Data matters. Regulations matter. Technology matters. But sometimes the most useful thing you can hear is another person saying, Here’s what we tried. Here’s what went wrong. Here’s what surprised us. And here’s what we learned.

In Episode 17, Darin and Gennette sit down with Rick Biros, President of Food Safety Tech and Conference Director of the Food Safety Consortium Conference & Expo, for a conversation about how the industry and the way people learn from one another within it is evolving.

Rick shares why the 15th Food Safety Consortium is making more room for those conversations. We talk about the shift from compliance-driven food safety toward technology, digital transformation, and a question that food safety professionals increasingly need to answer: How do we communicate the value of food safety to the C-suite?

And, because this is still Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, we eventually get to the inevitable question: What happens when you know enough about food safety that you can’t not notice things?

The Food Safety Consortium Conference & Expo takes place October 21–23 in Arlington, Virginia.

And yes the best part of the conference is that Gennette is getting on stage this year for the very first time!

Register for the conference by going to https://foodsafetyconsortium.org/

Listen to Darin and Gennette talk about Storytelling at the conference on Don't Eat Poop.

Sponsored by Eagle Protect, the only glove company that third-party tests its gloves because “trust us” isn’t a food safety strategy. Learn more at www.eagleprotect.com and Safeguard What Matters.

This week, we traded the studio for a campsite in Kings Canyon National Park complete with a crackling fire, no Wi-Fi, and a bear that got a little closer to the tent than Gennette would have preferred. Apparently, you can take the Food Safety A**Hole out of the studio, but you can’t take food safety out of the conversation.

From bear-proof food lockers and questionable river water to recalls, sprouts, and a potluck where the other guests became food safety a**holes themselves, this episode wanders through what happens when awareness moves beyond the experts and into everyday life.

Pull up a camp chair. We’ve got marshmallows. The bear, thankfully, has moved on.

Though the original plan was to wait until Darin and Gennette returned from IAFP in New Orleans before releasing another episode, the chaotic and fast-moving Cyclospora outbreak made that impossible. As new and conflicting information seemed to emerge by the hour, Darin realized there was an opportunity to take the conversation in a direction beyond the what and how. 

The episode begins with a candid discussion of the unfolding Cyclospora outbreak and the confusion surrounding recalls, social media speculation, shifting public health information, consumer trust, and what happens when uncertainty becomes the story itself. Darin and Gennette examine how misinformation spreads, why consumers struggle to know whom to trust, and what leaders can learn from moments when facts are still evolving.

In the second half of the episode, they're joined by their coach and friend, celebrity mindset coach Laura St. John, whose work has influenced both of their personal and professional lives for nearly four years. Together, they explore an unexpected but powerful connection between mindset and food safety leadership. Rather than focusing solely on reacting to crises, they discuss how leaders can develop the mental habits, clarity, and decision-making tools needed to prepare for uncertainty before it happens. The conversation bridges food safety, leadership, psychology, and systems thinking to show how narrowing The Certainty Gap isn't just about gathering more information, it's about learning how to think more effectively when certainty is impossible.

Whether you're following the latest outbreak news, work in the food industry, lead a team, or simply want better tools for making decisions in uncertain situations, this episode offers a fresh perspective on one of the most important (and most overlooked) skills of modern leadership.

To learn more about Laura St.John and her mindset classes go to Strong Confident Living at https://www.strongconfidentliving.com
For up to date information on the Cyclospora outbreak go to the Marler Blog at https://www.marlerblog.com/

Sponsored by Eagle Protect, the only glove company that third-party tests its gloves because “trust us” isn’t a food safety strategy. Learn more at www.eagleprotect.com and Safeguard What Matters.

Don't forget to watch Darin's Ted Talk at https://youtu.be/rEIWcW__Mb8

After an unexpected six-week break, we’re back and we have a lot to catch up on. From road trips through Michigan and TEDx milestones to retirement announcements and cereal box nostalgia, this episode takes a few classic Confessions detours before diving into a much bigger question: What happens in the space between knowing something is wrong and actually doing something about it?

Darin breaks down The Certainty Gap the concept behind his TEDx talk: that dangerous delay where leaders search for more proof, more data, or more justification while risks continue to grow. We explore how that gap shows up in food safety failures, corporate accountability, consumer decisions, and even the mystery items hiding in the back of our pantries.

Because whether you’re leading a company or deciding if Grandma’s 20-year-old jar of jelly needs to go, uncertainty affects the choices we make.

And sometimes, waiting for certainty is the riskiest decision of all.

Sponsored by Eagle Protect, the only glove company that third-party tests its gloves because “trust us” isn’t a food safety strategy. Learn more at www.eagleprotect.com and Safeguard What Matters.

Watch Darin's Ted Talk at https://youtu.be/rEIWcW__Mb8

In this special “On the Road” edition of Confessions of a Food Safety A-Hole, Darin and Gennette head north on California’s 101 toward Salinas for the Western Food Safety Conference: recording live from the car, and even the Renaissance Fair along the way.  What starts as a road trip becomes a deeper conversation about food safety leadership, storytelling, state-by-state policy inconsistencies, and the people behind the systems that protect our food supply. Darin reflects on what it really means to lead in food safety beyond compliance checklists and regulations, while Gennette explores the human side of conferences, farming culture, and the sensory experience of being surrounded by the land that feeds us. 

Along the way, they discuss:

•  Why food safety standards can vary dramatically depending on your zip code 
•  The challenge of leadership during recalls and public scrutiny 
•  What composting, storytelling, and produce farming unexpectedly have in common 
•  Why conferences need more authentic storytelling—and fewer PowerPoint slides 
•  The surprisingly robust food safety operations at a Renaissance Fair 

Plus: artichokes, loaded baked potatoes, recall controversies, and a live “Ren Fair Report.”

