Dr. Darin Detwiler: Welcome to Trust Bites with Dr D. I'm Dr Darren Detweiler, your host for this event. And this is being presented by My Food Source, the solution to build trust throughout today's global supply chain. 

I am very thrilled to have two guests with us today, and they're not just guests, they are leaders in their field. We have Valmir Rodriguez and we also have Francine Shaw. For those who have no idea who these two greats are, let's go ahead and let them introduce yourself. Francine, will you tell us a little bit about yourself? And then we'll ask Valmir to do the same thing.

Francine L. Shaw: Sure. My name is Francine. I've been in the food service industry for--I stopped saying how many years it was a long time ago. For a long time. This point we're talking decades. Started out as a fry girl and there's not a aspect of the industry that I haven't worked in at this point.

From regulatory to academia to everything I've written at this point over 250 articles for national trade magazines, most recently help helping develop SaaS products for the industry, which I've come to find out that I really enjoy. 

So, that's what I've been doing for the last many years of my life and it's my story in a nutshell. 

Dr. Darin Detwiler: But you work a lot in terms of food safety, food policy, a lot of different areas that start to overlap into this bigger picture, right?

Francine L. Shaw: I find it very awkward to talk about myself. Yes, I do. I work in the food safety arena. I spent over 20 years in the food service industry. When I left the restaurant industry, I didn't wanna be one of those people that hop from restaurant to restaurant.

That tends to happen a lot in food service. So I thought that I was leaving food service for good and I think it's in your blood, you know? I left for six months and I came back. So in the last 20 plus years, I've spent my life in the food safety industry, various aspects of the food safety industry.

And I own my own food safety consulting company. I've worked with large and small companies helping them develop food safety programs for their organizations and basically dedicated my life to food safety over the last several years. I've always felt like, whether I be training or inspecting or developing food safety programs or whatever the case may be, if I've helped save one person's life, then I've done my job.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, we hold some similarity there in terms of 30 years in the works of food safety is what I've dedicated my work to. 

And it was about 10 years ago where you and I first met. But it's also through you that I was introduced to Valmir. Valmir, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Valmir Rodrigues: Well, thank you Darin for this invitation and talk about me. 

I think I need to restart from the beginning. I was born in Brazil and I graduated in veterinary medicine. And I started my career as a consultant on farms. And what I realized was how the farm's life is difficult and consultant as well is, is difficult.

And after a few years, I start my entrepreneur journey founding the WQS group. Initially in that time we focused on traceability. After a few years, we expanded it to inspections, audits, certifications, laboratory test management system s and even software platforms. 

Over the years in my professional life, I had the privilege of working almost every segment of what you call the food validation industry. 

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, I think along the way, the three of us have encountered certain words or concepts that are almost hard to measure, whether you look at the idea of courage. 

I also throw in the idea of Herculean effort. 

Francine, you've talked about integrity. 

There are some of these words that it's hard to necessarily measure and trust is one of those words. 

How do you measure trust?

You could have an endless amount of trust with a very small company because of your history with them and your understanding with them and what they've done to earn that trust. At the same time, you could have a very low level of trust with the biggest of companies because of your experience with them.

But I think it's important for us to, to define trust in, in terms of what does it mean? Francine, what do you think of as a definition of trust?

Francine L. Shaw: So, I'm gonna approach this from a food safety aspect because that's what we're talking about. 

I think that when a consumer goes out, whether they're purchasing a meal or they're buying their groceries, they're paying for those products, they have a right to expect that the products that they purchase for their family or themselves are gonna be safe to eat.

There should be no doubt that when they buy that food and they take it home, they're gonna be safe to eat. 

Nobody's gonna get sick and nobody's gonna die from eating that food. They should have that level of trust in those products. It shouldn't be a, "This might make me sick," or "I wonder if this is gonna make me sick," or "I wonder if it's cooked properly."

They should be able to trust the companies that manufacture, process or cook their meals, that they've done the right job because, frankly, the companies that manufacture, process and deliver these meals have that obligation. It is their obligation to deliver that trust. That's how I would define it. They should be above reproach.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Yeah, I really resonate with what you're saying. And what I will add is that I think that the dimensions, if you will, let's call it the dimensions within that trust have definitely changed. You can't just say, "Oh, it's from this company, therefore I trust it." We have people that are looking at the idea of, "I trust that what it says on the label is what is actually inside."

