Predictably Good - Conversation with Sara Mortimore

Sara Mortimore is an independent food safety adviser and former Global Vice President of Food Safety at Walmart, where she led the company's global food safety strategy across its stores, ecommerce, supply chain, and private brands. Previously, she held senior food safety and quality leadership roles at Land O’Lakes and General Mills. With more than 40 years of experience, Sara is a co-author of leading HACCP and food safety publications and currently serves on the Musgrave Group Food Safety Advisory Board and the Campden BRI Advisory Council.

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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

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm delighted to be joined today by Sarah Mortimer, who I'll introduce now. And we're going to go through a lot on understanding how companies, retailers, manufacturers, and even regulators evaluate food producers. It's critical, obviously, for food safety, for quality operational purposes. And Sara has a wealth of experience in this area. So Sara's a leading expert in this area with over 40 years of experience in food safety, quality, and regulatory. She's co-authored many books on the subject on successful, but many successful books and chapters on HACCP and food safety management. She was the global vice present president of food safety for for Walmart, which had a very large footprint of 10,500 brick and mortar stores. So significant scale and responsibility for huge amounts of food safety and a very fast developing business, even moving into online um uh uh e-commerce. Um Asara was a recipient of the IAFP Black Pearl Award during her time at Walmart, which is a very excellent achievement. And previous to that, um having been um on the retail side, previous to that she was on the manufacturing side with um working with many different organizations, including um Lando Lakes, um the second largest agricultural co-op in the US. And previous to that, um companies like Glaxo SmithKline and Grant Metropolitan Foods, which was eventually acquired by General Mills. So um now Sarah sits on many advisory boards, including Musgrave Group Food Safety Advisory Board and the Camden BRI Advisory Council. In fact, that's where we met. I'm fortunate enough to be also on that uh council, and it was great to meet Sarah there. So um I'll just say a brief word about myself. So I'm Cronin McNamara, I'm the founder and CEO of KREM Global, and we're a scientific data company and AI based in Dublin, Ireland, but working with industry and government all around the world, trying to help with the science of food safety, quality, and using risk models and data to help, I suppose, safeguard reputations, ensure food safety, and protect consumers all around the world. We take a very scientific approach to gathering data, structuring data, and setting up collaborations between industry groups and regulators using the best available data and AI. So this will be a fascinating discussion, I think, coming from we're coming from the data side, really trying to understand the on-the-ground experience that Sarah, you have um from your your experience. So welcome Sarah, and um maybe tell us a little bit more about your background and then we'll jump into some QA.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Thanks, Cronen. Yeah, I have a lengthy background, and I I feel really fortunate to have worked both in manufacturing and in retail, um, a little bit in food service with Hogandas in the Hogandas days in Diazou as well. But um, it gives you such a good perspective of the supply chain, the industry. I also worked in distribution for a bit, so you know, I've kind of got that whole farm to fork with land of lakes right through to consumer with the the latter job in rating. So I've got a really good lens on the industry, and I'm glad you mentioned uh consumers, Cronen, because it's it's totally about consumers and getting the safe food on the table, on the shelf for them. And we sometimes lose sight of that, I think, in whether in manufacturing or retailing, it's about the product, but it's actually about food, food which is meant to nurture, to sustain life, and it's something that goes into us and becomes part of us, and that's a huge responsibility, incredible responsibility. So we have to do the best we possibly can to make sure that we maintain that trust that consumers have in the food industry as a whole, and the supplier piece is a really important part of that, seeing that whole supply chain and looking back up the supply chain in each of our roles, whether you're in manufacturing, looking at ingredient suppliers or contract manufacturers for your brand, or whether in retailing, putting national branded uh products on the shelf or private branded, it's about trust. Trust with the company above you in the supply chain, the distributor below you in the supply chain, and ultimately with the consumer. So it's a really important topic, and I think we're all part of that continuum, that ecosystem that makes that happen. And we're not getting it right yet either. So there's a lot more work to be done, and uh, so I'm really interested in this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, exactly. We're all food consumers, we all have family and and friends, and we we have to trust the the food products that we all love and the brands that we we've you know grown up with and and admire. So it's it, and as you said, you know, we're still not getting everything right. And I always think you know, it's such a massive industry, and there are so many variables. We're going to get into that, that there's there's always going to be some incidents that occur, and there's you know, but um at the same time, and I think we discussed this last time, there are too many incidents that are occurring that shouldn't be happening. So um, even at the recent GFSI conference in in Dublin a few weeks ago, they had a talk called Back to the Future, and they looked at incidents that have been happening for the last 40, 50, 60 years, and they're reoccurring, and they're not seeming to get any um lower in prevalence, which is disappointing. So it'd be good to uh um figure it out, um, maybe discuss that as well. Um, but the main topic you know, we want to talk about today is how that relationship, I suppose, between the large companies who are buying either products or ingredients or supplies of any sort that goes into the food manufacturing pro process, what are they looking for to try to ensure that quality and safety? And going, I suppose, above and beyond um perhaps even just regulation and regulatory standards, what are they and and how can we, you know, then think about what data could be used um to monitor that surveillance that you're talking about? So that's really what I'd love to get into today. Um so let's jump in then. I suppose from your experience over the many different organizations that you've worked for, what do you think? Um what are how do large companies you know go about that um monitoring those uh suppliers and manufacturers? And how do they balance those requirements with other pressures that they might be under from, for example, cost or or you know, um need the need to have product ready to go?