Nestlé‘s global head of food safety on digital and AI

The food & beverage industry’s biggest threats have little changed in the last two to three decades, Nestlé global head of food safety John Donaghy points out.

It’s the usual culprits, such as the main microbiological hazards, allergens, chemical and physical hazards, he points out.

For example, when global reporting recalls are examined, the most likely alien will be pathogens, allergens, mycotoxins or things like metal, glass or plastics – things that aren’t supposed to be there.

Though don’t mistake Donaghy’s ability to list these off easily as lackadaisical, each one is very serious, he makes clear. The food industry has experienced some big outbreaks in recent years.

These have the result of pathogen/food combinations, such as salmonella/low moisture foods in chocolate; cronobacter/powdered in infant formula; and listeria monocytogenes in deli meat and cheese products.

Food safety concerns are growing more complex. (PonyWang/Image: Getty Images)There have also been outbreaks of foodborne illnesses from less likely sources, such as hepatitis A in berries, STEC in leafy greens and flour, and listeria and salmonella in fruits and vegetables.

“I often refer to this as ‘same old pathogens, but changing food vehicles’,” says Donaghy. “In terms of chemical hazards, traditional hazards still remain, although considerable attention has focused recently on PFAS, mineral oils and high risk pesticides.”

There’s also the external food safety factors, such as population, changing consumer eating habits, food supply channels, globalised food supply chains, and a requirement for more sustainable food systems.

And that’s not forgetting other factors impacting food safety, like geopolitical disturbances, science and tech advances, and digitalisation and AI, all of which can have positive and negative effects on food and drink safety.

So, there’s a lot on his plate, to put it simply.

How to spot food safety problemsThough of course, food and drink companies worldwide, big and small, have been tackling these issues for decades. “We at Nestlé have digitalized many of the elements of the FSMS (food safety management systems), ensuring they are interoperable, for example, digital Food Safety early warning systems, combined with predictive analytics to risk assess suppliers and raw materials through to AI-enabled consumer feedback sentiment analysis,” he says.

HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) are “the engine room” of Nestlé‘s FSMS. So much so, Donaghy says the business has become an early adopter of what he calls an “industry-leading” approach to HACCP digitalisation, which it is doing with third-party supplier Veeva.

“We continue to leverage the digital platform to have a lean agile approach that ensures we consistently integrate early warning food safety signals and control measures into the thousands of HACCP plans we have in our global factory network,” he says.

As the business continues to grow its analytical portfolio for emerging and existing hazards, Nestlé‘s ‘data lake’, support risk management decisions are also enhanced.

Traceability in the upstream supply chain can be challenging especially for food safety, authenticity and food fraud

John Donaghy, Nestlé global head of food safetyNestlé also, like many large food and drink businesses, has early warning systems in place to raise food safety alerts. “Most are probably supported by commercially available digital tools, which involves scouting and digital mining of key sources of food safety information,” he says.

This approach raises issues in various grades, such as ‘urgent hot topics’, ‘slow burners’ or perhaps ‘red herrings’.

Topics that have been alerted and managed through Nestlé‘s early warning systems have included chemical contaminants, allergens and microbiological.

“Of course, there has been what I describe as miscellaneous topics which can raise food safety concerns amongst consumers, for example, microplastics in food, the recent foot and mouth disease in Germany and the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza,” he explains.

As Nestlé‘s portfolio covers a broad product range across a large geography, this raises multiple pinch points and stresses for Donaghy and his team.

“Traceability in the upstream supply chain can be challenging especially for food safety, authenticity and food fraud,” he says.

The recall of allergen-containing foods“In the event of a recall, multinational companies will quite often have large factories producing products for export across multiple other countries, many of whom will have differing food safety regulations to navigate. Such a situation is much more complex to manage compared to local manufacturers.”

Country-specific regulation is also a component to keep a handle on. The has been an increase in the number of product recalls globally, which is no surprise to Donaghy.

There are stricter and more diverse regulations in place globally, with changes to these regulations accounting for some or many of the recalls, especially when a producer hasn’t been prepared for the change.

“One example of this is the recent addition (Jan 2023) of sesame to the top eight allergen list in the USA,“ he says. “As a consequence, approximately 10% of allergen recalls in the US was due to undeclared sesame in 2023.”

And of course, climate change also poses a series of emerging food safety issues. Nestlé is using horizon scanning to develop and validate predictive models and tools to forecast high risk food safety scenarios or re-emerging hazards relating to adverse weather.

Climate change is raising the food safety risk, especially when it comes to flooded crops. (Dave Collins/Image: Getty Images)“For example in cereals and grain production regions where the concomitant mycotoxin risk may be elevated. Ultimately, internal surveillance plans and analysis assess and validate such models,” he says.

Though there is an expectation microbiological incidents in food will rise due to climate change. Excess rainfall, for example, can lead to flooding and then contamination of crops with foodborne pathogens from agricultural run-off.

“Molecular microbiological tools, such as Whole Genome Sequencing and metagenomics are being used to trace the emergence of more virulent strains and antibiotic resistant pathogens and to uncover novel microbiological ecological traits respectively,” he says.

Though Donaghy and Nestlé continue to develop techniques to avoid, spot and monitor food safety risks, there is no sense of resting on one’s laurels. Far from it.

As the threats continue to come thick and fast, Donaghy and Nestlé continue to develop new systems and techniques to deal with them.