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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!
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[00:00:00] Rick: I believe we have to as a community, I'm gonna call it a, you know, 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. That's not like you're doing this fabulous job and we're compliant.
Big deal. What we need to do is, is take this to another level
[00:00:43] 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 Elshawe and Matt Regusci for a deep dive [00:01:00] into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule: don't eat poop.
Don't eat poop.
[00:01:08] Matt: Hello, hello Francine.
[00:01:10] Francine: Hi, Matt. I feel like you're having trouble finding the recording button today. Is there a problem? I
[00:01:14] Matt: am. You know what it is, is we record to each individual device. It's hard. I have to remember to click a certain button that we always click every single time, or else our editors yell at us, and I don't like getting yelled at by our editors.
And so, yeah They actually care about our podcast sounding good.
[00:01:36] Francine: They do. They do.
[00:01:37] Matt: They're like the nicest ladies in the world, but you can tell when they get frustrated with us, and they say the same things over and over again and expect different results. I know, that's insanity right there.
[00:01:50] Francine: Francine, sit closer to your mic.
[00:01:53] Matt: Yes. Matt, get better video quality.
[00:01:57] Francine: Matt, get lights- Why? It's a
[00:01:58] Rick: podcast ... so
[00:01:59] Francine: [00:02:00] Francine, so Francine orders lights and sends them to Matt's house.
[00:02:05] Matt: That's exactly what happened. Thank you, Francine. Thank you. Well, we have Rick on again, and I'm gonna start with this, by the way. So Rick from Food Safety Tech, Food Safety Consortium is on, and every year we have been blessed to be able to give our audience a discount on Food Safety Consortium.
It's a 25% discount. So all you have to do is when you go in and you book your Food Safety Consortium ticket, type in poop in the discount, P-O-O-P, and you get a 25% discount, which is huge. That is fantastic. Thank you, Rick, for doing that. Last episode, we went into kinda insider baseball. If, so people haven't listened to that, that's a pretty cool one to listen to about kinda how you design the conference every single year.
Like, what goes through designing the conference year after year, and you do this. You have a team that does this, but you're managing and [00:03:00] leading that process, and you geek out on it. And we were like, "How do you pick these?" And I think it's great for people to understand this because you could go right...
You can't do it now, 'cause the submissions are over, but for next year, when do you start getting submissions, Rick, for your conference?
[00:03:16] Rick: Well, right after the consortium, we'll begin curating and calling for abstracts for the food safety hazards. And then for the consortium, it's usually April when the word goes out.
Ideally, if we can get our act together sooner, we will, but, uh, it just gives people more time, but typically April.
[00:03:38] Matt: So April to about end of May, you have those go, and we found out last time that about 50% of them end up on stage some way, some shape, some form, whether exactly the way it was or however it evolves.
So if you haven't listened to that, listen to that episode. That's pretty cool. But- Today we're gonna be talking more about this specific conference and what that's gonna look [00:04:00] like. And we keep talking about food safety culture, and I'm sure food safety culture is gonna be part of this conference, right?
[00:04:07] Rick: Yep, it is. Actually, Francine, you're gonna be participating in a panel discussion with Darin Detwiler talking about storytellers. Actually, this is a really good opportunity to talk a little bit about what you and Darin and how you guys have collaborated on this, which by the way, it's been accepted. That abstract's been accepted, so
[00:04:30] Matt: you will be getting a
[00:04:30] Rick: letter saying, "
[00:04:32] Matt: We
[00:04:32] Rick: welcome
[00:04:32] Matt: you
[00:04:33] Rick: to the Food Safety Consortium.
Don't forget to book your hotel."
[00:04:38] Matt: Yeah, 'cause what we learned last time too is that the submissions ended May 22nd, and we're recording this episode before you even sent the emails out. There is some, um, insider information that's going on right now even before they, they even know. That's hilarious. Did you tell me, Francine, and I forgot that you and Darin are [00:05:00] gonna be doing this?
[00:05:00] Francine: I think I told you that Darin called me. Right. We talk to Darin a lot about a whole- Well, I talk, yeah, Darin calls me randomly. We talk about a whole lot of different things. Darin's just a good guy. I love Darin Detwiler. We do, we speak to him randomly about podcasts, each other's podcasts and things. But that's gonna be fun.