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah. Um I've been on both sides because I've worked in in manufacturers that also supply private label to retailers as well as being a retailer that was on the other side of the fence. And I think today it's um I'd say we recognize more that trust is what you're buying. You're buying that and you're buying reliability. So, in my experience, it's today with the bigger companies, with the companies with high integrity, it's less about that cost pressure. You have to be efficient, but it isn't about necessarily getting the cheapest uh item you can whack onto the shelf. You you want to make sure it's always going to be on the shelf, it's reliably going to be produced, and it's gonna, and that means it's gonna be safe. There's nothing worse than an empty shelf in retailing because the product's been with withdrawn, recalled, and we know that only too well from a couple of years ago with the infant formula crisis, where there was so little infant formula available, it was just awful um being in Walmart and seeing our customers coming in looking for baby formula, and that's they had to have it. And it was just uh just awful. So, trust is important, and I think we're willing to pay for that uh reliability and trustworthiness as a purchaser, as a specifier of those goods. And what we're looking for when we're evaluating suppliers, because it starts with that supplier approval, then monitoring comes later. But the supplier approval, the GFSI did a good thing in that it as that evolved what 25 years ago, it it raised the bar and there was not there's now an entry level. So for many companies, they'll say uh got to have a GFSI certified scheme, benchmark scheme certificate. So you need that as a as a starting point, and that's part of ongoing monitoring and surveillance. But I think you'll find today that it's more than that, that's not enough because we're seeing uh these recalls come from by and large certified companies. So something isn't working. And to me, it is about uh the baseline GFSI is able to uh set standards for benchmarking against pest control, uh consumer uh response or complaints handling, um, that you've got your documentation in order, that you've got a cleaning program, that you've got a Hasset plan, they're not necessarily going to be able to go and invalidate the contents of that Hasset plan. And I think it's taken us a while to understand that and understand that actually that is the role of the company who's buying the product, the large company or a smaller company who's the specifier who owns that specification, who's purchasing the product. So we're, I think, going in more often than maybe we did when the GFSI schemes first started up, because we're going in and now validating against specification that we own, and really looking at the capability of that supplier to meet our requirements. And those requirements might be over and above what's in the GFSI benchmarking requirements. So they they pretty much are because they're all around the product that you're purchasing, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, for sure. So so the GFSI certification is a good baseline, but you're finding that you know there's different levels of quality around how people are, you know, delivering the are developing their HASA plans. So therefore, you have to kind of go a step further and and inspect or validate those facilities, which obviously is a massive challenge with the scale you would have been dealing with in Walmart and and even in your previous roles. So um, so I think you know, I'm thinking about how what what maybe further data could be gathered to help, you know, uh prioritize, I suppose, the risks of different um suppliers or even ongoing monitoring of the quality of their you know, implementation of their plans, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, it's an interesting thing to think about. Um when I'm looking at a supplier, I want to I really want to know that they're capable. Are they capable of making a safe quality product and doing that every real time? So there's the integrity piece, which leads uh somewhat into food safety culture. Um there's also it's also about transparency of communications. And then there's also the technical aspect, their the quality of their hazard analysis, the validity of their hazard analysis as they put their hassle system together or their food safety plan together, or in the US, whether it's PRPSy hazard analysis, uh risk-based preventive control, or um, but it's all based on a hazard analysis, uh risk assessment approach. And so I'm looking at whether the supplier has a capability for that. And when I was in Walmart, we were testing out some different ways of doing it, uh, certainly supplier questionnaires, which many organizations have, but also we were homing in on the product and what was making the product safe, and asking our suppliers uh that same question do you understand what's making your product safe? Please articulate that to us. And we did start to see some key themes uh as we did that. Uh, firstly, not all of them could answer that very simple question, uh which is quite interesting, but you can cross-check that against industry um reference materials. There's some really good, you know, ICMSF or uh FDA appendix one. I mean, there's plenty of good data, published data, uh, for which our people uh in off could be cross-checking, cross-referencing. Could you automate that? Uh yeah, I think you you could across look at what the suppliers are feeding into you against what the uh recognized sources of um uh of information would tell you. Um so it's about technical competency. Uh so we were asking asking suppliers that, and and you'd you'd really uh see whether they understood whether the regulations that that applied to them were uppermost in their mind to they understand what was changing in regulations. Are suppliers really looking at what failures are occurring in industry? And you talked about the back to the future. I did the Camden lecture a few about five years ago, actually, and I talked about that same topic five years ago. Yeah, we can't lose sight of the basics, they're foundational because those things are what's causing quite often the recalls. So, you know, it's really understanding some of those aspects as well. You know, what's what's the root cause analysis telling us? What failures are happening in the category that you're making? Are you aware of that?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Some companies aren't doing that surveillance, and so they're not aware, and they're not really digging back into their facilities to say, could that ever happen to us? Because complacency is the enemy.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

