Agenda

Ton Aerdts, Research Director, GBR

• Strategic Vision
  – Championing digital transformation to enhance operational efficiency and consumer engagement.

• Consumer Trust and Brand Integrity
  – Building consumer confidence through verifiable product origins and ethical sourcing
  – Empowering consumers with transparent access to product lifecycle data

• Traceability as a Competitive Advantage
  – Leveraging end-to-end supply chain visibility to ensure product authenticity and safety
  – Enabling rapid response to quality issues and recalls through real-time data tracking

• Transparency through Technology
  – Utilizing digital tools such as blockchain to ensure data integrity and accessibility

• Collaboration and Ecosystem Engagement
  – Partnering with Suppliers to unlock growth opportunities

Almira Lumagbas, Quality & Supply Chain Senior Product Owner, Danone

• Unregulated PAL has led to inconsistencies in application and proliferation of PAL
• Regulated PAL was one of the recommendations of the FAO/WHO add-hoc expert group
• The approach of global Regulatory authorities to application of PAL is non-harmonised
• The regulation of PAL requires a multi-stakeholder approach
• The recently launched expert group within ILSI Europe Allergen Task Force seeks to address the above issues

Simon Flanagan, Research Fellow – Global Food Safety, Mondelez International

• Pathogen survival in the absence of water and how bacteria respond to these stressors
• New research showing the rate and extent of recovery after stressed microorganisms are exposed to water and nutrients
• The implications for food factory operations and the need to re-think approaches to cleaning and disinfection to re-establishing hygienic conditions in the food manufacturing environment

Dr. John Hanlin, PhD, Vice President of Global Food Safety, Ecolab
Dr. Carmela Pennacchia, PhD, EU Technical Excellence Specialist , Ecolab

• High-speed turbo compressors and high-temperature heat pumps from Finland
• Heat recovery into financial savings – 90% of compressed air electricity turns into heat – might as well use it
• Turning residual waste heat into steam with high COP
• Oil-free compressors offer higher efficiency and zero risk of contamination
• Maintenance-free technology for reliability, uptime and savings

Olli Kuismanen, Co-founder, Upheat Solutions

• A Clear Why for Excellence
• Balancing global vs local ownership
• Zero Loss Mindset
• Building Excellence
• Commit to one plan
• Recognise progress

Chris Beddowes, Senior Practitioner, Performance Solutions by Milliken

• Digitise to survive: Fragmented supplier data is the biggest barrier to food safety
• AI as an ally: From instant COA checks to anomaly detection, AI makes risk visible in real time
• Networks over silos: True transparency comes when suppliers, compliance, and R&D share one connected digital ecosystem

Michael Lippens, Account Executive – BENELUX, TraceGains

• METRO world-wide standard and requirements
• Challenges in Qualification
• Loss of certification
• Development possibilities and requirements
• Conclusion

Elza Palenik, Head of QA and Sustainability, METRO AG

• Explore how Artificial Intelligence is transforming food safety by enhancing detection, prevention, and compliance strategies.
• Showcase the DigiComply for automated food safety management and AI-driven analysis of regulatory data through the EFRA project.
• Present a paper on supplier risk assessment, highlighting insights into managing and mitigating supply chain risks.

Yvonne Pfeifer, Business Developer Manager, SGS Digicomply
Anna Romanova, Product Manager, SGS Digicomply

• Food and beverage Industry is using a lot of water
• Ensuring adequate water quality is becoming a challenge in times of water scarcity
• Reuse Water needs to be fit-for-purpose
• How to define “fit-for-purpose water”?
• Can risk assessments support that approach?
• Overview of commonly used water treatments

Anett Winkler, Food Safety Advisor, Cargill Germany GmbH

• Food Fraud as an emerged risk?
• How to tackle the risk?
• Barilla approach
• Practical examples

Antonio Nespoli, Region Italy Q&FS Director, Barilla G e R Fratelli

• How predictive intelligence actually works — beyond the buzzwords
• How early we can detect food risks before they reach the market
• Which signals truly matter — and which data is just noise
• How AI and human expertise complement each other in risk assessment
• What measurable business impact early detection delivers
• Real-world examples where foresight prevented recalls or disruptions

