Twenty-five years ago, when our board co-chair, Michael Taylor, was administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), he helped put in place a new food safety regulatory program to prevent foodborne illness from meat and poultry. This program was created in response to the tragically historic 1992-93 illness outbreak caused by ground beef contaminated with a particularly dangerous pathogen called E. coli O157:H7.
... Those rules were effective for ground beef because we had a scientific basis for declaring that particular strain of E. coli an adulterant. This meant that USDA could use its inspection and enforcement tools to keep the pathogen out of beef products, and industry had a powerful regulatory incentive to develop and implement innovative preventive measures. It was a major advance in food safety at the time. But, while the FSIS program has improved beef safety, its provisions related to poultry have not succeeded in significantly reducing the many illnesses and deaths caused by two other dangerous kinds of bacteria — Salmonella and Campylobacter — commonly present in chicken and turkey.
This issue has vital importance for public health and for consumer trust in the safety of poultry. The two bacteria of concern account for over 70 percent of the illnesses transmitted commonly by food and tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through its FoodNet surveillance system, sickening an estimated 1.9 million Americans each year. Some 21 percent of the Salmonella cases and more than 66 percent of the Campylobacter cases are attributed specifically to poultry.
Alex is a proven leader in Food Safety and Quality Assurance with more than 16 years of leadership experience across food manufacturing operations, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement. Currently, Alex is a senior manager of supplier quality management at Nestlé USA. In this role he is responsible for partnering with companies across the food industry to ensure compliance and food safety within his organization’s supply chain.
Throughout his career, Alex has delivered measurable improvements in food safety performance with a focus on foreign body elimination, validated cleaning programs, reductions in consumer complaints, and the implementation of robust compliance programs. As a Quality Manager, he has led ISO 9001 and FSSC 22000 certification initiatives, built problem-solving capability, and achieved substantial reductions in foreign material defects.
His experience and expertise spans FDA and USDA regulations, FSMA, HACCP, and GFSI systems, with extensive experience leading regulatory responses, crisis management, food safety initiatives, and food safety culture development across global manufacturing operations.
Abigail is a food safety and quality leader with more than 13 years of experience advancing consumer protection and strengthening food safety systems across the food industry.
As an R&D Principal Scientist at PepsiCo, she provides global technical leadership in sanitation, hygienic design, contamination prevention, and food safety risk management across complex manufacturing and innovation environments.
Throughout her career, Abigail has been recognized for translating food safety science, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices into practical, scalable solutions that strengthen both operations and governance. Her expertise spans global food safety and sanitation standards, risk-based ingredient and process assessments, contamination prevention strategies, supplier and manufacturing risk management, and digital transformation initiatives that improve consistency, efficiency, and decision making.
Abigail is passionate about proactive prevention, embedding food safety into equipment, processes, and emerging technologies from the earliest stages of development. With a forward-looking perspective and a strong passion for elevating food safety culture, Abigail is helping shape a future where safer food isn't simply the goal—it's built into the way the industry operates.
Alexandra is the Food Safety Director – Southeast at Fresh Express, where she is responsible for the east coast agricultural operations food safety program, environmental monitoring, and provides corporate food safety and quality oversight for the Columbia, SC facility.
Prior to working at Fresh Express, Alexandra was the Food Safety Director of Agricultural Operations at McEntire Produce. She volunteers her time as a member of the Center for Produce Safety Technical Committee and as a steering committee member for the International Fresh Produce Association Food Safety Council.
Alexandra received her Ph.D. in Food Science with minors in microbiology and epidemiology from Cornell University under Martin Wiedmann and Renata Ivanek. During graduate school, she modeled pathogen die-off and presence in the pre-harvest produce environment and assisted companies in improving their Listeria environmental monitoring programs.
