Board of Directors

Helping Advance Food Safety Through the Partnership

Food safety is a shared responsibility for everyone involved throughout the food system.  The Partnership for Food Safety Education helps advance our mutual efforts to provide customers safe, high quality food on a consistent basis.  Cherished family recipes are passed down from one generation to the next.  As I look through some of my family’s recipes, it is comforting to know there was a focus of food safety from decades ago.  Few of us today were afforded the opportunity to be exposed to the family farm.  While helping tend to chores in my youth, I always remember the strong women in my family with strict standards of cleanliness and personal hygiene prior to being allowed into the kitchen or sitting down at the family dinner table.  My days in Troop “Ole” 97 with The Boy Scouts of America helped stress the importance of food safety, especially in Cooking Merit Badge.  Whether we were canoeing down a river for an overnight excursion, preparing for a week-long trek to Philmont Scout Ranch, or attending the National Jamboree, food safety was always important.  In fact, Scouting helped stimulate my own interests for cooking and learning more about agriculture and the food industry.

Customers and their families today may not have experienced life on the family farm, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Future Farmers of America, or participated in a home economics class.  The Partnership for Food Safety Education has assumed the primary platform for helping advance food safety at home and in our communities through the core principles of Clean – Separate – Cook – Chill.  Today’s retail grocers have a responsibility to source safe food, maintain food safety throughout the storage and handling, and also help inform our customers about safe handling practices.  These food safety practices are important in the family kitchen, youth soccer leagues, church pot-luck dinners, as well as the food banks so we can help others in the communities we serve.  From farm to fork, boat to throat, and truck to trunk, the food safety principles of the Partnership transcend the entire food system into our customer’s homes and throughout the community so that each meal is fully enjoyed.

The collaborative process of the Partnership for Food Safety Education helps advance food safety for everyone involved with the food system.  Come be part of the Partnership and help make a difference!

Michael Roberson
Director of Corporate Quality Assurance
Publix Super Markets, Inc.
January 2018