Predictably Good - Conversation with Prof. Chris Elliott

Chris is the founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast and is an Honorary Professor there now. He is also Professor of Food Security at Thammasat University in Thailand. He has published around 600 peer-reviewed articles on the detection and control of agriculture, food, and environmental-related contaminants. Chris led the independent review of Britain’s food system following the 2013 horsemeat scandal. He now acts as a scientific advisor for a range of United Nations Agencies, governments, and industries on a range of food security topics.

---

Where AI, Data, and Predictive Intelligence Shape Better Decisions

From public health to financial markets, from food safety to nuclear systems, the world runs on decisions made under uncertainty.

Predictably Good explores how AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics are transforming how we assess risk, model outcomes, and make better decisions across industries.

Each episode brings together leaders from science, industry, finance, and policy to unpack how predictive intelligence is being applied in the real world—whether that’s safeguarding food systems, managing financial risk, designing resilient infrastructure, or navigating global uncertainty.

We go beyond theory into application: early-warning systems, probabilistic modelling, scenario analysis, and decision-making at scale.

At its core, this podcast is about one thing: how to make better decisions when the stakes are high and the future is uncertain.

Join Predictably Good to understand how predictive thinking is shaping safer, smarter, and more resilient systems across the world.

Hosted by Cronan McNamara, Founder & CEO of Creme Global

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everyone to this episode of Predictably Good, where we explore the intersection of AI, machine learning, data analytics, consumer and public health. Food security and food safety and consumer trust are shaped by innovation, development, data, and science. And as risks evolve and the global systems become ever more complex, traditional methods are struggling to keep up and to provide the oversight and the insight we require to keep these systems understood and safe. Predictably Good is a podcast and webinar exploring how AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics can transform the decision making across these complex problems. We're focusing on areas such as food security, food safety, cosmetics, chemical safety, and agriculture, but our conversations will extend to many domains in the coming months where predictive technologies and risk-benefit analysis can improve outcomes. So each episode, we'd like to bring experts from their field. And today I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Chris Elliott. Chris is the founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast and is an honorary professor there now, having spent many years in a full-time role there. He's also taken up a role as professor of food security and international joint research center on food security at Hamasat in Thailand. Chris led the independent review of Britain's food safety system in the wake of the 2013 horsemeat scandal and published the Elliott Report in 2014, which was instrumental in a lot of new initiatives, and in particular the Food Industry Intelligence Network known as FIN, and we'll talk about that a little bit today. And he now acts as scientific advisor to a range of organizations and governments on food security topics in particular. So note to all attendees you can submit your questions on the QA button on your screen, and we'll come to those a little bit later. So let's um pick off. Welcome, Chris, first of all. Um, we've had guests from uh California, Chicago, UK, Australia, and Dubai, but I'm delighted to be joined by someone right here on the island of Ireland. I thought you'd move to Thailand, but I understand you're still based here and you've taken up a role over there. Could you tell us a little bit more about that role?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yes, indeed. And I'm very good to uh chat with you again, Cronin. I think the topic, the subject areas that you cover in in this series are are amazing, fantastic, and it's great to discuss quite quite tricky things in terms of the evolving nature of the global food supply system. And I guess and that that's why I became particularly interested in doing more work actually outside of Ireland, outside of the UK, outside of Europe, because a lot of our food, a lot of the food that we eat, consume, is grown in parts of the world we don't even know about, we don't even imagine. Southeast Asia is a great example. I mean, I I love the food from that region, always have done. And now I I have got to learn much more about how it's produced, where it's produced, the issues, particularly around changing climates, which are amazing. You know, Southeast Asia is it is the breadbasket of the world. They they produce a huge amount of food there, but the challenges in terms of climate, challenges in terms of suddenly you get big geopolitical uh things changing, like Trump and his tariffs, it just causes mayhem and upheaval. So a lot of the work that we're doing there is looking at some of the complex supply chains, things like shrimp, rice, maize, and and and really looking at the impact of all of those things that I talked about, how they impact the entire supply chains. Because closer to home, a lot of work that I will do with um, particularly with some of the big food companies, is looking at resilience to supply chains. I think you know, all of us will walk into a supermarket and you'll see the wonderful choice of stuff. And as you know, in the not too distant future, that choice will diminish. Prices of food, as we all know, is increasing. And it's because of all of those different factors that are coming into play. So I guess a lot of what we are doing now is thinking about okay, we understand the challenges now, which are aplenty, but how can we apply really innovative solutions? And a lot of those, Cronin, will not surprise you. It's actually about data, it's about collecting huge amounts of data that's already been being generated, but actually converting that data into decisions.