Global Speakers

Dr Susan Ballard is the Principal Scientist of the Melbourne Diagnostic Unit, Public Health Laboratory, Doherty Institute, as well as a Molecular Microbiologist with research interests in the genomics of enteric pathogens, antimicrobial resistance and healthcare associated infections. Susan leads a team of scientists responsible for the high throughput management of sequencing for public health genomics as well as molecular testing and identification of reference, outbreak and infection control organisms as a service to the public health community. She is currently overseeing the implementation of WGS into routine public health practice.

Conference Day 2 Chairperson

Senior Commercial Manager for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) – an international scientific-based environmental non-for-profit organization, working to reverse overfishing globally through its certification and eco-labeling program. Together with scientists, fishery experts, businesses and conservation groups, the MSC has developed an environmental standard to evaluate and recognize sustainable fisheries, empowering seafood consumers in making sustainable purchasing choices with the MSC Blue Fish Tick ecolabel on certified product packaging.  Anita’s role at the MSC is centered around working with players in the supply chain to grow sustainable seafood variety in Australia, and transforming the market to become sustainable and traceable from ocean to plate utilizing the MSC Chain of Custody Standard.

Anita has over 15 years of B2B and B2C strategic marketing experience across numerous food categories in Oceania and South East Asia.

Panel: How To Prepare For, Manage And Survive A High-Profile Food Safety Crisis

Topic: Tightening The Net Against Counterfeit Seafood

Auke has been in the food, pharma and packaging industry for more than 20 years.  He has broad experience in factory automation, ranging from product inspection though – check-weighing, metal detection, x-Ray & vision as-well as data collection, robotics, product handling and product palletizing.  Having cut his teeth in Holland where solutions had to be flexible, configurable and high-speed, the foundations were put-down for a pragmatic, solutions driven thinker who always keeps the customers ROI front and centre.  With 15 years of providing Australia with factory automation solutions under his belt, Auke understands the local requirements for production lines and is able to advise on best practice principles that maximize line efficiency, line throughput and line up-time.

Topic: Food Inspection & Traceability Equipment In The Production Line: Current State Of The Art And Our Vision For The Future

Workshop: Wipotec OCS Bulk Flow Xray & Fortress HALO Automatic MD Testing – The FIRST MD That Can Save Real Money!

Dr Sharon Jones has broad global experience with over 30 years in the Food Industry.  Developing, implementing & maintaining Food Safety Management Systems supported by commercial understanding and focus on the demand of changing legislation and customer expectations. Servicing clients including the United Nations, British Ministry of Defence, Australian and International retailers.  Dr Jones graduated from University of Queensland, with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Food Technology) and PhD (Food Science Management), graduated from Deakin University with a Master of Business Administration and the University of New England with Graduate Diploma in Education (Science). Currently working with OneHarvest, who are the leaders in fresh produce in Australia. OneHarvest are a third generation family owned company who have been serving Australian families with fresh salads for over 35 years.

Workshop 1: Food Safety Culture

Guido Governatori leads the Software Systems Research Group and research activities on legal informatics at CSIRO’s Data61. He received his PhD in Legal Informatics from the University of Bologna. His research focuses on the study computer based techniques for the representation of legal knowledge. In 2015 he received the Australian Computer Society Computer Scientist of the Year Gold Award for his research on computational law. In 2017 he won the Business Process Management Test of Time award for the seminal work that started the field of business process compliance. He served as chair of the major international conferences on Legal Informatics and AI and Law. He is the co-chair of the OASIS LegalRuleML standard committee.

Topic: Automated Compliance For The Food Supply Chain

Jasmine Lacis-Lee is a specialist in food safety management within the Australian food manufacturing industry. Jasmine has a Bachelor of Science, with more than 20 years’ experience as a food microbiologist and over 15 years’ experience working in the food & beverage industries. She currently holds professional memberships with the ASM (Australian Society of Microbiology), AIFST (Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology), and EHEDG (European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group).

She is the Honorary and Company Secretary of the Allergen Bureau, appointed a Board Director in 2018. She is also proud to be the founding Co-chair and a Board Director for the Australian Regional division of the EHEDG.

Jasmine joined BVAQ based in QLD in July 2015 and in her role regularly consults both Nationally and Internationally with a variety of organisations from large global food and beverage manufacturers, regulatory authorities, through to single hospital and hotel kitchens, where she provides strategies for managing microbiological and allergen risks; provides support with equipment installation and validations; as well developing customised training covering microbiology, allergens and food safety risks. Jasmine is also responsible for delivering Allergen Bureau endorsed VITAL® training.