This episode is part travelogue, part industry debrief, and part meditation on why food safety is never just about policy; it’s about people. 

Social media has a food safety problem; and it’s not subtle.

In this episode of Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Darin and Gennette dig into the weird, messy reality of how people decide what’s “safe” to eat based on not the most credible person but the most entertaining.

From viral “life hacks” that make you question humanity…to influencers selling unsafe products…to commenters who would rather argue than learn…we discuss the double life of social media: where it can educate or mislead at scale.

And somewhere in the middle? A food safety professional trying to save lives… and getting called an a**hole for it.

If you’ve ever trusted a TikTok recipe, rage-commented on a video, or wondered why people ignore actual science this episode is for you.

Shout out to the Don't Eat Poop Podcast for their take on food safety and social media in April. https://dont-eat-poop.transistor.fm/episodes/food-safety-compliance-in-home-kitchens-the-hidden-risks-of-social-media-food-businesses-episode-162

Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole is sponsored by Eagle Protect, the only glove company that third-party tests its gloves because “trust us” isn’t a food safety strategy. Learn more at www.eagleprotect.com and Safeguard What Matters.

⚠️ Spoiler Alert
This episode contains major spoilers for the AppleTV show Pluribus. If you haven’t watched it yet and want to go in blind, you may want to pause on listening to this episode and come back later.

In Episode 11 of Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Gennette challenges Darin to unpack the noticeable shift in his writing and what’s driving it. What started as personal storytelling has evolved into something sharper: pattern recognition turned real-time accountability. He’s no longer just reflecting on what’s happened, he’s naming behaviors and leadership decisions as they unfold. And the change isn’t just in what he writes, but how he writes it: more personal, more grounded, and more willing to use everyday moments to expose much bigger systemic failures.

From there, the conversation digs into what Darin calls his “lasagna theory” of food safety [science, policy, leadership, behavior, communication] all layered together and impossible to separate once they’re in motion. Beneath it all is a harder, more uncomfortable question: how do you make truth travel faster than what’s sensational? This episode sits in that tension between urgency and responsibility, speed and precision and pushes toward something deeper than awareness: making the right conversations impossible to ignore.

Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole is sponsored by Eagle Protect, the only glove company that third-party tests its gloves because “trust us” isn’t a food safety strategy. Learn more at www.eagleprotect.com and Safeguard What Matters.

• Detwiler, D. (2026, April 2). “Do you recall this? The 1906 parallel: History repeating Itself.” Food Safety News. Available online at: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2026/04/do-you-recall-this/
• Detwiler, D. (2026, March 19). “Food Safety Leadership Must Begin Before People Die.” QA Magazine. Available online at: https://www.qualityassurancemag.com/article/food-safety-leadership-must-begin-before-people-die/
• Detwiler, D. (2026, January 22). “‘Pluribus,’ Complacency and the Reluctant Steward.” QA Magazine. Available online at: https://www.qualityassurancemag.com/article/pluribus-complacency-and-the-reluctant-steward/

A morning walk. A stack of food deliveries left on a curb. No one around. And over the course of a few days, that realization that something about it isn’t right.

In this episode, we follow a thread, one that starts at curbside deliveries and missing accountability and moves into the parallels between failures in food safety and a 1947 Arthur Miller play.

What starts as an observation turns into a series of conversations; with a restaurant, a farm, a health department, and a distributor and what emerges is less about one mistake and more about the space in between. The place where responsibility gets blurry, communication breaks down, and accountability becomes… negotiable.

From there, the conversation shifts into something bigger. After seeing a production of All My Sons, Gennette and Darin found themselves sitting with the same questions the play wrestles with, denial, responsibility, the stories people tell themselves to make their decisions feel acceptable, even when the consequences are anything but.

And once you see those parallels, it’s hard to unsee them.

When it comes to failures in food safety, accountability isn’t just legal; it’s cultural, ethical, and deeply personal. Fines get paid. Headlines fade. But is anyone really held accountable? In this episode Darin and Gennette are joined by Bill Marler for a raw, honest conversation about economic penalties, prison sentences, public health secrecy, and the culture of “it wasn’t me.” We talk about insulating executives, the power of peer pressure, and why true accountability requires more than legal strategy; it requires integrity. If food safety is about protecting every plate, this episode asks who’s protecting the truth. This candid conversation is sobering yet still holds the optimism of possibility.

In this episode we discuss:
• Why real criminal trials are rare
• How fines fail to shift behavior
• The problem of regulatory “insulation”
• The role of peer pressure in leadership
• Why food safety culture begins with moral courage

Welcome back. Episode 8 opens 2026 with a single focus: leadership, leadership, and more leadership. When the stakes are high, do leaders rise to the moment, or do they take the easier path that creates bigger problems later?

Darin reflects on recent meetings in Washington, D.C. with FDA and USDA officials around recall readiness, using real-world analogies to explore why preparation on paper is not the same as being ready when it counts. Gennette introduces a new recurring segment inspired by a sub-Reddit “Am I the A-Hole?” post, using it to unpack what happens when people who follow the rules become the problem in broken cultures.

At the heart of the episode is a gripping conversation sparked by Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, a play the hosts recently explored in a live table read. Its central question feels uncomfortably current: when harm occurs, who truly owns responsibility? The episode closes with a look ahead as Darin shares news about his upcoming TEDx Northeastern University talk and the question that continues to drive his work: “Why didn’t someone stop this?”