Food Safety

Leavitt Partners food safety practice provides the complete approach to addressing modern day food safety and food defense challenges. It doesn’t matter where you operate in the food supply chain, you are vulnerable to factors that are very hard to control. Recent outbreaks and recalls have illustrated the fragility and vulnerability of brands and even whole businesses.

The landscape of food safety is changing in many ways – with consumers who have demands for safer food, and no tolerance for unsafe food; with regulators as they become more proactive with greater enforcement and actions; and with Congress as they are on the cusp of sweeping new food safety legislation.

Even without new food safety legislation, the changes in the global food supply and the consequent vulnerabilities can have significant economic impacts on a brand when problems arise, when consumers react in the court of public opinion and when regulators are continuing to push for higher standards.

Leavitt Partners recognizes that times have changed and so must the food and related industries if they are to stay in front. We offer a four-way approach to address food safety issues.

• Assessments – We provide assessments to determine food safety hazards and food defense vulnerabilities for products and facilities in your site and your supply chain

• Problem solving – We offer solutions that will address any gaps identified during the assessments

• Maintenance programs – We will provide maintenance programs to ensure your food safety and food defense status is current and responsive to changing science and regulations

• Crisis management – We provide crisis management and incident response

Our understanding of the global food supply and associated regulatory approaches also allows us to identify new opportunities for those industries that support food companies. This includes those providing solutions for testing, product tracking, recalls or data handling.

Through our partnerships and global connections Leavitt Partners is able to address your food safety and food defense problems wherever they may be in your supply chain. We use a sequential and logical approach to address your needs whether they are pragmatic or strategic, local or global, short or long term.

Our Team:
Members of the Leavitt Partners team have direct experience in food safety regulation. The principals have worked directly with industry (e.g. growers, processors, innovators, importers and retailers), regulators (federal, state and local), foreign governments, academia, trade associations and legislators.

Leavitt Partners advises in areas such as recalls, emergency response, crisis communication, economic adulteration, product tracking, third party certification and regulatory systems. Members of our team have experience in internal medicine, infectious disease, microbial pathogenesis, microbiology, food-borne illness, food regulation (current and pending), public health and epidemiology.