Letter to Customers
As families ease restrictions and businesses begin to open again, we find ourselves out of the house, many of us wearing masks and carrying antibacterial spray. I want to take a moment and recognize the endless work our extended food safety and dairy communities play in maintaining a sense of stability during challenging times.
It is quite a humbling experience to work with and support Quality teams and farmers throughout the world to produce safe and nutritious food. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Growing up in our family business, my father always reminded us how proud he was to support food safety with aseptic sampling. I hadn’t understood this cross-section well enough until now. Today, when hospitals are low in resources, it would be perhaps the worst time to become ill with a foodborne illness. This is a time when we really have to rely on proper process controls and accurate data.
While being distant from my family, I am confident that they are not only safe at home, but also with the food they are eating. Working in food safety, we have been and continue to be quite selective with our brands.
I have relied on aged cheddar and vanilla ice cream to get through the difficult days. I can rely on these foods confidently, knowing that dairy farmers and Quality teams are using proper process controls and reliable data to make the right decisions to produce safe food.
Work has had a lot of ups and downs in the last few weeks. One thing has remained consistent; our customers have continued to produce the food we need to stay healthy during this period of isolation. Many have had to make dramatic changes to the supply chain, risk going to work, adapt equipment for unintended purposes, and even donate the surplus to local food shelves. Meanwhile, they continue to prioritize food safety, even when budgets are tightened.
We can all learn a lesson or two from the food industry about stability and flexibility during a crisis.
I want to thank the industry for providing that stability during this unpredictable and challenging time. There will be more challenges ahead, but we can be confident that our food industry will continue to prioritize bringing safe food to the market.
Anne Bigalke is the VP of International Markets at QualiTru Sampling Systems. Find out a little more about her on QualiTru’s Our Team page. Visit Our Blog for other articles Anne has produced.