Or, "I trust that if it says it was manufactured in a allergen free environment, that it truly does not have that allergen in it," or, "I trust that if it's ready to eat, that hot food was kept hot or cold food was kept cold," or "I trust that their commitment to food safety extended the entire journey of the food."

There's so many more dimensions of food trust, food safety, authenticity. Even quite honestly, you start getting into areas of corporate social responsibility, environmental, social impact. 

There's other things that people look at in terms of when they put their trust behind a brand, a company, a label, that kind of thing. 

Valmir, what are some other elements that you would add in terms of defining trust?

Valmir Rodrigues: For me, trust, there is the same meaning for any kind of, for example, relation. 

Could be, for example, for friendship, for family, for business. Trust is something that you build along the years. 

It's not something that it's, "We have kind of a document" or something that we can prove. 

You only believe people after few years after we build something with them. 

One example, I was starting to think, for example, long of my career, what I was doing in my whole life in the food sector. I was starting to think I was helping people to build interest between suppliers, buyers, and finally consumers and auditors, for every one that's involved in the supply chain. I think these tools that you have are tools that can help companies and people to build trust along the supply chain.

Francine L. Shaw: Well, and I think the honesty and integrity, which is what you're eluding to, go along with trust. 

And you worked years and years, and we both have done this, Valmir, we've worked years and years to build the honesty and integrity and the trust that we have within this field and as individuals.

It takes seconds to ruin that. It can be gone like that.

Valmir Rodrigues: Yep.

Francine L. Shaw: If you're not careful. So once you have built that, and for some of us it just comes naturally because it's who we are. But you know, one wrong move and a company can lose that. And Darren, back to what you said just a minute ago, it used to be we could trust a brand.

We felt like we could trust certain brands and it's like, well because this is from this particular company, we can trust that. And I felt that way probably up until, like, the last year or two. 

And there have been a couple products in the last year or two that I was just devastated.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Oh yeah.

Valmir Rodrigues: Yeah. But I do like to add something for your comment. Companies they can make a mistake. 

But what people want to see, it's transparency. If you can make a mistake, we can make a mistake, but they can fix this. But it's very important we have the open communication and show that you are working in the right way.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, it's important to remember two things: you said first, it's incredibly difficult to build. You're always building your reputation and trust. But it can be gone in a flash. We've seen this with social media and celebrities and things like that where an action, a statement or whatever ruins a career. 

At the same time, when you look at the idea that even the biggest names can fall, your reputation, whether you're a legacy brand or a label that's been around forever, whatever, is really only as secure as whoever is at the helm or, you know, what is going on because I wish I knew the correct person to credit this with. The whole idea of you're not really measured by what happens to you, you're measured by what you do with that. 

And Valmir, what you're saying, you know, things do happen, but when a company hides, it ignores, it fails to take action, that does not bode well on how people trust them. But the same exact thing can happen to another company, and it's what a company, what the leadership does to, to fix that issue, to prevent it from happening again.

That could be what is make and break the trust with that company. Even if it's a horrible thing happened to them. Look at the Tylenol. Someone was deliberately contaminating, poisoning, putting poison in Tylenol and the way that that company reacted, people remember positively. People remember Tylenol's response more so than they remember the details of what happened to them, kind of a deal. And we have to take that in consideration. 

I think trust is one of those things where there's no one clear definition and it's not going to be something that is etched in stone at one time.

It doesn't change over time and we have to be willing to look at the fact that it it's something we will always have to look at what we built. Some people say, and I think this is an interesting conversation, is trust a sub-component of validation or is validation a sub-component of trust? Validation alone is not enough to build trust.

Francine L. Shaw: Hmm.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: There are other things. There are other acts, there are other procedures, protocols, prioritizations, investments. There are other characteristics. Whatever, that the companies have to take into consideration and actively manage to fulfill all that is within this idea of trust.

Whereas, again, there's these multiple dimensions. If we look at trust in terms of our current system, everyone out there wants to gain trust right away and hold onto that trust. I I believe that it's possible for us to talk about a couple reasons why our current system, whether it's about validation, whether it's about the ways in which we build trust, are not working. I think perhaps a low hanging fruit item here is, is our current way of building trust aligned with consumer expectations?