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, for sure. I I spent a bit of time in Thailand. Last year, the GFSI conference was in Singapore, and we took the opportunity to do a week in Thailand before it uh as a family. Food is incredible, and you get the impression there's a whole world of agriculture and trade over there that we have no insight into, and it doesn't really uh worry too much about us either. Um, but also then the food does travel to Europe and America. I was quite surprised to hear the the supermarket shells says that uh the range of products might diminish. It seems to be a relentless expansion of products uh up to date. So that's an interesting um thought that that might not continue in that in that vein, uh, the multiplicity of choice that we have in supermarkets, but might come back to that. I want to start um today with the Elliott report that I mentioned earlier. And it was written in the aftermath of the horsemeat scandal, which is a very big problem in the UK and Ireland. And if you look back now, it's more or less 10 years, just over 10 years, since that was written. What has changed for the better that you may have um expressed in the report, and perhaps what didn't go as you would would have liked from what you've written back in that in that report?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah. And and you know, it is a it is a good time to sit back and kind of reflect on that. The 10 years has passed, like like the you know, like a batting of a few eyelids, Cronin. I think, you know, we're from the island of Ireland, and and the scandal started off as I I think a major issue that developed between Ireland and retailers in the UK, but very, very quickly, you know, a lot of us realized this was not just a problem about Ireland in the UK, it was actually an int-European problem. And I think more than 20 of the EU member states all flagged up issues of about adulteration of beef with horse meat. So the scale of the problem, I think, was enormous. It had gone under the radar for quite a long time. It had gone under the radar because there was a lot of trust and that that you know was built up over years. Compliance was about getting a checklist and and ticking off a few things. Uh and guess what? Lo and behold, that really wasn't working very well because uh there was a lot of people realized you can cheat, cheat that system without the likelihood of actually being caught.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I remember it was initially referred to as the Irish horsemeat scandal, I think. But um it wasn't really, it was that we discovered it here in Ireland that it was a European-wide problem. So hopefully um people have realized that it wasn't an Irish scandal in the end, it was an Irish discovery of a scandal.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Absolutely. And I'm not sure many people are familiar. The then chief exec of Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Alan Riley, he was the guy who actually did the testing to find out there was a problem. And I described him as one of the bravest people that I did, and because I could imagine the amount of pressure he would would have been under to do to say nothing and do nothing, and he did the exact opposite, and because actually of the work of Alan, that allowed me to step in and start to do this pretty intensive in investigation. Now there has been some real pluses, and the again the the food industry of the UK and Ireland are totally interentwined with each other. The supply chains companies have their bases, it could be in Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, they are interintwined. And what what we have now uh as a result of the horsemeat scandal, I say there were three really big and positive initiatives. In my report, I recommended all of them. But I'll tell you, Cronin, it's very easy to recommend something, then you can kind of step away and and leave it for other people to do stuff. But what happened was the industry, the food industries of the United Kingdom and Ireland did come together and produced what's known as Finn, the Food Industry Intelligence Network. That started off with just five or six companies coming together and saying, we've got to do something about this. We have to share more information, we've got to share more data, we've got to generate more intelligence collectively. And Fin has gone from that relatively small group of businesses now to I think there's over 80 members, and it's not just Irish or British companies, it's not just European companies. We have companies from all over the world, multinational companies, to say what you have done in Fin is not only world leading, but it's actually the only example of such amount of data sharing anywhere in the world in terms of the food sector.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

I think the combined turnover of Finn is ridiculous now. It's something like close to 200 billion euros. I mean, the scale is enormous, and it is also now the world's largest repository of data on food authenticity testing, and that data then gets converted into, as I describe it as actionable intelligence. What is going on in these particular supply chains? Individual companies will go out and investigate those, but that information then comes back for the whole thin network. That's a big plus. The second thing is the formation of what's called a National Food Crime Unit, and that has been established England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. And it is a dedicated force that now looks specifically at what I describe as food crime. And again, what we find Ireland is Ireland also in that, uh, Chris. So Republic of Ireland. The what we were able to establish, Cronen, was very, very good data sharing, uh, memorandums of understanding between agencies in the UK and Ireland. And and that has, you know, because again, you can get bad actors right across our islands, and it's very difficult to follow them and investigate them if you can't cut across uh uh jurisdictional boundaries. Yeah, yeah. And now Finn, or sorry, the food, the National Food Crime Unit is actively pursuing six different organized crime networks across the UK and Ireland. It seems to be on a monthly basis now, they will give information about a successful prosecution. I mean, there was one today, and the and the criminal activity was half a million pounds, you know, it wasn't trivial stuff. Yeah. So that ability to investigate organized crime in the food industry is amazing. And then the third, the third big outcome of the Elliott report was the formation of what we call FAN, and that's the Food Authenticity Network. And what FAN does is it is an amazing knowledge sharing platform, it's all online and it gives information of the legislation around food authenticity, testing methods, who's doing what, where has been a major incident. And the wonderful thing then, Cronus, those three organizations, FAN, FIN, and National Food Crime Unit, all work together, and they have MOUs about information sharing, which is absolutely amazing. So I think those are all the pluses, and they're really big pluses.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

