My thoughts

The economic impact of food safety was first documented in the early 1900's. This was in response to scandals in the meat packaging and food processing industries. Again in the 1990's major concerns arose about E.coli and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (commonly called mad cow disease) in the united states and united kingdom respectively. This initiated a rethink of the impact that food safety has on the global economy.   Below are ten (10) facts about food safety: 1. More than two hundred (200) diseases are spread through food. Millions of people fall ill every year and many die as a result of eating unsafe food. Diarrhoeal diseases alone kill an estimated 1.5million children annually, and most of these illnesses are attributed to contaminated food or water. Proper food preparation can prevent most foodborne diseases   2.  Foodborne diseases are increasing worldwide. Disease-causing organisms in food are transmitted far and wide by today's interconnected glob

Hello,  I started a food safety blog in 2014. It was very fun at the time ... researching, writing, proofreading... After my first ten publications I changed roles at work and couldn't find the time to continue the blogging process. Today I decided to go back and look at my work and found that the blog had been removed. So, here I am trying to recreate my blogs from seven (7) years ago. I hope you enjoy them as much I did, and still do to a very large extent.      Food Safety, in simple terms, is a discipline that gives us the assurance that anything edible that we consume would not cause harm to us. It is a combination of more than one branch of science, including microbiology, chemistry, biochemistry, nutrition, food science and engineering.   According to the World Health Organization (WHO) food is said to be safe if it does not cause injury, the worst form of injury being death.   All food safety incidents can be grouped under one or more of the three (3) main causes (h

Sharing one of my reflections from 2019... "Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love" Lao Tzu Today (3 rd November, 2019), during mass, the homily presented two (2) key points that sought to communicate the very essence of our creation. To know that God loves us, and to learn to love him back. As we go through life’s journey with these two facts in mind we’ll come to a deeper and better realization of why we’re here and what we’re meant to be doing at every stage of our lives. My family and I have resorted to walking to mass on Sundays. It’s a good way to appreciate nature and family life, we reckon. On this faithful Sunday about two (2) minutes into our walk we decided to track back and drive to church because Nana, our two (2) year old daughter, was cold. As I entered the drivers seat I saw another scratch on the car door. The neighbors’ kids have done it again, was my first thought. I was l

“It does not matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop” - Confucius When the recruiting team confirmed in December 2019 that I was the successful candidate for a Grameen Foundation / USAID sponsored project to improve the quality and safety of Desiccated Coconut produced in Philippines I was over the moon. I thought to myself ... this is going to be a life changing experience!  Soon we were in January 2020, weeks had turned into days and Tuesday was finally here. I packed my bags the morning of departure and made it to the Sacramento International Airport just in time before the gates closed. I’m pretty sure I was the last person to get checked in for the flight. I arrived in Manila on a Thursday and was met at the airport by Michael from Grameen Foundation. I had met Michael “virtually” during the recruitment process, it was great to see him in the flesh. We grabbed, more like I grabbed, a late breakfast at the airport and then set off for my hotel.

The term “Quality 4.0” has been making the rounds these last few years and I’ve always wondered what it was about. Thankfully, the October 2019 edition of Quality Progress, the monthly newsletter of American Society Quality, carried a great article on the subject. Here is a summary of the key points of Quality 4.0 from the article. Linked to the fourth industrial revolution; builds on the third (digital) and integrates various technologies to make our lives even simpler.  It comprises the use of one or more of the following to make quality products and services: 3D printing Internet of things Cloud computing  Machine learning Artificial intelligence  Blockchain technology Enterprise Quality Management System (EQMS) software is a tool that manages content and business processes for quality and compliance throughout the supply chain. Entreprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is a tool for managing procurement processes and inventory. Enterprise Quality Management System is