Valmir Rodrigues: I think nowadays our system, it's no longer sustainable. We bring a good point, for example, talking about aligning with the consumer expectations. 

I think the first thing that you need to start aligning your consumer expectations: consumers, they don't have any idea what's what's doing behind

to have their food. What they want is to buy food with quality and safety. But the actors behind this, they have to align with the customer's expectation. And you see the numbers nowadays or current system, it's still rising the numbers for of hospitalization, foodbornes and even deaths.

Something has to to be fixed if you see these numbers.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: I almost wonder if there are those actors in the food industry that are taking into consideration consumer expectation. But from years ago it used to be that: is it the taste I want and can I afford it? And is it enough to make me happy? And that was it. But today's consumers are asking so many more questions.

Is it local? Is it organic? Is it gluten free? Is it range free? Is it farm? You know, is is it farmed fish? Is it cage free? We could probably talk for half an hour, just 

throwing out the expectations the, the labels, the certifications, the little, in some cases, little badges that now are on the front of a package

kind of a thing. Is it animal friendly? Whatever it is. I think that the, the, the different ways in which consumer expectation has changed over the last three decades is almost impossible to measure. 

Is this what you've seen, Francine?

Francine L. Shaw: Well, I think we also have to consider the changes in diet over the last several years. You know, we've got such a variety of diets. I can't even, can't even think of all the different diets. We've got the the keto diets, the vegan diets, the vegetarian diets.

There's at least a dozen different diets that you have to take into consideration, which impact all of this as well. And then we have more people That are in high risk categories than we used to. Baby boomers are aging, so we have more people that are in high risk categories than what we did before as well.

I think after a conversation that we had with Bill Marler a couple weeks ago, we're seeing maybe not as many e. Coli outbreaks as we did several years ago, but we're seeing different types of outbreaks now. So, so many different things have changed, but I don't know that our verification processes and our validation processes have changed with that.

We need to start changing our processes faster to keep up with these emerging, I don't know what we wanna call 'em, these emergent aspects of the industry and certainly our government has not done that. Not all of our industry has done that either. So I think that's my comment.

Valmir Rodrigues: What Francine is talking was think about, for example, instead of to make, to, to make your or process more. More simple and align with the consumer expectation, we become our process. Very bureaucratic, very bureaucratic and and also complicated.

Francine L. Shaw: So in the last month, there have been, that I have seen, two outbreaks of hepatitis A in produce. 10 years ago were we seeing outbreaks of hepatitis A in produce? I mean, not that I recall . salmonella in eggs isn't really something we discussed even when my kids were little. And for god's sake, flour now can make you sick.

We didn't used to talk about that. When we didn't eat raw cookie dough, it was because the eggs might make you sick. That's when the eggs started to be a problem. Now we have to worry about the flour. Things have just changed, you know progressed, so just these things start to emerge. And like Valmir said, the

bureaucracy, it just becomes very complicated and we need to find a way to keep up with that much better than what we do as a society or an industry, I should say.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, that level of complication, remember, I dunno, 15, 20 years ago, you'd have, like, a TV sitcom or a movie where it was almost a running line. You know, someone goes to the restaurant and asks "I want it to be sugar-free, gluten-free, hold the this, hold the that." And that was funny because, well, there's a lot of expectations you have for something that fits all those needs, but that's kind of the world today in terms of the way people are buying things. 

I mean, I've literally been in conversations with that kind of intersection of health providers and food industry where there are doctors who, like, if you had a heart surgery or some other major surgery, they're recommending that you adopt a kosher certified food diet for a while because you're more likely to get a lot of these validations being authenticated and being taken serious for a while and you're gonna be 

safe there.

There's just so many different reasons why we have not just validation, but certification and processes in place. And yeah, with that level of complication becomes this bureaucratic nightmare. You not only have different of certain things and different qualifications, but even different databases and how people are tracking this information and you don't wanna have a situation where, what's defined as, let's say gluten-free or allergen-free in one place is a different definition at another place.

It either is or it isn't, is that kind of ultimate validation that we want there. That leads us, I think, to our third potential reason is communication. Right. The idea of our supply chain being able to communicate with each other, that's gotta be of significant concern to you, Valmir.

Valmir Rodrigues: Yes, and talk about communication. We can still, bring up bureaucracy because I can bring an example for you. One of the most simple process of this certification of validation suppliers, they have to do at least 10 or 15 steps until they get their product validated. And between that they have to talk with more than six or eight people.

