The GFSI Conference

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This opening keynote will bring you on a journey, no passport required! After a warm welcome from CGF Managing Director Wai-Chan Chan and GFSI Director Erica Sheward, we’ll take a tour of one of the world’s most vibrant — and safe — food cultures.

The 2020 GFSI Conference introduced the Race to the Top, GFSI’s ambitious programme to drive continuous improvement through harmonisation and modernisation. During the course of the following year, this programme was shaped through a multi-stakeholder consultation, developed into a four-feature framework, and expanded in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This session will offer a refresher on the Race to the Top and other GFSI strategic priorities and demonstrate how GFSI is positioned to tackle current and future challenges in the industry. After considering case studies from companies that retooled their food safety practices to better serve consumers during the pandemic, our panel of GFSI leaders and industry experts will discuss ways in which GFSI and the Race to the Top can accelerate positive change.

Two prominent food industry CEOs will join us in this session to share how they led and inspired their teams through a challenging year. We’ll also hear about the role of the media in managing the crisis.

Join the networking and exhibition areas to connect with peers and learn more from our sponsors! Be sure to join the Special Sessions from 1:40pm-2:10pm!

Increased consumer awareness around food safety and food protection has put a spotlight on the issues as they continue to climb the global agenda, driven by the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic.

The last year has also highlighted the need to further strengthen and future proof our food supply chain. As such, new demands are being placed on retailers, regulators, brands, producers and packaging system providers.

In this presentation we will address the challenges around managing a global supply chain, and maintaining transparency, trust, compliance, and excellence in food safety processes during times of unprecedented shifts in consumer and geographical demand. We will also explore how the challenges and pressures around sustainability will influence the way we address and manage food protection and food safety.

Finally, in preparation for what is now constant significant change, we will offer a perspective on what it takes to truly connect stakeholders across the food industry and enhance food safety throughout the value chain, focusing on materials supply, processing and packaging though to consumers.

Join GS1 for a session that will focus on the critical steps that need to be taken now to close the gaps in food traceability and prepare the food industry for a new era of smarter and tech-enabled food safety.

Learn from industry leaders how GS1 Standards have been supporting supply chain visibility and their instrumental role in helping industry share key data elements (KDEs) and critical tracking events (CTEs)—two anticipated key components of the long-awaited Food Safety and Modernisation Act (FSMA) traceability rule.

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E-commerce exploded in 2020 as consumers looked for safer ways to shop. This session examines the impact of various e-commerce models on food safety. We’ll first hear from a security operations expert at Freshippo, a supermarket chain owned by the e-commerce giant Alibaba, which tackled pandemic-related supply chain disruptions with the same innovative spirit that led its parent company to success. We’ll then look west to the European Union, where Amazon has learned to adapt to shifting demands and restrictions across different countries. Our final speaker will be a food safety expert from HelloFresh, a delivery meal-kit provider that experienced exponential growth due to changing shopping practices last year. These experts will help us look to the future of food e-commerce and consider how technology will evolve to meet changing demands.

The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated both the resilience and the weak points of the global food supply chain. This session looks at examples of supply chain disruptions to consider their impact on consumer trends and food safety. Our panel of experts includes Chris Tyas, chairperson of GS1, who will examine the shift toward collaboration both within industry and across the public-private divide that occurred over the course of the pandemic. To illustrate this shift, Vaneska Mattos, a food safety expert from the Canadian supermarket chain Loblaws will share a case study on the efforts the company made to forge bonds between retail, manufacturing and government over the past year. We’ll consider lessons learned from a year of disruptions and ways to mitigate further challenges in the future.

Under normal circumstances, combatting misinformation and negative press is a challenge for any food business. In today’s environment of social media-fueled “fake news” and consumer fear, that challenge may seem overwhelming. With a nuanced understanding of consumer behaviour and motivation, however, no crisis is insurmountable. This session will offer crisis management and communication strategies to help companies overcome bad press and establish science-based best practices. The panel includes industry leaders who overcame major crises with transparency and humility, thus remaining at the forefront of their field. We’ll compare these past crises with the pandemic to understand how we can apply previous learnings to the present.