If you're complacent and think it's never happened here, you know, that's not us, then that's not a good place to be ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Exactly, trying to learn from the you know, the knowledge that's been gained around the industry, either either through things going badly or going well. And I think these food safety conferences are great for that, but perhaps not everybody's attending those conferences. And we talked about it the other day that you were sometimes amazed that people weren't using technologies that had been around for a decade that you thought everybody was using them, but they're not. So, you know, it's about that. Um those those types of newer approaches, you know, getting um into the industry, into the far reaches of of the this the the industry to make sure that everybody's coming up to speed with the with the latest and thinking and the latest approaches to food safety. So I'm just wondering do do regulator the regulations kind of reflect that, I suppose, in that they they get updated from time to time. And would those play a role in trying to um disseminate that that knowledge out to to the broader aspects of the food sector?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Uh only if you're looking, and of course, it takes a long time to get a regulation put in place. So the US is doing a decent job, I think, in having draft regulations out there. But I was at the um the BRCGS conference in Milan of a month or so ago, and giving a session on the the new codex uh uh general principles of food, hygiene, and hassle the foundations, you know, back to the future. And that document's been it was overdue a refresh. It took 10 years to get done through codex, which works through multiple, multiple regulators. And we we did a quick poll of the audience. How many people have read the new codex document? It took them nearly 10 years to get published. 10%, and these are auditors, these are professional food safety people at high integrity because they're honest about whether they'd read it or not, which is fantastic. But in GFSI now, it talks about um some of the detail isn't in there, it's really saying and the schemes must comply with the latest codex document. Well, if you're not familiar with that, that's not going to be terribly helpful, but actually, it's gonna be quite damaging. And so I think that's a role that large companies can play, continue to play, in making sure their suppliers are aware of what's available. It means the air is on the large company, the large organization uh to help disseminate that information. But it is a role that can be taken quite seriously, whether it's um going into suppliers of infant formula and saying, well, you you know, you need an auto-sampler here so that we've got a much more accurate read on um on what's going on in your in your finished product as opposed to offline uh periodic sampling. I think that's something that we can do as as large organizations, whether you're in retailing or manufacturing, yeah, making sure that we are familiar with those those technologies, and that takes people power, of course, as well. Um, but it's something that that can be done, but it's not everyone. There's an awful lot of smaller artisanal companies popping up which go into retailers under their own brand initially, and then if it does well, then it might convert to a a private brand. But who's helping them?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So not you know, extension services in the US, but I don't know, don't know globally.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