I am really looking forward to it. I love People learn from stories. We can get up on a stage, and we can spew statistics and information and data, and people can sit there and they listen. But, you know, a lot of times people just zone out. But when you can get up there and talk about life and industry experiences and share that information, and information that they can relate to, that is just so valuable.
I just had another opportunity to do that. It is just so valuable to the audience, and that's how people learn.
[00:05:59] Matt: And now I remember [00:06:00] you were telling me about this at Food Safety Summit. We learned how to speak through stories. Cavemen were talking, and they were telling stories. That's how a lot of understanding of...
Like, I'm sure a caveman was like, "I caught a fish this big," back then. So- So drawing
[00:06:18] Francine: on cave walls. Yeah,
[00:06:19] Matt: yeah. "Look at this massive auric I'm drawing. We're gonna catch ourselves a massive auric, a mammoth," and that's how people learn, and by relating with stories is great. That's one of them. That's gonna be, listening to you and Darin on stage talking about this is gonna be awesome.
[00:06:39] Rick: Yeah. I'm really looking forward to this as well, and it's, as Francine, uh, stated, it's, you know, the theme is storytellers. So it's, you know, what you guys do with Donipoo is telling stories, and Darin's a great storyteller. You guys have two other panelists, and it's [00:07:00] kind of like a fireside chat. So, uh, I'm really looking forward to this one.
[00:07:04] Matt: And I think with food safety culture, there's a lot of hubbub and a lot of conversation about food safety culture. But I've found that some of the hardest things for implementation is understanding what that means in each individual organization. How you do that with Food Safety Tech and Food Safety Consortium?
[00:07:26] Rick: Well, it's a great question. Think about this. If you're a vice president of food safety at a company, when you're coming to a conference or you're reading something or listening to something about food safety culture, is this about you putting more awareness and improving the food safety culture of the folks that are technically below you from an, a hierarchy standpoint?
So when you think about most of the people that are coming to a conference, we're kind of [00:08:00] preaching to the choir. Those are the folks that, one, believe that they should be coming here and trying to improve how they can do their jobs. And that's great from trying to provide reasons to people throughout the food company.
So again, going back to Francine and Darin's presentation, two sentences. Data informs, but the stories moves people to act. You will leave with the practical ways to use storytelling as a leadership tool. It is not a replacement for science, but is a bridge that makes science matter. So from my standpoint, a lot of conferences have been talking about food safety culture from the standpoint, and obviously Food Safety Consortium is doing that by having Francine and Darin present and talk.
But I think that there's a, [00:09:00] another challenge in food safety culture that's really, really difficult, that has been a challenge that I don't know a lot of food safety directors have been successful, which is not taking food safety culture and implementing it from their position and then down. It's how do they raise a company's food safety culture from their position up.
That to me is the biggest challenge in food safety culture because if you can improve company's food safety culture, it really does need to start in the C-suite. You need buy-in from not just a CEO, but a CFO, a COO, and even the CMO. All of those folks are really important, and they have to understand it.
So storytelling is gonna be very helpful, but I believe we have to as [00:10:00] a community, I'm gonna call it a, you know, 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. That's not like you're doing this fabulous job, and we're compliant. Big deal. What we need to do is, is take this to another level. And I believe that we need to change food safety from being a cost center or being looked at as a cost center to a business operational opportunity.
[00:10:52] Francine: Yes. This is what we're talking about next week. It's an investment, it's not an expense. And [00:11:00] we've got to stop checking boxes and start getting involved in the root cause of what causes these situations. It's not just a matter of the CEOs and the CFOs. Regulatory needs to be involved because the regulatory often goes in and it's like, "These are your infractions.
These are your violations." So that makes people violation-focused and problem-focused, and we need to start to address that differently. And once we start to address those things differently by regulatory and certification bodies and everybody that's involved, your CFOs and your CEOs are gonna be forced to start looking at it differently, and it's a cause and effect.