Join the networking and exhibition areas to connect with peers and learn more from our sponsors! Be sure to join the Special Sessions from 4:15pm-4:45pm!

Nobody saw the challenges of 2020 coming and nobody in the food safety industry escaped the extensive disruption caused by lockdowns, infection rates, erratic supply requirements and social disruption.

Join our special roundtable session to understand the real facts behind the increase of pests, how insights, proprietary data and new technology is making a real difference for businesses and how the most advanced, sustainable Integrated Pest Management approach developed with scientific expertise has helped businesses like yours around the world to ethically and safely mitigate risk in the most challenging of times and will continue to do so in uncertain times to come.

Future-proofing your business has never been more important.

COVID-19 accelerated online food sales by 3 years and profoundly transformed consumer expectations, with a shift from B2B to B2C through direct consumer sales in a context of hyper digitization and disintermediation.

Food systems are now more than ever at the heart of many challenges facing the global community.

This session will look at how cross-border and intercontinental cold chain logistics can interconnect food providers and producers with direct consumers, whilst ensuring reliability, temperature control, food safety, hygiene, regulation and standards compliance.

Our two speakers will also explore how they have opened up new markets and opportunities, both locally and internationally.

Most consumers don’t realize the amount of effort and investments manufacturers, producers and retailers put into food safety. When studying a product in the store, people are left to their own devices. Food safety is still a primary consumer concern. A DNV GL survey showed that 85% trust products from brands, 80% trust non-packaged products and 69% trust unbranded products to be safe. But trusted information can be difficult to find. Purchasing decisions are thus made based on perception.

How can companies effectively share even a fraction of their efforts spent to ensure safe products? It simply starts with what you are already doing: a robust food safety system that is maintained, well documented and independently certified and assured. But sharing means caring about how it is presented and made accessible. It is essential to translate your data and evidence into targeted messages making them attractive, understood and trusted by consumers. You can easily extend to ESG aspects, like decarbonisation or ethical sourcing, to aid conscious consumer choices based on product food safety and company sustainability commitments.

While connectivity and digital technologies enable consumer scrutiny, it is also a powerful means to reach out and share food safety and other product features. Join Luca Crisciotti, CEO of Supply Chain & Product Assurance of DNV GL in a conversation on how to turn corporate data into product assets that consumers truly perceive. We will explore:

• How to use corporate data to improve and share food safety efforts
• How to effectively share trusted product information with consumers
• Examples of how companies bridge the communication gap today

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GFSI developed the GFSI Global Markets Programme (GMaP) capability tool in 2008 to support small or less developed food businesses to achieve certification to GFSI recognised food safety programmes and to improve market access. The aim was to help companies develop effective food safety management systems through a systematic continuous improvement process. During the last 10 years, various pilot programmes have used the GMaP checklists to introduce food safety management systems into smaller and less developed businesses around the world. Pioneer countries include the Ukraine, China, Japan, Russia, Chile, Malaysia, the USA and Zambia, amongst many others. Despite GFSI success in driving improvements in food safety capabilities through the GMaP, there is no room for complacency as the need to drive capability in food businesses across the globe remains business critical.

In this session we will hear first-hand the challenges of building food safety capabilities as well as some of the approaches used by CGF member companies. We will be celebrating our achievements over the past 10 years too, but with a keen eye to the future development of the Global Markets Programme.

Food safety training and professional development, key elements of the GFSI agenda, went virtual in 2020. In this session, we’ll hear from food safety educators about the benefits and challenges associated with remote learning. Our teacher-panelists will share their experiences with the rapid shift to online training in both academic and industry settings. We’ll discuss ways to meet students’ needs through the screen, such as replicating practical skills and providing one-on-one instruction, and pay due attention to the specific needs of students in developing regions. Delegates will leave with a better understanding of the resources available to help them enhance their knowledge and expand their careers.

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