As Regulatory Oversight Grows, Career Development in Food Safety Shifts

“The positions available would include plant positions, where they manage the quality or food safety department at a manufacturing facility,” she said. “Or they could go into a corporate role, where they could be food safety scientists, food safety specialists, food microbiologists, or quality assurance specialists.”

Robert Shewfelt, a professor of food science and technology at the University of Georgia in Athens, noted that food safety students must understand the nature of the business they are going into.

“There is a tension between manufacturing, which gets reward for output, and quality control, which is responsible to ensure there is not a safety issue,” he said.

Roberson agreed. “Yes, companies have food safety programs, but at the end of the day there must be a connection between a strong food safety culture combined with the business aspect of providing a return on the food safety investment,” he said. “Somehow, as we develop the next generation of professionals in food safety and food quality, we have to do a better job so that food safety leaders have an understanding of business.”

Roberson expressed enthusiasm for the INROADS internship program (www.inroads.org), with which Publix is a corporate partner.

“We’ve found the partnership program to be quite successful. It has allowed us to provide early access and development of students with leadership potential and offer them an opportunity to gain professional experience to increase their potential to advance in their chosen career field at Publix,” he said.

“There is a wide range of job opportunities and a lot of opportunity for advancement,” Shewfelt said. “Most of our food science graduates end up in the food industry, but there is also regulatory, academic teaching, or research.”

He noted that the salary structure in the industry is good and that it is “a wide open field for women, but at a man’s salary structure. That may not be politically correct to say, but there is something to it.”

Tim Donald is a veteran journalist with extensive experience covering a variety of industries. Reach him at [email protected].