So, yeah, the regulations move slowly, they take time to get updated, and then not everybody's familiar with those or always keeping up this up to date with them, and not even especially not the ones that are potentially coming down the line. So I think that is an interesting role, I suppose, that industry can play to force those requirements down the chain, I suppose, onto onto manufacturers. So um to make sure they have that knowledge are using the best available approaches and technologies in their in the manufacturing. But um, I think you're you're saying that that's not necessarily happening, you know, right now uh across uh in a broad enough way to to kind of adopt those latest approaches, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah, I mean it's a big responsibility then on the on the purchase of the specifier to make sure that you've got all the things that you think ought to be in place. And and we're not experts, certainly when you go into retailing warm-up, we we had some category specialists, that's something we put in place.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Uh and so a good in a very good way. So we had produce people, dairy people, meat people. Yeah, so they could go deep into those categories. Uh, as the US becomes more and more into private brand, I think that will probably happen more. That that's very much the model that European retailers have. And the European retailers, I think, did an excellent job in passing a lot of knowledge onto their suppliers. That was I was one of them many years ago. I probably had, you know, 20 audits a year. But my gosh, that was a rich teaching moment every time a technologist or an auditor came into my facility, much more so than a single annual GFSI audit. We have to think about how to how to close that gap, actually, that's left by uh uh in a good way the certification, but the the less contact with your your um multiple auditors, but the technologists and the people that go and discuss the product are the people that now have to be that link and have to be conversant in what the most current best practices and technologies are because um you need to be looking at at what's best practice, not not what's just okay. I think you need to as we said at the beginning, what's the best we can do for the consumer? And it's not just okay, it's really the the best that we can be.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, so you mentioned that um, you know, walking the floor and just observing the plant was a valuable um, you know, resource of our knowledge, you know, uh inspection for yourselves to do. What types of things would you would you be looking for in particular when you when you'd be re reviewing a plant like that?

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, um what we were doing in Walmart and uh was a it almost an a gamble walk. A gamble walk. We were not auditing because we were leaving that to GFSI, which we supported. But we were looking over and above that. What was very specific to our product? Whether you're purchasing a pulled pork product or a pizza or a filled sandwich, what was specific to that product for food safety? And really focusing in on that and looking at what the controls were that we expected to be there through pre-work, through supplier questionnaires, through a form that we asked them to fill out that was very product specific in food safety. And then we're really going in and discussion, lots of discussion, communication, sort of a food safety culture, if you will, now that's got a label, but um really it's a technical assessment and capability assessment and uh a trust assessment really of those suppliers. But you can do an awful lot in a half day or a day by by being with the people, talking with them, discussing, having these sorts of conversations actually. What do you think about? What are your challenges? What are you thinking about codecs and regulations? And and you're just gauging all the time about how much do they know all the time, and it's very informal, but it's very, very effective at building a picture of that supplier. And we had a no checklist, no checklist at all in our Walmart approach because it was product specific and we go with where the where the day took us, much harder to do. I don't see that you could uh easily replace what GFSI uh schemes do with that, but but I know there's some interesting uh work going on with an alternative style of audit, and I'm I'm keeping a close eye on that, but it's complementary, very complimentary, but for a purchaser I think worked very well and focusing on the high-risk products too, because as you rightly said earlier, you couldn't possibly get everywhere. Yeah, so you're focusing like the FDA has with the traceability rule, you're starting with the highest risk ones, and then you can you can expand out risk-based approach, which makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

