'll, I'll give you an example of this just in my career.
Francine: I wish... Wait a minute. I wish I had gone into forensics.
I wish- Yeah ... I had done that- Yes ... 'cause I think I would've been very good at that. I think it would've been fun.
Matt: I think if I had gone [00:37:00] into forensics or something like that, I would not have been able to stop drinking without changing careers. And I'm absolutely serious. Like, part of my- Oh, I'm
Francine: not laughing at you, just that-
Matt: Yeah
Francine: I, I-
Matt: Because I so love people, and I- everything I do is wrapped around helping people, if I'm trying to solve that crime to help their family, because you're there interviewing and investigating and all this with those people, I would burn myself out. First off, I would have to drink just to shut my brain off, which is why I drank, is to shut my brain off from constantly thinking of all the different things that I could do to help people that...
I had to shut it down. But I don't think, if I was an investigator, I don't think I could have sh- stopped.
Francine: There's different types of forensics, though. There's financial forensics. There's... I have a friend that's a detective, an internal detective for a company. [00:38:00] Like, those types of for- that type of thing is much different than the type of forensics that you're talking about.
But I have such pattern recognition, and the type of detail that you're talking about, I am very good at. I would've been very good in that career.
Matt: Maybe we should go to Netflix on this.
Francine: Maybe somebody at Netflix
Matt: should call us. Because the two of us could do this. Well, we have too much stuff- shit to do.
We have too much stuff to do. But I'll give you-
Francine: But the Netflix would be fun ...
Matt: I'll give you an example. When I was 24 years old, okay, I started Azul under Primus Labs, and Azul was a supply chain data management company. It also owns PrimusGFS, the standard. And my job was to get retailers and food service companies to utilize the system that we had built, the supply chain audit compliance, testing compliance system that we had built.
This is, [00:39:00] by the way, when I was 24. That was 2006, okay? To adopt this system, okay? Trying to get retailers and food service companies to do anything is like steering an iceberg. It is not that easy to do. Nobody knew I was 24 years old. They all thought I was in my 30s. I had kids already, I, you know, I had this, I started Azul, this company.
They all thought I was in my 30s, okay? So I go and we go and one of the largest projects that we did was for a major, major, major company, one of the largest food companies in the industry. Not gonna say who they are. But I had to navigate through all of the different decision-makers in order to get this adopted, and so we str- s- strategically...
So my, my team was building the software, and it was my job to go get this company and [00:40:00] all, a bunch of different companies to adopt it, and as I'm going through this, there were very powerful people within this organization that were trying to shut this down because it was gonna slow them down, it was adding a whole bunch of different type of stuff, and this is 2006.
So not a lot of companies were even thinking about food safety really, okay? 2006, 2007. So we navigated through all of the different people, and we finally got this thing adopted, okay? Then it took two years of implementation. So while we're implementing this program, all those powerful people within the entity were trying to shut this down, and I would work around them and work with them and da da da, and I would have everybody in a room, and so this is where committees, I would get all these different committees together within the organization, and I would have them tell me all of their issues that they had with what we were doing, and I would answer them on the spot, and I had [00:41:00] everything ready.
And so all the people that were going against what we were trying to do started getting smaller and smaller and smaller because they didn't want to put themselves out on a limb when they saw where the tides were going, right? They had to get on board because they are very powerful people, and powerful people can read where the tides are going.
And so they all just started slowly, slowly disappearing. And when I say disappearing, they still showed up. They were still... They still had issues and all of a sudden though, they started getting on board, and they were like, "Well, have you thought of this?" "No, I had not thought of that. That is a really good thing.
Let me get my team. We'll, we'll solve that problem." "Have you thought of this? Have you thought of this? Have you thought..." Da, da, da. Kept solving all these different solutions for them. At the end, we implemented this program, and it's still in existence to today, 20 years later, in almost every retailer and food service company in the United States.
That one of those guys at that [00:42:00] major institution that was in the beginning trying to shut this down and ultimately became one of my biggest advocates, after I got done implementing this with that team, with the entity and my team, he gives me a call out of the blue. So I answer his call and I'm like, "Hey, what's up?"
And he said, "Listen, I have never seen anybody navigate our organization the way that you did, and now I can see how this is really going to help us." And he said, "I want to follow your career, and I want to, I want to be, like, a mentor for you and follow your, in your career because-- And I want to know what you're thinking about what's next because whatever you're thinking is next is probably going to be what is next, right?"
Still to this day, I talk to this guy Every couple months? And so what I'm saying is exactly what you're saying. Our brain c- works that way. So I could totally see how this [00:43:00] could c- like, a c- because the system is broken, people like us that are trying to manipulate it for some purpose could easily do it.
Francine: Right. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, a- and every industry has situations where people are doing... You know, we had a manager that was robbing the company blind, and I can remember telling the company, uh, I was also very young, I was like 22, it was like, "He is robbing you guys blind." And they're like, "He can't be."
I said, "100% he is. He's robbing you blind." And they're like, "The store's too profitable. He can't be." Employees were carrying stuff out to his car every night. "He's robbing you blind." And they're like, "Uh, it, it's not possible. He can't be." And I said, "I'm telling you, he is." And, you know, uh, it's like I had meetings with them and explaining to them, and he's manipulating these [00:44:00] employees into helping them.
They can't tell on them 'cause they're carrying the stuff to his car. He's inviting them to parties at his house. I mean, th- they can't tell on him. They're stealing the stuff. Technically, he's not carrying anything to his car. It was, it was a mess. Thousands and thousands of dollars of, of s- tens of thousands of dollars of stuff.
It didn't look like he was stealing anything because the inventory wasn't right when he was counting inventory. You know? If somebody else would count the inventory, things would show up missing. When he... And he had the managers trained to not, because of course he'd manipulated them as well, that whenever they counted the inventory, to not make it look like there were that many discrepancies.
So it looked like he was way more profitable than he actually was because the inventory wasn't [00:45:00] really there. So yeah, he was robbing them blind One of the assistants was stealing cash. He was stealing inventory. It wa- that store was a hot mess
Yeah. Oh, I- I'm telling you.
Matt: I'm not saying that there is a conspiracy, but I am saying that the system is so broken that there could easily be one And, uh, that's probably as far as we're gonna go with conspiracy. I don't know, maybe three years from now we'll have another one
Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, on that note, don't eat poop