And your customers, it all has to balance somewhere, and we need to figure out how to make that balance. And as sometimes people need to be forced to look [00:12:00] at things differently, and if the regulatory can start forcing them to look at things differently by being supportive and looking at root cause analysis rather than like, "Look, these are your violations.
You need to fix them or you're gonna be punished." We want to help you and make this more of an investment-type focus.
[00:12:19] Rick: I love what you just said, Francine, and we completely see eye to eye on that. A big shift in the evolution of the program at Food Safety Consortium has been just what you said, but we're gonna take it one step further.
As you talk about investment, what's a CFO gonna ask? What's the return on investment?
[00:12:41] Francine: Exactly.
[00:12:42] Rick: What's your ROI? Exactly. So what we're trying to show with multiple different things that we're doing this year and moving forward with this is the ROI and what type of metrics are appropriate for food safety.[00:13:00]
So if you... Couple things. If you invest in food safety technology, what we're looking for is metrics that before this investment was made And then after this investment was introduced and operational, what are the tangible business and operational benefits that food company has experienced as a result of that food safety investment?
So you can have things like reduced downtime, faster response to CAPA. With food safety training, maybe you're having less turnover, which is an operational expense. So take all of these investments in whether it's training or just best practices or new technology And let's look at what is the ROI that can be told to the C-suite.
And if we [00:14:00] start doing this, and now we have directors of food safety going, "Our competition is doing this," or, "Other companies in the industry are investing in this type of technology." Maybe it's traceability, maybe it's environmental monitoring, digital platforms. Who knows? But they're seeing improved operational efficiencies which equate to profits.
It equates to improved bottom line. Now you get the buy-in from the C-suite, and that then filters all the way down to the line folks in the food plant and improving the food company's food safety culture.
[00:14:40] Matt: Right. I'm gonna name off some of these acronyms that you said, just in case people don't know. So the whole C-suite, you're talking about the chief executive officer, which is, like, the president, the one that runs the company.
He or she has to be able to have buy-in that this is the right thing to do, and not just the right thing to do in terms of the company culture of our [00:15:00] organization, but that's the top. And once they're boughten in, then there's a couple other people whispering in his ear or her ear all the time, and that's the COO, which is the chief operating officer, the one that's managing all the operations.
And then you have a supply chain officer, which probably goes underneath them as well, 'cause when you're looking at food safety culture, you're looking at your suppliers, you're looking at everything. Then you also have the CFO, which is chief financial officer, which is really the strategic financial person that has the controller, the bookkeeper, the accountants, all of that underneath them, and they're the chief bean counters of the organization and are in the CEO's ear about cashflow, about where are we investing money, where are we getting money, et cetera, et cetera.
So that's the money guy or gal. And then there's other types of C-suite. Depending upon the organization, it'll be really big or, or very small. That was really good explanation of those [00:16:00] C-suite people. I want to understand how you're getting the CMO, which is the chief marketing officer involved, because that is fascinating in itself.
And in my organization, where I'm helping, we, we do the certification and testing arm for... Clean Label Project certification is a consumer-facing logo. Who we're talking to most of the time are the CMOs or the owners. Is this the right thing to do with the organization? That is the first time I've ever dealt with marketing people instead of food safety people.
And the budget in marketing is significantly higher than the budget of food safety, unfortunately, and it always is. And so when you say s- get the, and even get the CMO involved, that just fascinates me, 'cause I think that that's, that could be huge if the C- CMO is involved in food safety culture. But what does that look like?
[00:16:52] Francine: Before we go there, Rick, your point was very valid, and that's where a lot of food safety folks go wrong, is they don't talk about the [00:17:00] ROI. We talk about the investment, it being an investment, but not the ROI, and not what it brings to the bottom line, and they care about the bottom line. So in a- That's
[00:17:12] Rick: right.
Well, as their responsibilities are to the shareholders or owners.
[00:17:16] Francine: 100%.
[00:17:17] Rick: And when you can show best practices or investments in new technology that improve the, the fiduciary responsibility of the C-suite to the shareholders and to the owners, then you've got a good formula to get the support that is really required.
Yes. So it, it's all tied together. I'm gonna take this... Matt, I'm gonna answer your question, but it's a long-winded answer, so I hope you have time. 100%. Okay. So let's take this out of food safety for a minute. I have personally invested in solar energy on my house, and we have switched over to 100% [00:18:00] heat pumps that both heat and cool my house.
