Explore the Food Network Index
The Last Mile · Episode 11

Tracing an outbreak back to the field

How modern traceability turns a scary headline into a solvable problem in hours.

With Dr. Sarah Chen, Food safety scientistJun 25, 20261h 04m

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Dr. Sarah Chen (Food safety scientist) joins Sarah Mitchell on The Last Mile to unpack tracing an outbreak back to the field. Drawing on years in food safety and supply-chain operations, Dr. shares hard-won lessons on traceability, response time, and the difference between looking compliant and actually being ready.

It’s a candid, practical conversation for anyone responsible for quality, compliance, or the moment a recall lands on their desk.

In this conversation

  1. 01What the first hour of an incident should really look like
  2. 02The traceability data that saves the most time
  3. 03Where most teams' chains actually break
  4. 04How to scope affected product without over-recalling
  5. 05Communicating with retailers and regulators under pressure
  6. 06What a genuinely recall-ready operation looks like
  7. 07The one metric every quality leader should track