I'm wondering um what kind of data you're you know uh kind of intuitively looking for on those walk arounds and maybe what kind of IoT sensors or other types of data collection devices would you think could be so uh complementary, I suppose, to to what you're doing there that could help kind of a database system kind of do that same kind of well, not not in the way you're talking to people and understanding their knowledge, but all just looking at maybe the operation of the facility, like you know, humidity, moisture, uh temperatures, would you, you know, could could some of that you know be automated into a data collection process? I'm wondering.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think it's early days, and then then that comes back to transparency and trust in the communication. But I think that's a very interesting area because you can't be there all the time. Yeah. Um and you and you think, gosh, when I'm not here, are they doing the right things? So having access to the data, um, in nearly all the companies I've worked in, we've been big advocates for the supplier owning the verification. So that's whether that's product testing, environmental testing, environmental monitoring testing. Um, but looking at sensors and some of the big companies, Nestle is one, I believe, that are are really putting sensors in their plants and thinking about how they do internal audits because they've got access to that data. It's not necessarily putting caras in, but I think you can do that internally. And I have worked in companies that have done that, but um, but you can certainly collect data on coal chain or heat heat data so uh and have visibility of that. Yeah. I was thinking too um about uh war on water, we talk about that a lot, and many facilities I go to are way too wet. Yeah, possibly because uh I know the Queen in the UK used to say everything smells of paint because it all gets painted before she got there. I used to think everybody's cleaning the plant before I step into it, so it's wet when I get there. It's stopping wet.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Is it always this wet?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Quick clean it, but you think, gosh, it's way too wet. This is encouraging, encouraging growth of listeria here. This is not good at all, and it's also acting now as a vector of transfer of any pathogen you have in the environment. This is bad. So could we monitor that remotely? Maybe we could, as in a way that we don't today, whether it's uh moisture sensors, as you alluded to, Cronin, that's interesting. Um, but also you know, having access to data, we'd have to have time to look at it. So that's where I think the AI tools can really come in and help us because there are only so many hours a day. And I think if we can really look at what can AI can do for us to extend our capacity, yeah, that's what becomes really interesting, whether it's screening those supplier questionnaires that we get in to see what's missing, what data's missing that we expect to be there, or looking at remote monitoring data and making sense of that for us. I think that's something that is really exciting as it develops.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, that's a great uh lead into I wanted to say a few things about AI. And uh, you're you're it's true, like all of this data can be then fed into a system, even just to visualize the data and spot anomalies um or simple um analytics like that. But as you build up enough data, and if you have multiple plants or and and in fact, if those um plants can share data or aggregate data over different aspects and supply some metadata, for example, the information on on maybe the temperature, the time of year, the seasonality, etc., um, you can actually potentially build up some predictive models that can um help, I suppose, target the riskier times of year, different environments, different um and and try to monitor those those um on an ongoing basis. Now we're we're only a few minutes to go, and I see there's one question on the chat already, so I might jump to that if uh um so um we have one here for Sarah um from BZAD. Thanks very much for the question. Um he's asking, um, you mentioned that large companies at times go even beyond the standard set by regulators. When this happens, do the large companies share the data with regulators? For example, what extra measures are implemented and how those measures uh improve or not the safety of foods? That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, and I know regulators would love to get more of the data that large companies have. And so some of the data trusts that I know Crumb Global is involved in is a really good way of making that data anonymous. All Mart was a member of the um fraud one based out of the UK at Canada and Finn, uh, which I really was happy about. But I think it's it's more a question of um meeting with regulators, as some of the big companies do quite periodically, and help them understand almost like the state of the nation, what's really happening out there, because they don't have enough inspectors to get out there. They're not really all we're not always category-specific like we can be, and really home in on what should be doing and is it being done. And I know one of my last meetings with FDA really talking about, I'm really worried about the inability to do a hazard analysis. I just don't see the capabilities out there, and it's it's almost going backwards because people are inheriting their food safety plans and their food safety systems and don't own them like they did when they had to develop them. So being able to be part of that pulse intelligence, if you will, with regulators, I think is a role that that industry can when you're large enough to have that one-on-one um platform, I think can be very helpful for regulators to to hear that. And of course, as a large company, you do get uh to play in uh giving feedback and comments on uh organizations like Codex. I know I I've been part of that as well, and very appreciative to be able to do that, but we do have that ability and and we take that um responsibility quite seriously. Yeah, and that answers somewhat to an insight into what you're asking.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, for sure. And uh yeah, I think the the mention of data trust, data sharing is a great way to share knowledge in an industry group and learn from each other if if there's an incident that happens in a certain supplier in a certain region, you know, if you can share that information broadly, uh unanonymously perhaps through the throughout the industry, it's a great learning opportunity. Um and it immediately where uh raises awareness of all the other members of the group, but to be vigilant for such a risk in the future. So I think yeah, I think data trusts and then though that data can be anonymized, aggregated, and and we have enough data, you have big data now to feed um more detailed visualizations um and potentially AI models. So uh to kind of then predict those anomalies um or predict their higher probability at least of those anomalies happening in the future in different times of year, different regions.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