Electricity and all forms of fuel is extremely expensive where I live, extremely expensive, and it's not unheard of for the average household to get between 5 and $800 a month electric bills. So I invested in 42 solar panels on my roof, and then we recently replaced our propane hot air system with a complete system of heat pumps.
As a result, I'm still making between 50 and $150 per month surplus, and have no energy bills whatsoever. So we financed the solar, but the combination of the cost savings and now the [00:19:00] money, this is literally one of the checks that we get from the energy company, I have zero utility bills. And I feel really good about helping the planet, 'cause that's the right thing to do, but I'm getting an ROI out of this.
And I can show... Where I'm going with this is, is that it's the right thing to do. It's helping with global warming. We are self-sufficient. We are not taxing the system. When we declare war, and we have high prices for fuel, and natural gas goes way up, that would've impacted me last summer greatly. It doesn't today.
And my point is that it's really the right thing to do, just like food safety, having good safety practices, and caring for your customers is the right thing to do. But it really helps when you get a good ROI on that.
[00:19:56] Matt: Yeah.
[00:19:57] Rick: That's my point.
[00:19:58] Matt: ROI means return [00:20:00] on investment too, for people who don't know.
Return
[00:20:01] Rick: on investment. So we spent X amount of dollars on the investing in the technology for solar and for heat pumps, and our return on investment is the lack of both propane and electric bills that were costing us, and actually getting a surplus the amount of electricity we're putting back into the grid.
So that's, again, a non-food safety explanation of where I see food safety culture being really important, and how to get continued investments to improve it, but it has to be operational excellence. And how we're doing this at the consortium is two ways. Actually, it's three ways. One, we put this out there and invited people like Azure to submit abstracts with the operational benefits of whether it's best practices, trainings, or investing in new technology.[00:21:00]
So we have a series of different presentations specifically. New this year, we're introducing something called the Food Safety Tech Excellence Award, and it is a self-nomination for a food company To nominate themselves, enter in kind of like submitting an abstract. They'll submit on a online form, and the reward is to reward a food company that has invested in food safety technology or changed training or best practices, done something and have seen an improved operational benefit.
That's the 30,000-foot view of it. We'll be having a question- online questionnaire asking them to describe the project. There'll be a lot of details with this, but then validate it. What did you get? Did you see improved audit scores? Did you see reduced [00:22:00] operational costs? Did you see reduced downtime, more uptime, lower employee turnover?
And really, how did that equate into dollars and cents? And it's supporting the food safety team that they can then say, "We won this award because we invested in food safety, and we showed operational benefits." That's who we're rewarding this. And from there, that's gonna be a catalyst for CMOs to look at because everyone loves winning an award, and it's an opportunity to recognize the food safety teams.
Most teams are not recognized. Think about this. When a food safety team is doing a good job, what happens? Nothing. That's- they're doing their job. No one's getting sick. There's
[00:22:52] Matt: no recalls.
[00:22:53] Rick: So this is actually recognizing them because now they're getting benefits from doing their jobs and doing their [00:23:00] jobs well, and also getting the support of the C-suite to allow them to invest into this new technology.
So it's tying all of this together and rewarding a company That has done this, and trying to raise the, a level of awareness, and we're hoping that this, we're anticipating that this is an annual event. We can grow it, maybe other categories, so on and so forth. But this is really trying to recognize the food safety companies getting the return on investment for doing the right thing, and the recognition for their efforts.
And we're excited about this. We'll be announcing this in mid-June, so I'm not sure when the podcast will be out, but by then, in July, if it's out by then, it will still be open for people to enter on foodsafetytech.com. And yeah, we're really, really excited about this. So this is a, Matt, this is a long-winded answer to your question, but it ties it all together.
It's bringing food safety culture[00:24:00]
into, we'll end up playing a
very large role at the consortium, but it's really on the benefits from improving food safety culture.
[00:24:17] Francine: Very cool. Think the escalator will be fixed this year?