Topic: Food Allergen Management

Dr. Amy Jennison is the Acting Chief Scientist, Public Health Microbiology at the Queensland Department of Health, which is the Queensland reference laboratory responsible for the molecular surveillance of notifiable bacterial pathogens and characterization of public health-related outbreaks. She leads her team in the application of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to routine molecular surveillance and heads numerous research projects aimed at utilizing WGS for improving molecular epidemiological investigation and preventing disease outbreaks. Dr. Jennison has a particular interest in addressing surveillance issues caused by culture-independent diagnostic testing (CIDT) where molecular testing leads to under culturing of important bacterial pathogens. She is driving research into innovative approaches for deep sequencing on direct specimens including the generation of molecular typing and antimicrobial resistance information.

Topic: How Whole Genome Sequencing Is Revolutionizing Food Safety In Salmonella Detection

Ian Jenson is a microbiologist with bachelors and masters degrees from the University of New South Wales in microbiology and biotechnology and also in biological process engineering, and a PhD from the University of Tasmania for research on innovation in food safety systems.  He has worked in microbiological research, quality, food safety and customer technical services in both industrial fermentation and food industries in Australia and a number of other countries. He has been active in professional associations in Australia and internationally, and been invited to participate in consultations held by WHO and FAO on food safety. For the past 18 years Ian has led the Australian red meat industry’s food safety research program, working with scientists in Australia to understand how to manage risks associated with meat products, control of meat hygiene, management of shelf life and providing maintaining consumer trust. He also works with the meat supply chain, Australian and importing country standards setters and regulators to ensure that Australian meat is internationally recognised as a safe and quality product.

Topic: How Predictive Microbiology Can Be Used To Enhance Food Safety

Dr. Liz Barbour is CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Honey Bee Products, adding value to the honey bee industry. The CRC includes twenty-five companies and supports over 30 research projects answering questions focussed on apiary sites, honey bee health, honey chemistry and bioactivity, and traceability. Sixteen of these projects are supported through the training of PhD students to infuse youth into the industry. Prior to this current role, Liz managed research to develop tree crops for pulp, essential oils and nutraceutical use which led to commercialization opportunities.

Topic: Combatting Fraud Honey With Technologies

Panel: How To Prepare For, Manage And Survive A High-Profile Food Safety Crisis

Since taking on the role of Business Development Manager with the Wipotec-OCS Product Inspection team based in Kaiserslautern Germany in 2017, Joachim has travelled the world looking after the company’s distributors in Australia, South Africa, Northern Africa, Middle East and Switzerland. Joachim is responsible for direct sales of Xray and product inspection systems in many markets and is the Key Account Manager for a major European dairy group. As a technology manufacturer’s representative who works closely with both end-users and distributors, Joachim has unique insight into the challenges and  opportunities facing today’s food manufacturing companies.

Topic: Food Inspection & Traceability Equipment In The Production Line: Current State Of The Art And Our Vision For The Future

Head of Quality Assurance and Projects, Langdon Ingredients. Joanne started her career as a laboratory technician at Bonlac Foods in country Victoria and has over 20 years of experience within Food FMCG’s Coca-Cola Amatil, General Mills, Lion, Heinz and now Langdon Ingredients. Joanne’s experience in allergen management comes from a variety of roles in QA manufacturing, Product development, Vendor assurance, Copacker management and Regulatory compliance. In Joanne’s current role she is responsible for leading the Quality Assurance framework meeting Regulatory and Food safety commitments and risk mitigation strategies for ingredient supply and manufactured goods. Joanne is also leading Working Group projects on Agricultural Allergen Cross Contact with the Australia Allergen Bureau.

Topic: How Langdon Controls Food Allergens In The Supply Chain?

Dr. Mark Salter is the Principal, Microbiology and Laboratory Oversight, at the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE), a position he has held since early 2016. Dr. Salter achieved a Ph.D. from the University of Tasmania in food microbiology. He worked for over ten years at Food Standards Australia New Zealand before undertaking a number of different roles at DAWE. During his career, he has managed the review of Australian microbiological standards in food, participated in training initiatives in food regulation in South-East Asia, sat on the Australian delegation for several Codex Alimentarius Committees and managed the export of Australian meat and meat products to overseas markets. In his current role, he is responsible for regulatory oversight of Australia’s meat export laboratories and managing the export meat industry performance monitoring system. Dr. Salter maintains a keen interest in food microbiology and is a Member of the Australian Society for Microbiology.

Topic: Regulatory Monitoring Of Exported Meat – Using And Improving The Product Hygiene Indicators Program

Peter is an agricultural economist, innovator and passionate advocate for digital transformation in industry and government. Having lead CSIRO|Data61 National Digital Missions focused on supply chain integrity and food provenance, Peter joined GS1 Australia to direct new business and innovation activity through industry collaboration and support for the adoption of global standards. Peter leads GS1 Australia’s traceability and trade modernisation program has recently been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to undertake international research into food traceability systems and best practice in the industry.

