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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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Matt: [00:00:00] I was going to NRA events, but not NRA like National Rifle Association. It's NRA, National Restaurant Association, which by the way, right out of college I was told by Sysco Foods, "Hey, you need to go to this NRA event." And I was like, "So awesome. I know you guys are Texas, but do you guys, do you guys actually sponsor NRA events?"
And they're like, "No, Matt, come on, don't be so stupid. It's National Restaurant Association." Oh, I guess that makes more sense.
Francine: Yeah. I learned very early on you have to distinguish between the two.
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 Elshaar and Matt Regusci for a deep dive into food safety. It [00:01:00] all boils down to one golden rule: don't eat poop.
Don't eat poop.
Matt: Hello, hello, Francine. You ready for an interesting topic? We have a new produce safety, the exact title is the Director of Office of Produce Safety for the FDA. We have a new person in this position. How long has this position been vacant?
Francine: Since Obama was in the office? No.
Matt: I know, but a lot of them have-
Francine: I don't know.
A lot of them have been vacant for a long time. Food safety just doesn't seem to be a priority. These positions last
Matt: The permanent position has been vacant for over a year prior to Dr. Donna Garrison. Dr. Donna Garrison. I used to have a-
Francine: Garin.
Matt: Mm-hmm, Garin ... used to have a boss named Donna Garrison, and I get these two names mixed up all the time.
Donna Garin, yes, and she took the office June [00:02:00] 29th, 2026. So the office has been vacant for a year. So basically, the office has been vacant since everybody was leaving the FDA and every other agency in the nation. They were offered a very good deal, and they decided to leave. Here's severance for a very long time.
Take early retirement. We want to get rid of, I don't know, half of the federal government force all at one time. What could go wrong? Okay It's not like over the last year there were obscenely more produce outbreaks than there was the years before. So I'm not quite sure if it mattered that there was somebody in this role.
I mean, I think it matters. Let me rephrase that. I, I think it matters. I don't think it, I don't
Francine: think
Matt: it altered the amount of outbreaks that were happening based upon who was in the seat. Maybe how the outbreaks were handled. It's not like having Donna in the position, in this new FDA position- Anybody
Francine: in the position.
Right ...
Matt: he's got some magic wand that, "Okay, thou [00:03:00] shall not be any more outbreaks. Abracadabra." Right. And then, boom- I agree ... no outbreaks happen again.
Francine: I think it's important that the position is filled, but I don't- 100%. I think it's very difficult. It's a very difficult position to have.
Matt: Yes. Yeah. And so for those of you who don't know Donna, I've had the pleasure to meet her multiple times in my career, and she's had a much longer career, and a very different career.
So I think I'm connected with her on LinkedIn. Yes, which isn't surprising. I'm, like, connected to everybody on LinkedIn. Somebody asked me the other day how many LinkedIn followers I have, and it was, like, almost 18,000 LinkedIn s- followers. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a
Francine: lot. Well, and sometimes if you look at the followers and the connections, they're different people.
There's an overlap.
Matt: Oh, there is.
Francine: It's, it's crazy.
Matt: Very well, just within her CV, and we're gonna go through her CV because I know that everybody gets worried, "Oh, th- some [00:04:00] administration's bringing somebody on, and are they aligned, and do they understand what they're doing? And blah, blah, blah, blah." I give 100%- Are they qualified?
Yeah, are they qualified? I give 100%, uh, attest to the fact that she is very qualified for this position. Right. I would agree. She may be overqualified, because she... Uh, no, probably not, because she, f- most of her career has been a political form of some way, shape, or form, and we'll go through that. So yeah, we're gonna go through her CV.
We're gonna talk about what the role is, what she's supposed to handle in this new role, and then we're, we're gonna riff on whether it matters. Whether it matters. Okay, so in from... Well, actually, l- while we're... I'm gonna start with her- education. Okay? So she got her bachelor's of science of food and nutrition, food science in 1985 to 1989.
So she got her bachelor's degree. So she walked out of [00:05:00] Clemson University in 1989 with a bachelor's degree of science. Just for you people who don't understand, I was seven years old when she got her degree, bachelor's degree.