And I I say if you know, if I was a food criminal, which I'm not, honestly, I'm not a criminal, but the UK and Ireland would be the last countries in the world I would choose to actually try to do nasty things.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

But still, 10 years on, you know, one of the big issues that we have actually in the UK at the moment is very large amounts of illegal meat being smuggled into the UK through the borders. And you know, we can say some of that is down to the wonders of Brexit, and where uh breakdown of information sharing again has left the UK more vulnerable to that. Yeah, and of course, what comes into the UK can easily be uh transferred in into Ireland as well, and so it's just it just leaves another vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So there's never I always say to people in the whole area of food authenticity or food fraud, do not relax. Pato makes so much money out of this. The the estimates are somewhere between 50 and 100 billion US dollars per year is made in food fraud. That is more money than the entire global trade in heroin.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Wow. Yeah, when you put it like that, it's staggering. Um, the opportunity for crime there. So always being vigilant. And I know from attending some fin meetings, and for disclosure, we Crime Global provides the data trust and the uh analytics for the Finn platform. We took that on uh a number of years later, uh, after the start of FIN. So very interested to hear more about the start of Finn. But that scale of the collaboration now and the I guess the momentum it has now is is really special. And and all those groups getting together on a regular basis to discuss issues is very eye-opening and very valuable. So$100 billion per annum, incredible. Yeah, that's massive quite an enterprise for sure. I know it's hugely successful now. Uh how challenging was it uh initially to get those initial participants to start sharing data? And did it face much resistance from the companies themselves? And how did you overcome that? Or or was it okay? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

For those listeners who are familiar with rugby, I mean, we're great lovers of rugby on the island of Ireland, and and it was described, I got the hospital pass okay. The rugby ball came to me and and I took on this this particular challenge. And a lot of people said, Don't do it, don't go near it, because it it you'll you'll never get anywhere. And you know, some of the big challenges, you know, we go back to trust, some unknown university professor is going to tell us big food businesses, how we should change our operations, or I'm going to tell government departments you should change how you operate. And I think the secret to I I would say the the success of the Elliott report was I attended or chaired something like 150 different stakeholder meetings.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

And I and I made a point, Cronin, of when I was at those meetings, my main objective was to listen and learn.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

And because all of the knowledge of the things that work very well and the things that work less well were always in those rooms, and it was absorbing that information, and that that that was absolutely crucial. And then again, it would be okay, Elliot, I've got this idea, go back to those stakeholder groups and and and and you know, challenge them. And what I could see there was a really a shift in in opinion, and actually, I I wasn't the bad guy, I I became the good guy. And what I say is basically the food industry and myself, we co-designed the those things that I talked about, thin fan, and on the food crime unit.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah, yeah. So collaboration right from the start. So yeah, that's a quite um engagement, you know, um, and uh did the heavy lifting following that uh hospital pass. Again, just picture that in the rugby uh it's a lot great. So excellent. So Finn took off and um kind of solved um a technical gap of data sharing and that you know scanning of the whole sector, which is probably very difficult for any company on their own. But when you combine data from 80 plus companies, uh any signals they're detecting and sharing is amplified, really, I suppose, across that network. And you found a way to do it anonymously and securely, initially using I think legal privilege, right? Exactly. We carry that on into the current platform in it with a technical solution. So so that that's been a real flagship of success on data sharing and and for food security and and food safety, which follows from that. I would link the two quite, even though it's all not always a food safety, it's often just an economic risk, but it's still can uh uh result.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Joe, it's it's very very very interesting, Cronin, because often you're right, you think authenticity, you know, horsemeat scandal, nobody died from it. In fact, nobody got ill from it. But there was a very good scientific publication just a few weeks ago from some Dutch groups, and they analyzed, I think it was 10 years of data from the RASEF system. That's the EU rapid alert system, and they looked at every food authenticity issue that had been flagged up in RASEF, and their conclusion was something like 75% of all cases had some food safety element. 75%. So you cannot separate food safety from food fraud. They they are two circles in a Venn diagram which overlap 75%.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah, so just touching on food safety again, like you've been in the industry for uh many years now. Would you in general, would you consider the food safe, the food industry and the food that's produced and and distributed uh safer now than it was maybe 20 or 30 years ago? And yeah, it's so why or why not?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah, and I I think you know, I I do a lot of work on food safety right across the world. We should count our blessings in UK, Europe, United States. We have very, very good food safety measures in place, we have strict legislation, and and we have a lot of inaction of that legislation as well. There, there's a lot of mechanisms there. When we step into the developing world, some of the issues and the problems that I see they're they're they're mind-boggling, to be honest with you. So that's the starting point. But then when you start to dig down and look at the data, and you can look at the data in the US, and you know the CDC says there's roughly 50 million cases of foodborne illness each year in the United States. 50 billion cases out of a population of 350 million. In in the UK, the Food Standards uh agency reckon it's about 2 million cases per year in the UK. 2 million cases. And and then over the last 12 to 24 months, what I can see, and this is UK data, in fact, most of it's English data, cases of foodborne illness are on the rise, and not just trivial rises, we're talking 20, 30, 40 percent increases.