[00:24:21] Rick: We actually put that in the contract this year. I think I, I was trying to get, like, "I'm not even gonna pay you if that escalator's not working." And so we actually put it in there, 'cause we- we're- we're in with a new meeting planner, and I brought this up.
I said, "I want some penalty if that escalator's not working."
[00:24:40] Francine: You know, it's funny because it's become such a joke- Right ... about the escalator. It's
[00:24:46] Rick: like, really? Same week. Throughout the year, it's working. The same exact week we're there, it breaks. Mary, what's the chances of that?
[00:24:55] Francine: Oh, my God, it's so funny. Yeah.
I don't know. [00:25:00]
[00:25:00] Rick: I'm holding their feet to the fire on this. We should.
[00:25:04] Francine: Right. It's a nice facility, though. The facility's very, facility is very nice
[00:25:10] Rick: Award, I'm gonna have an award ceremony, and so I've talked to Melody about her basically h- coming up with a Women in Food Safety recognition award that would be during the same award ceremony.
So, so we're looking at that, and a fundraiser for the organization. She's not sure she wants to do the breakfast or not. We're, we're still working that out. It was super expensive. It's like $21,000 to do that event. So we had one sponsor that didn't quite cover it, so I make up the difference. And so we're trying to figure that out.
She thinks that we could do something maybe even more fun that would be [00:26:00] better networking as well that wouldn't also cost as much. So we're supposedly meeting the end of this month to figure that out, or the end of next month.
[00:26:10] Matt: That was crazy. Okay. So there's another of the great thing that Francine wants to talk with Rick about, which is Women in Food Safety.
[00:26:20] Francine: Right. So Women in Food Safety is an amazing organization. I've been part of it for a couple years. Melody does an amazing job running the organization. She was one of the origin- well, she was the original founder, and she found some, some support with that. And Rick, you have been gracious enough to support them, you and the Food Safety Consortium.
Do you wanna talk a little bit about your involvement and how you support the gr- we should probably talk about what Women in Food Safety is if- do you wanna-
[00:26:56] Rick: Well, I mean, you know, like you said, Melody Kringel had started [00:27:00] the organization kind of more in just LinkedIn. It's evolved over, what is it now, six years.
And while it's a very large LinkedIn group, the idea is, is to help mentor women in food safety to help with their careers and to help them grow and rise in the leadership of food safety. So it's a mentoring group, a networking opportunity, and we've supported women in food safety in several different ways.
One, we do have a section on Food Safety Tech that we periodically run articles that profile food- women food safety leaders, and so we periodically run those articles. And then in addition to that, we have worked with Melody at the Food Safety Consortium. We [00:28:00] provide a booth at no charge. We've done networking breakfasts that we've had sponsored, and generally speaking, we pick up the difference as the sponsor really doesn't cover the whole cost.
So that's where I come in and Put my money where my mouth is. And Melody and I are talking about for 2026 some really interesting ideas about expanding the presence of Women in Food Safety at the Food Safety Consortium. We're looking at some, uh, fundraising opportunities. Maggie, we're talking about when people register and they get a group discount.
Well, there's also an opportunity where the individual can, on the registration form, donate a certain amount of money to Women in Food Safety.
[00:28:49] Matt: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:28:50] Rick: It's, it's an option where when you're registering, you can donate 25 bucks, a, a variety of different levels that go to help [00:29:00] the organization in providing opportunities for more and more networking.
[00:29:07] Francine: Right. And I wanna mention, while we're talking about funding, it is a nonprofit. They are a nonprofit organization, so they rely heavily on those donations because they are a nonprofit. They also have multiple chapters. There's a Latin American chapter, the Caribbean, North American, and we're looking at creating more regions.
Like, that is in the planning for the future. That's something that's gonna happen in the very near future, which is super exciting for the group.
[00:29:38] Rick: What's interesting to me also is Melody has been wanting to open up, and one, one of the reasons we're, we're looking at transitioning the idea of just a, a, a networking breakfast into something bigger, which would probably be some form of a fundraiser for Women in Food Safety, but it's not [00:30:00] gender specific What she's telling me is that there's a lot of men in leadership roles that want to provide opportunities for women to develop into the future food safety leaders.
[00:30:18] Francine: And to your point, I was introduced to the group by a man.