Francine: I was out of high school. I had children.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And then she got her doctorates of philosophy of food science and technology, which I think is, would be a fascinating degree, getting a doctorates of philosophy of food science and technology.
I don't know. It's like a different way of looking at it, I'm guessing. From the University of Georgia. So she got her doctorate In food science from the University of Georgia while I was in high school. So long, long, long career. So she leaves that, she gets her doctor's degree, and then she goes to Boskovich Farms as the director of research and development for product safety in 1996.[00:06:00]
Boskovich Farms was one of my clients for, for many years, and they're legit, Boskovich Farms. They hired Donna Garren with her PhD in food safety before anybody really knew what food safety was. I mean, just to give you a perspective of the history of food safety, the FDA came out with their guidelines for GMPs, good manufacturing practices, and GAPs, good agricultural practices, in 1998.
So Boskovich Farms was hiring a PhD in food science for produce in 1996, two years before the FDA came out with their guidelines for good manufacturing practices and good agricultural practices.
Francine: Right.
Matt: So she was on the forefront of produce food safety, and Boskovich Farms was one of my clients at Primus Labs in when I joined Primus Labs in 2004.
They were helping to develop food safety and, and how the practicality of it at the farm [00:07:00] level when companies like Primus Labs were Primus Labs, Davis Fresh, SCS, et cetera, were just starting to get into good agricultural practices. Good manufacturing practices had been around for a while. Good agricultural practices, it was like brand new.
In 2004, when I was talking to farmers, most of them had no clue how to even start with food safety in 2004. So this was way ahead of the time. Then she leaves Boskovich Farms and goes to United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association. That organization merged with PMA. Now we have a new organization just a few years ago.
But for a long time it was Produce Marketing Association, United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association were in tandem, two associations for the same group. And United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable were more on the food safety side. So when the agricultural food safety harmonization thing that was going on in like 2006, 2007, [00:08:00] 2008, 2009, that area.
That was all driven by United Fresh Fruit Association. So she was in the main food safety one. Yeah.
Francine: Not only did she go there, she's vice president, and this was in like 1999 to 2005. It's she. That was a while back. Right.
Intro: Right.
Francine: And I'm a woman. So we couldn't get credit cards till the 1970s. Just want to throw that out there.
You couldn't buy a home with your own mortgage. So we're talking just like 20 years later, and it's kind of something that some people take for granted now and we don't talk about a lot. And I'm not that person that's out there saying this kind of thing a lot. But for her to be vice president of something like this in the 1990s to like 2005 was kind of a big deal.
There still aren't a lot of women in certain industries But trust me, she is [00:09:00] probably one of the very few, if not the only in this field during that timeframe Yeah.
Matt: Oh, she was. 100% she was. Because I know a lot of these organizations that she was in, and I worked with people or were a part of these organizations throughout my career.
So the rest of her career is going to be a l- list of political careers, because if you're the vice president of scientific and technical affairs at United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, that is a political job. It's not politics. Well, it is politics. So they're a lobbying group. So United Fresh and Fruit and Vegetable Association, their headquarters, their non-profit headquarters was in Washington, DC.
When you're trying to... And this is one year after the FDA came out with their guidelines for good agriculturals, g- practices, good manufacturing practices. So this wasn't law. This was just guidelines. This was just, this is good to do [00:10:00] to keep people from getting sick. And so one year after that, she's in as vice president scientifical and technical affairs at United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association.
And the way associations work is you're, you're really a politician. When you are in a high role there, your job is to work with all of the different members, which are other big marketing companies and farmers. And marketing companies in the produce industry is like Driscoll's, Taylor Farms, Boskovich Farms, et cetera, et cetera.
So those are marketing companies. Their brand is on the package in the store. Those are marketing companies. Now, underneath them, they'll own cold storages, packing houses, processing plants, et cetera, et cetera. And then underneath them are a bunch of different farmers. So they may have their own farms and ranches that they're using for produce, but they also contract out with a whole lot of other [00:11:00] farmers.
And so each one of those marketing companies that is part of this association and farms, packing houses, et cetera, et cetera, each one of them are a member of this association. And you have to somehow make all of them as happy as they can be, not Always 100% happy, but happy enough to continue to keep your job, because these people are on your board.
