- info@foodsysteminstitute.com
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FSI provides risk management consulting, exercise and training services for food and agriculture firms and other sponsors through a network of food system experts from academia, national laboratories and the private sector. The Food System Institute is led by Shaun Kennedy, former Director of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, A Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence and Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota and is currently adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. The Food System Institute brings science and a systems-based approach to provide targeted solutions with expertise in food and agriculture risk management, supply chain management and intelligence analysis, among other areas.
Experienced leadership combined with experts from across organizations to provide the right expertise to best meet the client’s needs.
The Food System Institute, LLC provides risk management, research, facilitation, exercise and training services for food and agriculture firms and other sponsors through a network of food system experts from academia, government agencies, national laboratories and the private sector. Utilizing advanced analytical tools, the Food System Institute, LLC staff and analysts build from a fundamental understanding of how each food system is designed and managed to focus on the most important food safety, food defense, food fraud (economically motivated adulteration) and system resiliency risks and vulnerabilities of a firm. The Food System Institute, LLC is unique combination of experienced leadership with experts from across organizations to provide the right expertise to best meet client needs. Experts are added as needed, so the Food System Institute, LLC can both optimize the skill sets to the task as well as deliver services more cost effectively than others.
Shaun Kennedy founded the Food System Institute to provide system-based solutions to enable food and agriculture firms and related organization manage their various risks. While at the University of Minnesota, where he has moved from associate professor to adjunct associate professor of food systems, Shaun was the director for the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, a Homeland Security Center of Excellence, and before that he was the Associate Director for the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety. Shaun joined the University from Ecolab where he was the Vice President of Global Food & Beverage Research, Development & Engineering. He started his career at Procter & Gamble where he held leadership positions in the U.S., China and Japan and is a chemical engineer by training. Shaun serves on the USP Food Ingredients Intentional Adulterants Expert Panel, is past chair of the Food Defense PDG of IAFP and his awards include the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Agency Special Citation, FDA’s Chief Scientist’s Distinguished Lecture, Department of Homeland Security Impact Award and DHS Commendation, and was named as one of the Top Food Safety Educators by Food Safety News.
We provide robust risk management, research, facilitation, exercise and training services.
We take a systems approach to understanding your food system from upstream suppliers through to the consumer to develop a risk informed food safety program that is compliant with all regulatory requirements, including the Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food and other Food Safety Modernization Act rules. By going from individual facilities and then focusing more broadly on the whole system, you can better reduce your overall risk profile. Some specific services include: novel tools to systematize and document your ingredient and product hazard analyses, development of food safety plans, food safety management systems and audits. We also have multiple Preventive Controls Qualified Individuals that can teach the PCQI course for your organization.
Contaminating your food, directly or through your suppliers, is a terrifying prospect in general, and with the Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration Rule it also comes with regulatory requirements including vulnerability assessments and a food defense plan to prevent it. To fully protect your brand and your consumer, just meeting the regulatory requirements is not enough. We have been conducting food defense vulnerability and risk assessments for almost fifteen years and developed the food models used by the federal government for the Chemical and Biological Terrorism Risk Assessments and can bring that expertise to protect your product. Systems-based vulnerability assessments, food defense plan development, audits and penetration audits are some of the services available.
Horsemeat in ground meat is just one of the larger scale examples of participants in the supply chain taking advantage of gaps in quality assurance systems to profit by selling something other than advertised. Fraud is ongoing across a broad range of products. Using novel tools for risk identification and hazard ranking and a fundamental understanding of the limitations of specific quality assurance systems and supply chains, we can develop a plan to strengthen your ability to protect yourself from food fraud. Through our own research and participation on the USP Food Ingredients Intentional Adulterants Expert Panel that developed USP’s Food Fraud Mitigation Guidance, we are at the forefront of strategies to confront food fraud.
Research includes both basic through applied research to continually improve the utility of the tools provided through its services as well as contract research to meet the unique needs of a firm. Projects such as future risk horizon assessments and supply chain structure design options are examples of the types of research services that can be provided. We also apply for research grants and cooperative agreements, including a current award in collaboration with faculty at the University of Minnesota from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture on production animal biosecurity preparedness and response.
The Preventive Controls Qualified Individual course can be taught by lead instructors either as a standard class or as a company specific class. In that case, we can tailor all of the exercises around your organization’s products and facilities if desired. We can also provide tailored programs for firms on various aspects of the PCQI curriculum, food safety and food defense risk management and risk & crisis communication. Once you define what you want, we will tailor it to your needs and come to you to deliver it.
We provide pre-event crisis management plan development including issue identification, event management templates, message development for foreseeable risks, training and exercises. During events, we provide support to assist you in using the plan and adjusting it to the situation. We work to go beyond just minimizing the consequences of events to identifying opportunities to strengthen firm and brand reputation through how the firms communicate about its management of, and response to, events.
Any plan’s effectiveness is increased if organizations go beyond developing the plan to practicing the plan continually improve and not just to check a box. We develop and run exercises tailored to a firm’s needs to facilitate implementation of plans and to test the organization’s effectiveness in following the plan. With experience developing and running exercises for C-level executives in a firm to multi-national, multi-agency exercises such as Demeter’s Resilience for the G8, the Food System Institute can build and conduct an exercise to meet the needs of your organization.
We have extensive experience in public speaking and supporting media requests, and can speak on your behalf or help you in preparing for an important media engagement or presentation. Our publications are in both leading journals and notable reference texts. A select list of examples include:
We have provided scientific and policy focused presentations at major national and international meetings, including: International ASIS International, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Food & Drug Law Institute, American Bar Association, International Association for Food Protection, Institute of Food Technologists, American Chemical Society, American Society of Microbiology, International Symposium on Agroterrorism, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Association of Food & Drug Officials, National Academy of Sciences, Presentations have also been provided at the request of various government agencies including FDA, USDA, FBI, Department of Defense, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, U.K. Food & Environment Research Agency and the World Health Organization.
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