Profiling and Strengthening Food Safety Culture

Lone Jespersen
Director Food Safety and Operations Learning, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

3:30pm - October 22, 2015
ETLC 1-001

Host: Dr. Dominic Sauvageau

Abstract:

In 2008, Maple Leaf Foods was linked to a Listeria outbreak that led to 57 illnesses and 23 deaths. Rather than simply identifying and eliminating the source of the contamination and continuing practices-as-usual, Maple Leaf Foods used this event as an opportunity to become a world-class leader in food safety, with programs based on reliability, accountability and transparency.

Lone Jespersen will be sharing research and best practices from Maple Leaf Foods for building and growing a successful food safety culture in the food manufacturing, across multiple sites and product categories. The novel methods, metrics and approaches developed can be applied to virtually any industry or organization involved in food safety or safety at large.

Biography:

Lone has been with Maple Leaf Foods since 2004 initially as Six Sigma Black Belt and later Director, Six Sigma. In 2009, Lone took responsible for the execution of the Maple Leaf Foods food safety strategy and recently the leadership of all operations learning. Prior to that, Lone worked for Woodbridge Foam as Engineering and Operations manager responsible for the safety and quality of automobile safety products. Lone holds a Master in Mechanical Engineering from Syd Dansk University, Denmark, a Master of Food Science from the University of Guelph, and presently pursuing her PhD with Dr. Mansel Griffiths at the University of Guelph. Lone's passion for food safety culture has led to the development of her food safety culture measurement system "Cultivate Food Safety" which she is currently refining with North American and European food manufactures. Lone was the 2014 recipient of the Mary Edmunds Williams Scholarships in support of her food safety culture research.