So they have the power to hire or fire the members of these, of the, the people running these associations. So that's part of their job, and the secondary part of their job is they're lobbying to the federal government, they're lobbying to state departments, they're lobbying across the board trying to get whatever it is that they want passed through Congress.
So they're who meets with congressmen and women, who meets the president, who meets with senators to talk about what's going on in the American farming world for fresh produce. So then commodity crops like [00:12:00] corn, soy, wheat, et cetera, they have their own associations, and they're doing the same thing. So this is fresh produce that we're talking about here.
Which is the role that she has now, i- as the director of safety for fresh produce at the FDA. So she started a long time ago. So when she started United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, I was a senior in high school, okay? So that was a long time ago. She did that for six years, and then she moved over to the National Restaurant Association, and that's where I met her.
So after college when I joined Primus Labs and started working with, uh, like Cisco Foods, et cetera, et cetera, I was going to NRA events. But not NRA like National Rifle Association. It's NRA, National Restaurant Association. Which by the way, right out of college I was told by Cisco Foods, "Hey, you need to go to this NRA event."
And I was like, "So awesome. S- I know you guys are Texas, but do you [00:13:00] guys, do you guys actually sponsor NRA events?" And they're like, "No, Matt, come on, don't be so stupid. It's National Restaurant Association." Oh, I guess that makes more sense.
Francine: Yeah, I learned very early on you have to distinguish between the two.
Matt: Yeah.
Francine: Yeah.
Matt: I haven't been to an NRA, National R- Rifles Association event, but that sounds like a lot more fun, well, for me.
Francine: I don't think they're around any longer. Yeah. Oh
Matt: no, they definitely are. I still get their mail.
Francine: But I mean, not to the degree that- Oh, yes ... it, it's changed a lot. Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Okay, so then she goes from that, and then she leaves in 2009 to go to become the vice president of food safety programs at GFSI, Global Food Safety Initiative.
So this is... Okay, Walmart sent their letter that everybody needed to be SQF certified or have another [00:14:00] GFSI certification In like I think 2008, if I remember correctly, 2007, 2008. And at that time, SQF was the only GFSI o- in the United States, was like one of the only GFSI Global Food Safety Initiative standards that you could certify to.
So that's the reason why we at Primus Labs created PrimusGFS and I helped manage that in Azul. And then Global Gap became GFSI-certified or, yeah, benchmarked to GFSI. Then all of a sudden a bunch of other ones popped up after that because Walmart drove the initiative. I bet she had a little bit of a hand in that.
Well, she definitely had a hand in expanding GFSI over that one year, so she was there for one year. Then she went to NSF for one year and was the president and general manager of NSF [00:15:00] Agriculture. I think that's when they bought Davis Fresh or shortly thereafter that they bought Davis Fresh, which became NSF's agricultural auditing arm.
So she had a hand in managing that for a year. And then while she was doing all that, she was the vice chair and board member for Conference of Food Protection for six years from 2006 to 2012. And then after she leaves NSF as president and general manager of NSF Agriculture, she moves to being, yes, the senior vice president in regulatory and technical affairs for American Frozen Food Initiative.
We talked to her at Food Safety Consortium because for two years Food Safety Consortium and the American Frozen Food Institute were together. So while she was doing that, she became the senior vice president of regulatory and [00:16:00] technical affairs for Frozen, for National Frozen Pizza Institute. She was senior vice president in regulatory and technical affairs for National Yogurt Association, and she was at American Frozen Food Institute for 14 years and nine months Then she moved from that to the director of the Office of Produce Safety for the FDA.
Oh, and I missed one.
Francine: Did we talk about the frozen potatoes?
Matt: Yeah, because her DM CV is so big, her CV is so big, I have a hard time keeping track of it. So while she was also at the American Frozen Food Institute, being the senior vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at National Yogurt Association, the senior vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the National Frozen Pizza Institute, she was also the executive vice president of science and policy at Frozen Potato Products- So-
Institute ...
Francine: I just want to say, we're 20 minutes into the [00:17:00] podcast, and all we've done is talk about her CV.
Matt: Yeah, and we didn't even banter or anything before this. We jumped right into this.