Asli Solmaz-Kaiser, CEO, iComplai

• Proposal for “Food Safety Professional” as a regulated profession
• Regulated professions – why and current status
• Requirements for education
• Code of ethics
• Responsibility for food producers

Peter Overbosch, VP of QA (retired), Metro AG

Ton Aerdts, Research Director, GBR

• Need for change
• Future directions and smart technologies as game changers
• Innovations at the interface of knowledge and technology
• Systems approach for scalable impact
• Looking ahead

Gulden Yilmaz, Director AgriFood&Environment, OnePlanet Research Center

• The Journey: How Barilla structured the Q&FS digital roadmap
• Data Culture as an asset: accelerate decisions and improve issue detection through data excellence
• AI in Practice: GenAI pilots and use cases that turn insight into action
• What’s Next: Continuing the evolution toward smarter, more connected, and predictive Q&FS systems to enhance resilience, compliance, and consumer trust

Gabriele Lorenzani, Q&FS Digital Systems Manager, Barilla

• Discover how Europastry transformed global bakery production by replacing spreadsheets with intelligent, connected planning.
• Learn how Production Agility powered by DELMIA Ortems delivers real-time visibility and smarter scheduling across 27 factories.
• See how data-driven decisions improve freshness, flexibility, and productivity across 4,000+ baked goods.
• Gain practical insights into how digital production agility is reshaping the future of food manufacturing.

Ludovica Tucci, Sales Executive, Dassault Systèmes

The move from paper-based cleaning instruction cards to rudimentary digitized tools such as spreadsheets and tables is an evolutionary development in food safety program management. However, the revolutionary step is the digitalization of cleaning & disinfection procedures and their accompanying pathogen environmental monitoring programs yielding living insights into a factory’s microbial ecosystem.

• How a manufacturer is improving the conformance of their C&D program to meet company policies
• Easing the burden and improving the timeliness of data sharing during customer and third-party audits
• Targeted insights into deeper and richer root cause analysis for investigational purposes

Dr. John Hanlin, PhD, Vice President of Global Food Safety, Ecolab

• Compressed air is the fourth utility and is often uninspiring, inefficient and misunderstood. Finding the right solution for your application requires time, effort and experience.
• Over the past 40 years, our family company has gained the knowledge and insight to develop today’s technology in compressed air treatment, to prepare food manufacturers for tomorrow’s challenges.
• Past: Economy vs. Efficiency: Maintenance vs. Investment
• Present: Using new technologies to visualise the current status
• Future: Anticipate auditor’s questions with informed answers

Sara Deckers, Focus Industry Manager, BEKO TECHNOLOGIES B.V.

• Ready-to-eat (RTE) chilled foods are increasingly popular for their convenience, but they also pose significant food safety challenges, especially around Listeria contamination
• From July 2026, European regulations on Listeria in RTE foods will become stricter, requiring producers to demonstrate safety throughout the full product shelf life
• Manufacturers face higher compliance demands, risk of product recalls, reputational damage, and operational challenges—especially since Listeria can grow even under refrigeration
• With natural based ingredient solutions, regulatory & market knowledge, tech support and predictive tools like the Corbion® Listeria Control Model (CLCM), Corbion helps producers adapt formulations, ensure compliance, extend shelf life, and maintain consumer trust

Florence Postollec , Director, R&D, Corbion

• Food safety is a joint responsibility for all the partners of the food supply chain, from farm to fork, and is dependent on strong partnerships along the agri-food chain
• As we face simultaneous threats to the European agri-food system on food safety and security, we need to rethink the broader consequences of stricter food safety standards
• To build resilient food systems, more dialogue with all relevant stakeholders is required to find new approaches to risk management to optimise impacts across food safety, security and sustainability
• Better risk and benefit communication is crucial to provide consumers with confidence in our food chain and give food & drink businesses the confidence to operate and invest

Alejandro Rodarte, Director of Food Safety, FoodDrinkEurope

• Detection and risk assessment
• Initiation and notification
• Traceability and tracking
• Execution and retrieval
• Communication
• Root cause analysis and corrective actions

Ana Glumpak, Head of Quality Assurance, Pan-Pek