unknown 20:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Now, the question is why is that happening? Why is there suddenly this upturn in cases? And we can look at lots of different factors, okay? It can be the economic crisis, yeah, actually, people deciding I can't throw that food out because I can't afford to, so I'm going to take a risk with it. It may well be the quality of the people who are in food service now has reduced, they don't have the same level of trading. So there is a multitude of factors there. So where we can say in in the developed world, yeah, things are okay. Actually, they're not. And it wouldn't take much, you know, because of all of these changes that are happening, or changing climate and changing supply chains. That upward trend, in my opinion, unfortunately, is likely to continue to increase.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, yeah, that's an that's true. And it's a strange in the UK, Ireland, Europe, we just expect food to be safe, but at the same time, there are these large numbers and increasing, as you call it, as you say, from the statistics of illnesses and even deaths happening in in the US. And I know that's stubborn that figure is quite stubborn and it's not diminishing in the US as well. So despite our efforts and the increasing uh regulation and vig vigilance and you know, bad actors being caught and removed from the system. So, yeah, we'll hopefully um try to uh improve even further on the the the surveillance and the the data that we're building to try to re turn that tide, I guess. So what um Food safety risks would you worry about yourself that you think industry might not be talking about or isn't talking about enough? What are what are topics of concern to you?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Okay, so I mean I I mentioned the illegal trade that goes on on the we let's call it the grey markets that go on.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Uh food that's being produced in businesses that really aren't fit for purpose and will evade regulatory checks and inspections. And Joe, I mean, I think globally the finite resource that goes on into ensuring our food is safe is diminishing. Governments are cutting back on the number of food safety inspectors, and and you know, that's Europe, it's UK, it's Ireland, it's United States.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

So I and I think you know our changing climate is a huge factor. More risks are happening. Actually, the knowledge of young people, some people are amazing in terms of their culinary skills in terms of cooking, but there's a lot of kids, you know, you know, their their their way of cooking is to buy something and put it into a microwave oven or to go on to an app and and and buy their food. So the way that people purchase food is is changing quite dramatically as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

A lot of restaurants delivering now, which never would have delivered in the past, you know, via these apps and motorcycles going around the city, right? Yeah, that's a change.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah, I I I uh I won't say the name of the companies because they'll only sue me, to be honest with you. Food companies love love to sue me, but they've never been successful, I have to tell you. But some of those app driven companies, when when I've challenged them about food safety, they'd actually say, We're we're not food businesses. We we're not food businesses, we're IT companies, you know. And and you know, our app is wonderful, and what they did not really think about was the safety of the food that was being delivered on their app. And I I actually had a major, major argument with one of the CEOs of one of those companies, and actually as a result, I did see that they changed because what they did on their app, they put the food hygiene score of that food business operator. And you know, it you know, we got this really good system in the UK where you get one uh one star to five star. I say to people, why would you ever buy food from somebody who's got a one-star or a two-star? You know, and if you go on to TripAdvisor, are you gonna book that hotel that has two stars? No, of course you're not. Don't do don't do it with your food either. And I guess you know what? That's data-driven as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Yeah, I know it's a very there could be a lot of um sharing of that information more transparently. Um did you say the app didn't put that uh hygiene rating on the app or it did?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yes, uh initially it didn't. Okay, and then it did. And and and then actually after our frank exchange of views, within a couple of months, that app that company changed its view. And I wrote I wrote a letter. I don't write too many letters actually, but I wrote a letter to the chief executive and praised him for actually taking food security more or food safety more seriously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