Francine: So I bet she'd be interesting to interview. If she's interested, we're both connected. She should reach out if she's got time.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, I think she has a lot more time now because...
Francine: Yeah, she pro- she probably does. Oh, my God.
Matt: Yeah. So when I say she knows the whole entire supply chain, she started her career in food safety and produce right in the beginning when food safety and produce started, and helped kind of drive that, and then moved into processing and the whole supply chain.
So was at the National Restaurant Association for a while, was at American Frozen Food Institute for a while. For a while, for a long time, almost 15 years, and now is the director of Office of Produce Safety. Okay. What does that role actually do? What is that? [00:18:00] So we have this here,
Francine: so- Probably less than she was doing 100%.
Matt: And okay, so this role is political, that she is in the FDA. Obviously, it's regulatory and legislati- like she has to take legislation, turn it into regulatory things, and all this different type of stuff. This job is going to be way less political.
Francine: She was probably like, "Well, I've worked really hard my entire life.
I get to work for the FDA now."
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna take a sweet gig at the FDA. Just kidding. No, you're probably 100% accurate. They probably offered her the... They probably were trying to get her to do this job for the last year or for many years.
Francine: I just don't want to diminish the, the importance of the job.
It's an important job. Good lord
Matt: Yeah. So every single one of those things that I mentioned after Blaskovich Barfs was a political job. It was all dealing with the members, pushing the members to get better and better [00:19:00] at food safety, simultaneously being the voice of food safety to politicians nationally and probably s- and statewide.
And then that's a huge political job. And then she was also vice president of a whole bunch of associations, probably tied to the American Frozen Food Institute, and all of those individual positions were political as well. Man, I bet her... I was just talking to a British person this week, multiple times this week, and I was about to say her diary.
My, my land. I bet her schedule has decreased significantly moving to the FDA. All right, so what does the director of the Office of Produce Safety do, right? Theoretically-
Francine: Right ...
Matt: theoretically, the director of Office of Produce Safety at the FDA is responsible for leading national efforts to ensure the safety, risk management, and quality of fresh processed [00:20:00] fruits, vegetables, and plant-based foods.
This office operates within the FDA's Human Foods Program, so it's underneath all that, under the Office of Microbiological Food Safety. And her job is basically regulatory oversight and policy development, so rule enforcement. So is everybody following Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule, 'cause they have their own rule under Food Safety Modernization Act.
Policy creation, she directs and formulates minimum safety guidance for the agricultural water standard that's coming up, that, that's been under works forever and ever and ever and keeps on getting reiterated, and risk-based microbiological controls for farms and processing plants, so fresh produce processing plants, like bagged lettuce, chopped onions, that type of stuff And preventative strategies.
So she, by the way, she's worked for the last 15 years [00:21:00] in the American Frozen Foods Institute. Okay, well, the American Frozen Food Institute- Well, some of them may have kill steps. Not all of them have kill steps, but pretty close to a multiple log reduction of produce with freezing and stuff like that. So but fresh produce doesn't have that.
There is no five-log reduction in fresh produce, so p- gotta put her hat back on for produce from her, the beginning of her career. And then preventative strategy. Analyzes emerging microbiological hazards and pivot agency protocols from reacting to outbreaks to proactively preventing contamination. Now, this is a huge pivot that the FDA has not done.
Really, I think the FDA has been in reactionary mode as opposed to preventative mode. Right. Wouldn't you agree, Francine?
Francine: I would agree. I would agree.
Matt: Part of that reason [00:22:00] is politics. And so maybe with her whole entire history being basically a political role, or most of her history being a political role, she'll be better at the politics of this.
Francine: Maybe. Maybe she's worked in that position long enough that she can be strategic enough to know how to work that system-
Matt: Yeah. When to use a carrot- ... to her advantage ... when to use a stick. To her
Francine: advantage.
Matt: Yeah.
Francine: Yeah. Maybe.
Matt: Maybe. The other thing with program management is inspection con- protocols, so works in tandem with the Office of Inspection, Investigations to outline standard operational guidelines for field inspectors in agricultural facilities.