But suppliers, they don't have any kind of direct communication to the consumers. There's a lot of middlemen, intermediaries in this process. But to be missing, for example, the most important part, for example, to suppliers have access and consumers have access directly, a channel for communicating directly with suppliers.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, and with that, that brings up, two more dimensions we should probably talk about. One is that, when we look at validation in any efforts to build trust, it's not a one-time deal, right? We can provide a snapshot in January, but things may change, you know? By February or definitely be different by December.

So it has to be more than just a snapshot in time. It has to be. And, and Valmer, you've talked about this before. You've talked about the idea of a continuous process. What do you mean by a continuous process?

Valmir Rodrigues: We need to have something not static. We need to have something that's a continual improvement process. Because, as you said, things change. You can have a certificate today and tomorrow things happen, but if you have some process that we have open communication and you have some tools, there is a lot of tools in the marketing.

For example, we can talk about artificial intelligence, we can talk about software that can help companies. To keep this updated and keep an open communication between the actors of the supply chain. This is very important until we move from a snapshot to a continuing improvement process.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, but Valmir, there's gonna be those actors out there that say what you just introduced in our conversation here, the idea of technology. The technology and the processes are very expensive.

Valmir Rodrigues: Doesn't need to be expensive. 

Dr. Darin Detwiler: okay.

Valmir Rodrigues: I think for example, nowadays if you, if you see our current process, this is very expensive. If you see the numbers, for example, for the market. Only for this TIC market. That's me at testing, inspection, certification. And 2019, this industry was about $210 billion and they expected to grow 5% to achieve 260 million billion in 2024.

If you have this amount of money, invest, you should have a very good system, but you don't have to. For example, we need to start think more simple and bring the solution directly for who is producing the food. For example, technology is here for use. Artificial intelligence, there's a lot of tools free, there's a lot of solutions that we can start, for example, to communicate directly and between buyers and suppliers and also keep this updated for the whole time.

It's very important we start to build something that it's a continual process.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Great point. Great point. What are your thoughts on the idea of the cost associated with this?

Francine L. Shaw: Well, I think for one thing, we've been trained to react rather than to act in a lot of cases. Meaning that we've been taught that you don't do anything till there's problem and it's oftentimes much more expensive to fix the problem. You know, be proactive, you know, rather than react after there is a problem.

And you know, I've taught a lot of classes. I've done a lot of training for certifications and I'm not opposed to certifications in some situations, but I also know that in a lot of cases people go to those classes kicking and screaming, and they're there because they have to be there.

They're not there to learn. They're there to get a certificate to hang on the wall. And I'd much rather work with somebody that's doing a job because they wanna do it and do it well than somebody that went to a class to get a certificate, to pass a test.

I know what kind of money these companies spend with turnover in the industry being what it is for these certifications. And it's incredibly expensive and turnover's very high. It's costing these companies millions and in some cases billions of dollars for these certifications. I just think that there are other solutions. I really believe that there are other solutions that are more affordable. So I think that Valmir's right in what he's saying. Just because we've always done it that way doesn't mean it's the right way.

You know, when I have sat in rooms full of up to 107 people or more that are there to take a certification class and they're only there because they have to be, not because they wanna learn, again, I'd just much rather work with people or have people preparing my food that learned what they need to learn.

Are doing things the right way because they wanna do things the right way, not simply because they passed an exam.

Valmir Rodrigues: Can I give an example? If you have something more simple, we cut a lot of intermediates in this process. Just one example. Everybody has to do your tax returns. When you do your tax returns, we can do by yourself. The regulation, it's public. All the roles is there. It's the same for food safety. Regulations is there.

If you want to do by yourself, we can do. If you want to make sure that your tax returns is right, we're going to hire an accountant. It's a consultant person. We don't need to have a certificate that show that you are doing your tax return. This is the same happen with food safety. The regulation is there, there are a lot of regulations.

There is government regulations. There is public regulations. Anyone can take this regulation and try to implement and bring a consultant to make sure that they're doing right. If you start to doing something more smart and doing something, using the tools that we have in the market, we can cut a lot of intermediaries in this process and become our validation even more easy and simple.