That's that's just something struck me that you're talking about imports. Um, this um Mercosur deal is is has caused a bit of a uh controversy in Ireland. Um, the farmers uh seem to be against it. Um what are your thoughts on it from a food security, food safety? Are are you generally in favor of it or skeptic or uh worried about it?

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Look, that deal has been negotiated for 25 years, Croner. Wow, if you look at the trade deal announced just a few days ago between the EU and India, and that was under negotiation for 20 years. What has brought those two deals past the line? And that is the United States and their tariffs, yeah, yeah, without a doubt. So it has been geopolitical factors have put those trade deals in place. And I am a firm believer in open trade and open borders, okay, because it is to the benefit of many, many people. It does help to keep food prices down, it's about not only affordability but availability of food as well. There are many, many pluses. The downside, and you know, in all deals will be you know the wins and and the lose, the losses. Some of the losses will be we've got to be so sure about safety of products because you know we've got very, very different standards between South America, Europe, and and India. Yeah, completely different standards. And of course, I go back to uh a product that's exported from one country, there can be that nice tick, tick, tick, yes, everything's fine, guys. The amount of inspection of that food coming into the the the receiving country will be very, very low. And again, you think back to these bad actors. I think this this could be an open invitation for some bad actors to bring unsafe food in into Europe.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, I always think of the inspection system as kind of a needle in the haystack. Sometimes, you know, there's so much tonnage of product, and they might open a container and test a few boxes or samples and a few containers, etc. Like there's a bit of a probability theory around that, obviously, of finding something that is there or finding not finding something that is there, you know. I always think of that as an interesting challenge, that sampling strategy, I suppose. But it's uh just a pragmatic thing. Um, yeah, can't test them all. Um, so we do need to build those trust and frameworks, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And and you you you know, you're absolutely right. It's probably 0.something zero one percent of food that's actually checked and tested, because if you do more, it's just going to radically increase the price of food. Yeah. So what can you do? Your surveillance, checking, testing, monitoring should be risk-based and data-driven again. You and and and that will always be changing because of changing factors. You know, let's say you've got a particular bad weather event in one part of the world, the likelihood is that those farmers might have to use more pesticides, they might have more problems with mycotoxins. That should be flagged up on your risk register. So products coming from that goods coming from that country, that should increase. And it could be something else decreases. So you back to that finite resource, but you're really targeting that what should be looked at much more closely.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah, I definitely agree. You know, you should target those resources to optimize your chances of you know recruit decreasing risk, basically. So we're all interested in that, those data sets, and how to create algorithms to help people make those better decisions. So I suppose then I guess the question is are regulators adopting these types of like we talked to earlier about um, you know, inspectors are going down, the gray market is there, the climate change is disrupting things, there's other other risks, people are eating more diverse things. On the other hand, is AI an opportunity to maybe uh counteract some of those diminishing capabilities and increase the capability around safety, uh, surveillance, etc. How do you see that playing out?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Okay, so let's talk about AI to start with, okay? Now, given any day of the week, probably you'll hear two or three different news reports about AI. I always say 50% of them are really positive and 50% are really negative, okay? But AI is here, not only here to stay, but will will have an increasingly important role in so many factors in in our in our life.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Now, I think one of the real positives of AI will absolutely be in not only food safety, but in food security. And strangely, my first interaction with AI was about 15 years ago. And when I talked to this really clever mathematician, and he didn't describe it as AI, this was just uh statistical modeling that he you know he was going to do on some of my data sets. And there was something called random forests, which you'll probably be very familiar with. So 15 years ago, we published our first uh piece of work on the use of AI, even though we didn't know it was AI. And actually it has really snowballed ever since there. No, regulations tend to change very slowly. And you often we say, you know, it's like watching a snail crawl with a 10 kilogram weight strapped to its shell.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, that's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

It they they move very slowly. And and there there is, you know, I I would say there's good reasons for that slow movement because you have to get so many people to agree. You've got to try to determine what are the potential unintended consequences of these various changes. Now, AI is giving us the opportunity to change things much, much more quickly and for the better. So I work with lots of regulatory agencies around the world, are now starting to think about how we can start to use AI. But Cronin, you will know as well as I, there's actually good AI and bad AI. It's about the quality of your data, and it's also about those algorithms that you develop.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