So, you know, when they go out and inspect FDA facilities in the fresh produce industry, which every packing house, every processing plant, every cold storage is an FDA facility. So that's a lot in the United States, like tens of thousands.
Francine: So this is what we know. [00:23:00] That position's difficult. Her predecessors, some have done good jobs, but have they been successful at reducing foodborne illness outbreaks?
No. They haven't. We're still having the same problems that we've always had She wouldn't have held the position she held for the number of years that she did if she wasn't successful at doing something.
Matt: Yeah.
Francine: Agreed?
Matt: Agreed.
Francine: So I think that maybe because she worked in those positions, she's gonna look at it from a different vantage point, and that may be to her benefit, and she might be able to be a little bit more success- I hope she might be able to be more successful than they were just because of that You know, I think that it's a tough [00:24:00] position, but I think that you can't keep doing what we've been doing.
You've gotta do something different.
Matt: Yeah. Okay, so the person who had the role before her for the most amount of time, okay? So this role wasn't really created until after FSMA implementation era 2008. Before that, it was just technical experts, like, so somebody at the table that kinda knew what produce was and microbiological issues of produce and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Then-
Francine: It's still been almost 20 years.
Matt: Yeah. But, okay, here's the thing.
Francine: Government moves slow.
Matt: Yeah. It's not even slow. I was in produce for the vast majority of my career, and I never even really knew Dr. Samir Azhar. I saw him talk at conferences and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but nobody really talked about Dr.
Samir [00:25:00] Azhar really. And before he became the acting director of Produce Safety, the guy has the credentials. He was, had his events degree in... He had his master's degree in doctorate of philosophy of food science from University of Florida, but his target and focus area was microbiological and chemical risk factors in the agricultural supply chain.
Francine: What year was that?
Matt: When did he get his degree?
Francine: No, what year was he in that position?
Matt: Oh, from, like, 2008 to
Francine: 2024. Wow.
Matt: Yeah.
Francine: Long time.
Matt: Yeah, he was there for a long time. And so he drafted all the rules. He helped make Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule actually roll out. He managed all that. But I don't think he was really... He was probably the right person for that time, getting it out, but I'm not [00:26:00] quite sure he was the right person to continue on with the baton.
So passing this on to Donna probably better, because Donna, Donna has her doctorate in... So I should say Dr. Donna Geren has her doctorate, but she didn't go into, then from there, go into research. She's not an egghead. She is a politician. She's a food safety politician. She's not, like, c- the research person.
So she could talk to people. She could talk to, to everybody. She could obviously talk to politicians, but she can also talk to the food manufacturers, the produce farmers. She could put a different hat on depending upon the audience that she's in. A lot of these- Really egghead-y professor types that end up in the FDA, they're not relatable
Francine: They're not persuasive.
Matt: No.
Francine: No. They're
Matt: like, "This is what you need to do." And everybody's like, "Okay, well how do I do that?" "You just do this and this. Here's this journal from Minnesota." Yeah, that doesn't [00:27:00] work.
Francine: Right. No.
Matt: And the farmers, which farmers are owning these processing and packing houses. It's a very different industry. So when you're talking to somebody who owns a packing house, or when you're talking for produce, you're talking to somebody who owns a processing plant for produce, they're farmers.
And if you hand them a journal and you're like, "Follow this," they're like, "Who the, what the, how am I gonna do that?"
Francine: Right. No, and if you've only ever read a book about something and you've never worked and don't understand the implementation, it just doesn't work when you're trying to sell it to somebody.
It just doesn't
Matt: Right.
Francine: Ever.
Matt: So the practical aspect of it for her, I think is going to be a huge leap. It's not like a small little jump. It's a massive leap. And not, when I say massive, massive leap, like a non-human leap. It's like a flight from LA to New York City, that type of a leap. Moving forward practically on how to implement these things.
So that could be something that she could help [00:28:00] with in terms of moving from reactionary to proactive responses that the produce industry can do. I really think she could do that. Again, it's not a magic wand, it's not a panacea, it's not gonna happen overnight. But over a period of time, like if she has the same length of career as her predecessor, a 20-year career, we could see huge changes over the next decade.
In 20 years when you're calculating it like that. Year over year it could be incremental, but when you take the beginning to the end, it could be monumental.