Francine L. Shaw: I am an avid fan of second and third party audits and good consultants to help people get through these processes.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Well, and it's part of that idea of, again, not only the continuous improvement process, but the idea of working to how do we build this bigger body of trust when we are including these second and third party auditors as a way of building the trust. It's not just, I think the trust for outside, right, for our consumers. Right. But it also has to be a level of trust inside in terms of the idea that leaders have trust. That our protocols, our practices, our systems in place, our technologies, our, our investments and prioritizations are doing what we intended to do, you know? What is the efficiency and effectiveness of what we're doing?

It's all there in terms of making sure that we can validate to all stakeholders, internal and external, that they are trustworthy.

Francine L. Shaw: Food safety culture.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: So what are, what are some things we can talk about in terms of what do we need to do to reshape this world around trust?

Francine L. Shaw: I mean, we've talked about communication, but I mean, communication is key. You have to build trust by improving communication. You need that to help you discover reliable and qualified suppliers. You need to be able to stay connected and exchange information to address questions effectively. Everything we do revolves around communication, from finding qualified suppliers, answering their questions as I just said.

Just again, it, it, it all goes back to basic communication from the people that you work with to the individuals that you're trying to hire. 

Valmir Rodrigues: I totally agree.

The only way for you to build the trust through the supply chain is communication. This is the first step that you need to improve, as you said, to connect these parts.

Francine L. Shaw: I wanna add something to that, and this is based on something that I just experienced today. With that communication, there has to be complete transparency. You can't tell somebody just part of the story and expect to maintain that trust. You have to have full and complete transparency because the second they find out that you're not completely transparency,

any trust, any shred of trust that they might have had that you were being honest with them, just went out the window. You're done. You're completely done with them because they're not gonna trust another word you say. 

Dr. Darin Detwiler: And you can look at a lot of key examples, whether it's in the courtroom or just the idea of some major outbreaks and you'll find that communication is a key element of it. You know, the Peanut Corporation of America, it came down to literally people lying about information and communicating it as if it was the complete and authentic facts of the case.

And people were satisfied thinking that it was the true bit of information, but they didn't know the entire story.

Francine L. Shaw: Just the omission of facts is not being honest.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Right.

Francine L. Shaw: No, you didn't tell a boldface lie, but you damn well knew you were omitting facts. That is not being honest.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: Right. Just because you employ someone who can find a good legal loophole, that your omission will be okay, is not the same thing as you have trustworthy people. Making sure there's complete transparency and that they're communicating the true information, not only to the next stage, but all the way to the consumer.

The consumer, the end user if you will, needs to have that level of validation that if it says it's free of this, or if it says it's made that way, or if it says whatever it says on the label is truly what it really is. And when we don't have that is literally at the root of almost all food safety problems we've been dealing with for a while.

Francine L. Shaw: Right. And if you wanna lose a good customer or the trust of a good client, what more do you have to do?

Valmir Rodrigues: And also, beside the communication, we need to build something that's, it's it will be fair and affordable. Just say, for example, some numbers from USDA from 2021 showing that if farmers receive their record below 4 cents, for every dollar Americans spent on food. We need to create something simple that even growers and small growers can be affordable. We need to build something simple and agile that eliminates the intermediates . We need something to reduce the landed cost. Without compromise the safety and quality. And we have a lot of softwares and tools that, that we can do that.

Dr. Darin Detwiler: So definitely finding that right balance, simple, cost effective. But not static in terms of, of what we're doing here. It, it seems like it's a big ask in terms of a system, any kind of a solution to help build trust. But we can talk about the cost of doing it, but we also know the cost of not doing it.

It costs a lot to the farmers. It costs a lot to the industry and to those families that are dealing with the ultimate harm. Because of failure to to support the trust that was assumed. Those are things that in some cases can never recover. And it may start with trust, but it definitely ends with the impact on those who put their trust into a brand, into a product, into a label. You know, Francine and Valmir, there's so much more to talk about this. And what's incredible is that we will be doing that. We'll be talking in future episodes, even looking at some specific examples of how we can build trust. Not just why, but how we can go forward in building trust throughout our global food chain. I look forward to having future conversations with both of you and again, not only thank you for this conversation today, but thank you for the work that you and so many people in the audience of this recording put in to building and maintaining and validating and overall supporting of the trust in our global food system every day. 

I'm your host, Dr D. Thank you very much.