[00:30:22] Matt: Right. I wasn't quite sure if it was Darin or Hal King-
[00:30:27] Francine: It was, it was- ... 'cause
[00:30:27] Matt: I could see Hal King doing that too.
[00:30:28] Francine: It was... Well, they're both very supportive of women in the-
[00:30:32] Matt: Yes ...
[00:30:33] Francine: women in the industry. Right.
[00:30:35] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're helping out a lot with, uh, with Women in Food Safety.
[00:30:41] Francine: Yes, I am.
[00:30:42] Matt: Yeah. That's always been... And, and is- how many members right now of Women in Food Safety?
[00:30:49] Francine: I think there are, I don't want to get this wrong, but I think we just hit the 4,000 mark. I think it just hit the four- th- which is significant. That's [00:31:00] substantial.
[00:31:01] Matt: Yes.
[00:31:02] Francine: So.
[00:31:02] Matt: But there are a lot more women in food safety than 4,000, so.
[00:31:06] Francine: Right. And it's so tough of- to find organizations that sup- first of all, it's a tough industry. We work in a male-dominated industry. It's no secret. And it's tough to find organizations to support women in food safety, let alone companies like you, Rick, that are willing to stand behind growing that. So it's much appreciated.
I'm sure Melody ap- appreciates-
[00:31:33] Matt: Yeah, 'cause you've had that- you've
[00:31:35] Francine: had that breakfast- I know she does. I know she does.
[00:31:37] Matt: Yeah, you've had that breakfast for Women in Food Safety for a while now.
[00:31:40] Rick: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And again, we're working with Melody on ways in which we can maximize the exposure and the benefit for the organization, and, uh, just happy to do it.
You know, it's a win-win situation. It's supporting the industry, and it just makes a lot of sense. [00:32:00]
[00:32:00] Matt: I love it. I love it. Well, along with the discount, Poop, if you want to throw some of that discount into the the pot for Women in Food Safety, Rick is making it very easy for you to do that.
[00:32:15] Rick: Come on, Poopers.
You gotta come up. Is that what you call your audience, Poopers?
[00:32:21] Francine: No, we actually have never done that.
[00:32:23] Rick: Well, now you can.
[00:32:25] Matt: Nice. Nice. Okay. Well, I- The
[00:32:27] Rick: Swifties
[00:32:29] Matt: You also have sponsorship opportunities. We're gonna give you a shameless plug here, Rick
[00:32:33] Rick: Love it. Love it. Well, we talked about the Food Safety Tech Excellence Award, and years ago I had done something called the Food Quality Award, and that's when I ran Food Quality magazine.
Unfortunately, the a- award has died with the magazine two years ago. But it had been close to 12 years or so, and we had brought it over to Food [00:33:00] Safety Summit, so this is obviously before I had a, our own event. And just the lack of the award in an industry specific for a food company and food safety team brought this up with us.
But when we did it, we had, I remember DuPont Qualicon with ATP bioluminescence. They had been the, the sponsor for many years. Now it's part of another organization. But my point is, is that it was, it really worked well by having a sponsor of the award. They don't have input on who wins the award, but it's a great marketing opportunity, especially a tech company that wants to have their marketing message associated with the idea of investing in food safety technology and getting tangible business results.
That's the overarching theme of this award, and there's an opportunity. We're talking to three companies right now about potentially sponsoring [00:34:00] this. But there's this and other sponsorship opportunities, including Women in Food Safety. So people just can reach out to me, and what we end up doing is for a lot of the vendors in the industry, we have a, a list of stuff they could sponsor.
If they want the lanyards, they can have the lanyards, all that good stuff. But we also try and understand what they're really trying to accomplish, what are their challenges, what are their goals, and then design a solution around that. So yeah, we have a, a menu of stuff that people can buy that are, that are for sponsors.
But at the same time, we really try and make it tailored towards their needs. So thank you for that shameless plug.
[00:34:45] Francine: That is fantastic.
[00:34:48] Matt: Bye. Yeah. And on that note Don't eat poop. But use it as a discount code for Food Safety Concordium, and then tack on an extra hundred or so for the food, [00:35:00] for Women in Food Safety