So for instance, I do a lot of work with different UN organizations, and one of the things we have identified actually for the entire continent of Africa, who's really undergoing massive transitions in terms of food security, Africa currently supplies about 4% of all the food traded globally. 4%, not much, not much, but by 2050, it will be 25% of the world's food supply will come out of Africa. Wow. Massive change. And one of the drivers of that will be actually using an AI-driven food safety system. Right. So what is what I think will happen in Africa, Africa could actually leapfrog a lot of what we're doing in the developed world. They don't have the systems in place at the moment, but they will just bypass those and start to use more AI-based tools. I'm actually just starting a project in what's called the CARICOM region of the world. Most people don't know what CARACOM is, but it's actually the Caribbean. And now we're looking at a project in terms of installing an AI-driven food safety system for CARICOM. And again, the idea, if that works there, we can roll that out to other parts of the world. So AI, amazing in terms of food safety.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

That's incredible to hear that. Um, I was actually in Africa last summer on a vacation, but we visited Rwanda and Uganda, and we were up the mountains uh and in the hills, and you noticed like potato fields everywhere. A very familiar sight, which is very strange to see it because and they actually even call them Irish potatoes in that part of the world because I think the Irish apparently the mythology is that the Irish bought them out originally and and started to cultivate them, but they seem to grow very, very well and it's very uh productive land there. So I was quite surprised saying, Wow, they have a lot of like potential here to uh you know grow food and and export it, etc. So it's good to hear they can um move forward. One one more question, maybe just to wrap up, Chris. And uh, this is um the future of food safety, and um looking ahead maybe 10 or more years, and you're you're maybe sitting on the beach in Thailand and no longer having the in the day job, but um enjoying yourself. What does uh success for food safety or maybe food security look like to you? And what what would be that headline you'd love to le read on the the newspaper as you're sitting on the beach?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Okay, so I mean, absolutely you've you've identified one of my my key objectives in life, much more time on the beach and less time in webinars, okay? So go ahead to today here in another one. No, but I I I mean it's a great subject to to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

And you know, then going back to the ultra series, I I'm worried that the statistics in terms of food security for the world are going backwards. They're going backwards in terms of, you know, we we have got the number of people who go to bed hungry each day in the world growing, not reducing, despite huge efforts. And a lot of that is about the climate, the geopolitics as well. Yeah. The number of people who get sick from foodborne illness is increasing. Now, there was an amazing document published by the World Health Organization. Again, it was about 10 years ago. It documented the number of cases of people who die from foodborne illness. I mean, it was a huge number, 420,000 people. The the next iteration is due to be published quite soon. I'm just worried that the trend will be upwards and not downwards.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

And and you know, why is that happening is because of all of those challenges that I talked to you about. But the big opportunity is let's have that data-driven system. Yeah, and let's have that system where we're prioritizing our resources into the right areas. Digitization of supply chains and spotting problems in those supply chains early. So if there's a problem, that food does not reach the marketplace. So I would say, you know, that the future of food safety is around science and technology, absolutely no doubt about it. And we are now in what's described as the fifth industrial revolution. And the fifth industrial revolution, and actually the the fourth one came and went very quickly because the fourth industrial revolution was about automation, and now we can say the fifth industrial uh revolution is about data. Okay, yeah, and combining that better ways to manufacture food, better ways to store food, better ways to transport food, to control food systems, along with this whole idea about identifying risks early, mitigating against those risks. That's what I think the future of food safety is. And that's why I still remain very, very positive and optimistic.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

So data-driven, fifth, fifth industrial revolution. Does that include AI or is that the sixth one? Oh no, all AI.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

AI is central to the fifth industrial revolution. It's about data.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Data and AI, yeah. And I for them, that's powerful. Yeah. Thank you, Chris, for joining us from Ireland today. And uh thank you, everyone, for joining us on this today's predictably good episode. You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn, Chris Elliott, just search him there, or you can connect with myself on LinkedIn or through the Creme Global site itself. It's been great to talk. And this episode will be available in the usual channels, YouTube, LinkedIn, our website, and on the podcast via Apple, Spotify, and the usual, whatever favorite platform you have for listening to podcasts. So please do look out for it there on your preferred device and system. And thanks again for joining us. And see you next time. Thanks, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

All the very best now. Bye Chrono.