Three keynote speakers set for Global Food Safety Initiative conference

The Global Food Safety Initiative’s 22nd annual conference will feature three keynote sessions during the three-day event. "Delivering Safe Food in Turbulent Times: The Need for Agility & Resilience," will be held at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, April 24-27.

The opening keynote session, "Law and Order: Food Safety," will feature Julian M. Cox, honorary associate professor at the University of New South Wales Sydney. The second session will feature Lucia Anelich, managing director of Anelich Consulting, and the closing keynote will come from award-winning information architect, filmmaker, photographer and writer Douglas Gayeton, co-founder of and chief investigator for The Lexicon.

"We're excited for attendees to hear from the amazing keynote speakers we've lined up for this year's Annual Conference," Global Food Safety Initiative Director Erica Sheward said in a news release. "All three keynote speakers are experts in their respective fields and will bring that wealth of knowledge and insight to their sessions. These keynotes represent only a small portion of the great sessions and panels we have planned. We look forward to the conversations this year's conference will spark."

More about the keynote speakers

• Julian M. Cox has worked closely with the food and diagnostics industries, particularly the poultry industry, while holding faculty executive roles in education and international recruitment and partnerships. Though semi-retired, Cox still teaches at multiple universities and maintains a number of professional community roles. He currently serves as scientific director of Australia's Food Safety Information Council.
• Lucia Anelich is a food safety expert, consultant and educator in food safety, food microbiology and food safety management systems. She has over 40 years of experience and a Ph.D. in microbiology. Anelich guided the food industry on Listeria monocytogenes during and after the 2018 listeriosis outbreak and SARS-CoV-2 related to food and food packaging safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is the author of the book "Present Knowledge in Food Safety," published this year.
• Douglas Gayeton directed the "Know Your Food" series for PBS, "Growing Organic" for USDA and "Molotov Alva" for HBO. He has authored two books, "Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town" and "Local: The New Face of Food & Farming in America." Gayeton is one of Crop Trust's Food Forever champions and a visiting professor in the masters program at Slow Food's University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy.

Additional speakers include experts from the USDA, Instacart, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the University of Georgia and the Food Standards Agency. The full conference program can be viewed online.

More information about the conference and registration is available on the GFSI website, along with practical information including COVID-19 requirements, travel and lodging details and dress code. 

About the Global Food Safety Initiative

The Global Food Safety Initiative is a CEO-led coalition of action from The Consumer Goods Forum, bringing together 45 retailers and manufacturers and an extended food safety community to help oversee food safety standards for businesses and help provide access to safe food for people everywhere, according to the release.