So uh folks just know where to look, where to think of where to look.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, it's that sharing that intelligence. So I think those data trusts have huge huge potential. And there uh you mentioned the Finn one, which is all about food integrity. Um we're working on another one on food safety with the uh with the Western Growers Organization in California uh and and others around different um different types of uh ingredients and chemicals of interest too. And the other benefit then is to have that sensible conversation with with the regulators by showing here's the data the industry has, and there's far more data that than they could have had access to before, and perhaps aggregating that with public data to to kind of really uh get the value of the big data.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

That's very exciting.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah, I think that is an exciting area um to um bring in. I think we've one more question, and I think then we're almost out of time. So um this has come from Noel, and the question is I assume correct labeling and vision inspection systems also play an important role in food safety. Any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Absolutely, and I think Cronin can answer that as well as I can because that's here's an area where I think AI can really help us, um, certainly in vision sorting systems, but labeling too. I mean, it's uh I remember putting barcode scanners on um online, and I couldn't believe the number of labels that you know we suddenly found that actually weren't correct. So very simple technology, but surprisingly, not everyone has that automated and online still, and that's a good example of a technology that's been around forever. But um, for label, the correct label being on the on the product that it's on, um, simple technology, but yeah, absolutely, except for allergens not least. But anyone with any sort of intolerance, food intolerance, uh, it's highly important to make sure that those labels are are correct, of course. For vision sorters, too, Cronin, right? I think those are starting to be able to gather data through AI in manufacturing as well now.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, exactly. These I've we've seen some of these in operation, and um they're just the capabilities are incredible, the speed they can operate at, and the qu you know, the level of quality that they can operate at, you know, that can avoid those mistakes. Um, so as you're saying, these technologies have been around for a while. There's more and more sensors and IoT type devices that that are getting cheaper and cheaper. Um, but a lot of those data sets are still a bit um stuck in silos, and it's sometimes hard to pull them all out into a system where you can actually learn from the big data. So that's going to be, I think, a challenge. But um, there's plenty of like technology there now that's getting more and more affordable that can be used. So I think it is exciting to see how you know those questions that are still arising can be dealt with by by getting some more data and and trying to provide predictive analytics to supplement that knowledge and the human aspect of you know, reviewing the the facilities and the capabilities and and the culture, as you called it, of the of the suppliers.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah, and I think if you know, yes, I think it can help enormously when we're not there, but if you're um you know, in your in in a role and you need help, whether it's through the technical aspects of hazard analysis and and you've got tools now, IoT, that can help you gather all the best of the knowledge from around the world in a simpler way, that's got to be a good thing and that's got to be better than where we are right now, I think.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, yeah, I think so. So hopefully if we if we revisit the GFSI conference in in 10 or more years, they still won't be talking about the recurring incidents of that's hope.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

No, I'm just such a thing, but that's yeah, yeah. I think the technology is the difference, actually. I think that's a game game changer.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Yeah, exactly. Like the knowledge is there and needs to be disseminated, but we need of uh uh more data and more systems that can ensure that those operations are actually operating in the with the right quality um at all of the time. And that's I think where data and AI has a strength in that it never gets tired of uh supervising systems, it'll go on and on and operate at great scale and great speed and scale that knowledge that we need, especially with organizations as large as you've worked in with 10,000 um uh plus um facilities to keep an eye on, which is incredible, you know. So I think um we need to wrap up at that point. So I want to thank you, Sarah, for joining us. It's been very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Between the real underground operational issues and then trying to figure out how we can connect data to help join up the manufacturers and the retailers and even the regulators, uh, so we can all have better transparency and understanding of the science and and better quality and safety. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

You're very welcome. I think we could have gone on for hours. I think it's just a fascinating subject, but thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Time flew by. Thanks everyone for joining. Bye now. Bye.