Francine: Right. I agree.
Matt: The big one where I think that she is going to 100% kill it in her role is the third aspect of her job is stakeholder engagement and training.
Okay? This is industry outreach and consensus-building. She's had a career in this before I left high school. Like, this, this is, like, her whole entire career has been industry outreach and [00:29:00] consensus-building. So I think she'll kill it in this aspect of it. And like industry outreach, it's leads public transparency campaigns, training forums, technical assistant programs to help farmers, packers, distributors successfully adopt to federal safety criteria.
That's what she's been doing her whole
Francine: career. And that's a huge problem-
Matt: Yeah ...
Francine: right now. It's a huge problem.
Matt: Right. And so her role is she's not gonna be going and talking to farmers. But what she's gonna be doing is talking to the associations that the farmers are part of, which she was a part of as well.
So she's going to be able to work with those associations, create a, hopefully, we haven't heard a response from her what her plan is, but if I had that role, it would be working with the associations on a consistent approach across all segments of produce- So this is the thing ... as opposed to each association one-off.
Francine: Regardless of how good she is or what she wants to do, she needs support. Like [00:30:00] any company or any organization where we talk about corporate culture every day of our lives, and I post about every other day of my life corporate culture and leadership, she can be the best builer- leader she wants to be, and she can be as good as she is, but if she doesn't have the support, her and the culture Oh, she's one person.
She is one person, and she needs a team.
Matt: Yeah.
Francine: Now she can do a great job with her team And the people that work for her and her support staff, because she can control that. She can 100% control that. But she still has a boss, so she needs the support of those individuals, and that's what's gonna make all the difference in the world.
Matt: 100%.
Francine: And I think that's where I was going earlier, where it wasn't coming out [00:31:00] as effectively as I would have liked it to. She needs that support, and whether or not she's gonna get that is gonna make the difference of how well she can do her job. And it's not gonna necessarily be her. I don't want to say fault, but yeah.
Matt: Right. And where I think it'll be interesting is, is, it's ob- obviously, the budget is not growing. We had conversations with many stakeholders where the FDA's budget is decreasing or being moved into other areas as opposed to produce. So I don't know if she's gonna have some massive team underneath her to help her implement all this stuff.
So the other side of the coin is, if she doesn't have an awesome team, can she build enough influence with the organizations that do have an awesome team? And those are the associations, those are other entities doing food safety. Those are all those different things. And c- can she build... The last part of her job, where it's talking about industry outreach and consensus-building, can she build [00:32:00] enough, using her influence, can she build enough consensus with enough of the organizations that manage and run these, that manage the practices of the, the farms and stuff like that, that the associations, the members are those people.
Can she build enough consensus to create a consistent approach across all the produce that she can make a difference without a big team? That will be interesting to see.
Francine: Well, and you're right. With her connections and her influence, if she can do that, she will look like a freaking superstar.
Matt: She will, and we will be the first to applaud her.
Francine: 100%. 100%.
Matt: Ah, man. Because I really think that's the main reason why she got hired. I really think that that's the w- the, because the FDA is like, "Listen, we're not, we're not increasing the budget any time soon." But if she does a bang-up job and she's able to see where the [00:33:00] roadblocks are to certain things, and then, that, that le- new legislation could be created that allows her to have more teeth in her department, that would be something really interesting, too.
You know, five, seven, 10 years down the line. Because this is an iceberg, and she's just the tip of this massive iceberg. So she's trying, she'll have to try to steer this iceberg. It's not gonna be overnight, but if she has enough influence and can find things, and can get help And the help from legislators, then she can create more teeth and that, that could propel this a little faster, but that's a big if.
Francine: She's gonna go in trying to melt it with a hair dryer. She needs something much bigger than that.
Matt: Yeah. And interestingly enough, every single time I've seen her, she always wears high heels too. So she's gonna, she's gonna be able to stick herself right into that iceberg. She's not going anywhere. She's gonna stick those heels right into that iceberg, and she's gonna steer it the best she can.[00:34:00]
Francine: I mean, she's got our support, but I mean, it's, yeah
Matt: Yeah. I'm glad that it's her and not some professor that's been in university and research forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. While that is good in other roles of the FDA, probably a lot of them, probably m- a good portion of them actually, for produce safety, that is not a benefit.
