Elevate Your Food Safety Leadership: Executive-Level Workshop at Indoor Ag-Con

Indoor Ag-Con will host an Executive-Level CEA Food Safety Pre-Event Workshop on Monday, March 10. As one of two comprehensive food safety workshops offered, this fast-paced session will provide a focused review of essential components for a robust food safety program, strategies for managing an effective program with lean resources, and key points for executive oversight.

Dr. Karl Kolb, President of Ceres University and workshop instructor, shares insights into the unique approach of this workshop:

This is the first seminar tailored exclusively for executives, where food safety is viewed through the lens of business ownership and leadership. We’ll explore the critical ‘touchpoints’ that executives need to understand—where the risks lie and how to mitigate them effectively.

Better, what do I do when trouble comes to my door. Critical thinking is the answer.

Recalls and food safety issues begin with management and end with management.  Good managers quite normally select a strong individual to administer the food safety and quality program then focus on the job of running the company.  This technique works well until it doesn’t.

Being an executive in the company is part good leadership and in part being a good manager.  From my experience, being a good manager of time, money and other valuable resources is a winner every time.  The course focuses on this and not George Patton.

If a CEO is anything like a lot of executives, their knowledge of food safety extends to wearing a hairnet and washing hands.  The Harvard seminar on “Critical Thinking” is a good start for this seminar.  Inference, honed communication, analytics, reasoning, problem identification and thinking critically are exacting skill sets of successful endeavors.

The CEO should be asking, “Does this make the food safer” over and over again – it’s a root cause mindset.

This is a very fast-moving seminar.  Rapid fire scenarios, riveting root cause analysis and many ideas.  Creativity will rule the day.

Further, the executive should be asking:

• Exactly what do I need to know? – not every one of a hundred critical points.
• What is important versus what is good to know, does it make the food any safer?
• How do I develop my own problem-solving skills into real time analytics?

A well-read copy of “HBR Guide to Critical Thinking” on Amazon is needed for this seminar.

Learn more about the CEA Food Safety Pre-Event Workshops at Indoor Ag-Con on March 10, 2025