Food Safety Testing with the Power of Fully Automated Sequencing

As food safety programs continue to mature under increasing regulatory and consumer pressure, food safety testing standards are evolving.

Companies can no longer simply rely on binary pathogen detection tests alone. Traditional methods that further characterize pathogens are disparate, time consuming and often require pure isolates and trained technicians. Software-based solutions exist that enable visualization of contamination patterns on a virtual map, however these tools lack strain-level resolution. As a result, when food safety testing professionals finally have persistence-level information, they cannot easily see the relationship between contamination incidents because their platforms are not linked to their mapping software. Recurring problems and costly operational inefficiencies are the result — not to mention the millions of dollars spent on business costs, such as holding inventory, delayed manufacturing runs and potential facility shutdowns.

A new era of genomics-empowered diagnostic and software tools are offering a more accurate and deeper understanding of microbial contamination, helping drive root cause analysis and source eradication. This assists plants to curtail inefficiencies and return to production more quickly, enhancing profitability. However, barriers still exist for food manufacturers interested in adopting such tools for routine use including cost, complexity and legal concerns.

Register for this webinar to learn how these barriers can be overcome by seamlessly combining once separate aspects of pathogen detection, characterization and visualization of contamination patterns in a food manufacturing setting. Automation has simplified complex workflows and bioinformatic analysis. Reducing costs and time-to-result has made a once out-of-reach solution more accessible and practical. With strain-level information available in hours instead of days, manufacturers can make actionable decisions rather than retrospective assessments.

Speakers

Sasan Amini, CEO of Clear Labs

Sasan Amini combined his academic expertise and passion for healthy living when he co-founded Clear Labs with a mission to set a new paradigm for food safety and quality. Prior to serving as the CEO of Clear Labs, he worked in the Advanced Research department at Illumina. Sasan earned his PhD in Genomics from Princeton and holds multiple patents and publications in the field.

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Mike Robach, CEO of The Robach Group LLC

Mike Robach is CEO of The Robach Group LLC, which was formed in September of 2018 following Mike’s retirement from Cargill where he led the company’s corporate food safety and regulatory affairs programs. Mike is also a Senior Adviser for Continental Grain Company. He started out his career with Monsanto Company. Prior to joining Cargill, he led technical services for Conti Group’s meat and poultry businesses. Mike is a graduate of Michigan State University and Virginia Tech.

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