Topic: How GS1 Standard Is Transforming The Food Supply Chain And Traceability

Ram is a strategic business partner within the Food Group at Woolworths. He works with the senior leadership teams of Metro, FoodCo & New Business areas on major strategies and transformational initiatives to develop operational plans with sustainable outcomes.

Woolworths has more than 3,000 stores across Australia and New Zealand, that span food, liquor, general merchandise, and hotels. Woolworths is a proud, home-grown Australian business, employer of more than 198,000 people and committed business partner of many thousand local farmers, producers, and manufacturers.

Ram has over 20 years of professional experience focusing his leadership efforts on creating value for customers and business. His leadership experience spans across IT, Supply Chain leading Strategy, Architecture, and Program Delivery. Ram is actively leading the End-to-End Product Traceability for Woolworths Group for more than 24 months. He has been actively representing at various forums and is also a keynote speaker on this topic at various events organized by the industry.

Ram is privileged to work with great leaders and great teams over the number of years and cherishes the quality of relationships with the leaders, and their senior teams for his achievements. He believes that it is vital to track and monitor the organizational activities on a regular basis to demonstrate the progress and value over a period of time.

Conference Day 1 Chairperson

Topic: Woolworths: The Promise And Potential Of End-To-End Traceability For Australian Food And Agriculture Sector

Rekha currently leads the Traceability Centre of Excellence team and their focus is to manage and grow traceability knowledge and capability across Fonterra’s global value chain network.

At Fonterra, they have implemented world class systems and tools to manage traceability of products from farm to customer, as well as providing the ability for consumers to electronically validate the authenticity and provenance of their products.

The key function of the Traceability Centre of Excellence is to support Fonterra’s business units globally to ensure the integrity of their data, systems and processes. From a strategic perspective Rekha’s role is to continuously explore new tools and solutions to ensure Fonterra is able to meet the evolving regulatory and consumer demands for traceability and product authentication.

Rekha joined Fonterra in 2002 and have worked in several roles across the supply chain from manufacturing, operations to exports. She played a key role in implementing Fonterra’s electronic export systems and regulatory systems – both of which are leading edge with a high degree of automation. Rekha holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in International Trade.

Topic: How Fonterra Is Embracing Technology To Guarantee 100% Authenticity In Its Dairy Exports

Richard is the General Manager of Business Enablement which forms part of the Customer Transformation Team at the Woolworths Group. He provides oversight to critical master data services and transformational projects across the group.

Woolworths has more than 3,000 stores across Australia and New Zealand, spanning food, liquor, general merchandise, and hotels. Woolworths is a proud, home-grown Australian business, employer of more than 198,000 people and a committed business partner of many local farmers, producers, and manufacturers. Richard has over 30 years of retail experience, focusing his leadership efforts on delivering to customers and team. Richard also has deep management and leadership experience across core IT and digital technology areas, Supply Chain, Finance, Master Data management, and Transformational Program Delivery.

Richard has been involved in and has led many major technology-enabled changes across the Woolworths group. He has performed the executive sponsorship role for the replacement of Store Point of Sales and Inventory management systems (group), Business delivery of SAP Retail and Liquor Supply Chain Transformation.

Richard understands the importance and criticality of team collaboration as the pace and complexity of retail continue to evolve and takes an active role in focussing on developing processes and systems that consistently deliver a great customer and employee experience. The use of digital capability and industry standards are key to achieving this outcome.

Topic: Woolworths: The Promise And Potential Of End-To-End Traceability For Australian Food And Agriculture Sector

Stephen started his career as an Apprentice Chef with the Summit restaurant chain Sydney. For the past 16 years, he has worked within the aged care industry, in both cooking and management roles for companies such as Compass Group, Catholic Healthcare, Montefiore Jewish Homes and now IRT Group, liaising with residents, their families, and friends to ensure the best “Quality of Life” can be promoted.

Within his current portfolio, he provides leadership in food safety and quality governance, to ensure all work is performed in compliance with legislative and ethical frameworks. My responsibilities include the review of external authorities, accreditation outcomes and/or complaints to identify system improvements as well as the review of Policy and Procedures as part of the Quality and Compliance Team.

He also liaises with Hospitality Managers, the Quality and Compliance Team and IRT Catering to provide support in food safety and report on IRT’s compliance with food safety legislation, related legislative guidelines, and procedures.

Topic: Managing Food Safety In Aged Care