You have to be able to talk to farmers.
Francine: I often think that while I believe the education is 100% beneficial, and it's necessary, experience is also beneficial. And in- oftentimes if you've done it, you just don't understand.
Matt: No. No.
Francine: You just don't understand.
Matt: No. I've been in conferences, and I've been in meetings where these eggheads...
And listen, I, I love eggheads. I have a lot of eggheads that work with me and work for me. They are the best at what they do, [00:35:00] and I- God bless them, 'cause I'm not, right? And so th- it's awesome. It's, and I'll be in meetings and I'm like, "Please explain this to me like I'm in fifth grade. Like, okay, please, I don't understand.
I know you're speaking English, but I don't understand the words coming out of your mouth." In that sentence- Well, and then
Francine: sometimes you just have to look at them and say, "That's not gonna work." No, no. "So let me explain to you why that is not gonna work. I understand why you think it is. I'm here to tell you that will not work in the real world."
Matt: So I can guarantee you that when she's up talking to association conferences, and she's talking to people about what's going on with the FDA and produce food safety, everybody there will be able to understand her. Because she's going to take complex concepts and complex scientific information and boil it down to its lowest common denominator so that people can implement it.
That is the [00:36:00] most important job. If that's what she's hired to do, if that's what they were looking for, they hired the right person, 'cause she will be able to do it. Yeah.
Francine: And there's so much to be said about speaking and communicating in a language that everybody can understand. Do you know how often people say to me that they like our podcast and they can understand what we're talking about?
I mean-
Matt: The l- the last conference we were speaking at, what did the FDA say to you? So it was, like, us right in the beginning, and then right after that, like, a panel of people from the FDA came on, and what did that guy say to you?
Francine: He was so funny. He said, "It's a lot. And we have to follow you?" Or something.
Right I'm gonna have to follow you.
Matt: Right. 'Cause we were talking about complex things, but we were making it funny. Right. We were making it doable. Right. We were making it practical. We were... Yeah. Then the poor FDA panel.
Francine: I think that was a [00:37:00] compliment. Thank you.
Matt: They're like, "Oh, Lordy." Well, at least they woke them up before we put them to sleep.
This is, this is
Francine: They were sitting right in front of us. It was a whole group. Monica and Dale came out with, like, their notepad, books and their notepads, and just... At first I wasn't sure. We weren't sure, I don't think, who they were. Like, yeah, they were from the FDA. And you and I, we work with these people on a regular basis.
We know them. We talk to them. We can carry conversations with anybody. It's just that we want everybody to be able to understand us when we speak to them. Not that they don't, it's just, yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Okay. Well, Donna, you have our backing, like you needed it. We, uh-
Francine: Right. Like, like she cares.
Matt: Yeah. Oh, man. There's a podcast.
It's got my name on it from Don't Eat Poop. I hope they say nice things about me. She probably says never in her morning while waking up.
Francine: Yeah.
Matt: She hasn't really given any, any details about what she's going to [00:38:00] do or how she's gonna do it or what her plan is, which I think probably boils down to politics.
She wants to get in, see what's going on. She probably knows a lot of what's going on because her role has been political, so she has been probably talking- Right ... to the FDA for 20 years. Go in, get alignments, and see what's going on before she makes any changes. Because you go in, you go in like Frank Yiannis.
God bless him. I love that man, but yeah, he tries to take a hammer to a, to an iceberg, and he's like, "We have all these things that need to be done, and we're gonna start doing it now." And the new era- Lip read ... roadmap that he- Yeah ... got it accomplished, but his career was very short in the
Francine: FDA. Right.
Matt: Got a lot accomplished, but maybe wasn't very influential within the organization.
So you, you... If she's looking for this to be her last thing before she retires, and she's got another [00:39:00] 10, 20 years in her, then it's gonna be, it's gonna go in looking at this like, "I'm, I'm literally steering a, an iceberg," and it's going to be incremental influential change over a period of time. Okay.
Intro: Well,
Matt: on that note, don't eat poop