Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole

What happens when the technology we depend on to produce, transport, and protect our food becomes the very thing that puts it at risk?

This week on Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Gennette Zimmer and Dr. Darin Detwiler welcome Kristen King, cybersecurity and risk management expert, host of the Bytes and Bytes podcast, and author of Securing What Feeds Us: Cybersecurity in Food and Agriculture.

With 27 years of experience in cybersecurity, operational technology, and critical infrastructure, Kristen has spent much of her career asking questions that too many organizations would rather avoid. And she's not particularly interested in sugarcoating the answers.

From cyberattacks that disrupt food production to the vulnerabilities hidden inside our increasingly connected supply chains, Kristen explains why cybersecurity and food safety have far more in common than most people realize.

But this conversation goes well beyond hackers and technology. We talk about the danger of assuming a system is secure simply because it hasn't failed yet, the false confidence that comes with certifications and digital traceability, and why organizational culture matters just as much as the technology itself.

We also discuss Kristen's new book, why she wrote it, and her determination to make a complicated and often intimidating subject understandable to anyone who has a stake in our food system. Which, when you think about it, is all of us.

Along the way, there's plenty of laughter, a few well-earned frustrations, some unexpected shark analogies, and a reminder that sometimes being the A**Hole in the room simply means being the person willing to ask the uncomfortable questions.

Learn more about Kristen's work:

Click here to go to Bites and Bytes podcast

Click here to purchase Securing What Feeds Us: Cybersecurity in Food and Agriculture

Because protecting our food supply isn't just about what happens in the field, the factory, or the kitchen anymore. It's also about what happens behind the screen.

Aloha from Hawaii!

We took a vacation, but apparently we can’t stop talking about food.

This episode was recorded outside on Oahu: with birds, water, and a rooster who got involved in the conversation.

We talk about our time on Maui and Oahu, visiting Lahaina, the realities of getting food to a series of islands in the middle of the Pacific, Hawaiian culture and storytelling, and what happens to a food system when power, transportation or infrastructure is disrupted.

Somehow we also get into Polynesian navigation, submarines (because of course we did), quality assurance, food recalls, expensive groceries and our decision to enjoy some Panda Express while in Hawaii.

We also want to remind everyone that today (September 18, 2026) is Global Glove Safety Day.  Global Glove Safety Day is led by Eagle Protect in partnership with food safety icon Dr. Darin Detwiler.

It’s a bit of a wandering conversation. But honestly, it felt appropriate for a travel episode.

Aloha from Episode 18.

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. 

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.