Welcome Laura Wildey

You bring a unique skill set to the Food Safety Strategy team - how will this benefit our clients and complement the team dynamic?

My background is heavy on food safety in the retail arena. I’ve spent years both working in the food industry and regulating it, once I discovered I was actually passionate about food safety. Ultimately, I like to help people understand the science behind regulations (because science is cool) and how to comply with regs in ways that suit their own business’s specific needs. 

I take a very people-centered approach to what I do and take pride in my ability to translate complex regulations into something that is easy to understand and actionable. I like to focus on the “so what”, so to speak. Yes, there are regulations out there that pertain to every food commodity. But so what? What are we going to do with this information to help businesses really look at their food safety programs and improve them? 

That’s what I am hoping to bring to the Food Safety Strategy team. From my short time here, I can already see the passion and excitement for food safety and strategies to improve it. I love that kind of environment- one where the work doesn’t feel so much like work but feels more like a passion project. 

What’s a memorable moment from your career so far that shaped how you approach problem-solving or teamwork?

Once upon a time I worked for a local health department that had a complicated, 14-page application for mobile food vendors who were seeking permits to sell food in our jurisdiction. The application was full of regulatory jargon, varying font styles, colors, and sizes, and was just a beast of an application. Recognizing the need to revamp it (and the process for vendors in general) I worked with internal and external teams to shorten it to 2 pages and make it a more user-friendly document. 

Now, this may seem like a small feat, but the process of transforming a government-created document into something that was seamless and easy to use was incredibly involved. It took multiple meetings with the internal team at the health department to understand the process and analyze the requirements, and then even more meetings to streamline the process, addressing complexities along the way. We also worked with members of the community through an outreach program where people volunteered their time to support governmental agencies that wanted to make improvements for their constituents. The volunteers spent an entire day tearing apart and rebuilding the application, adding a much-needed real person view on the application and the process. They helped finalize the application and make it into a user-friendly document that was less complicated and easy to understand. We even translated it into multiple languages! 

This whole project helped me learn how to leverage the strengths and insights of others to solve a complex problem and ultimately make life a little easier for the hard-working mobile vendors who feed us!

What excites you or makes you nervous about working with Food Safety Strategy? 

This is a whole new world for me. While I’ve got my food safety education and credentials, I’ve worked in the retail food safety space for the majority of my career. I know the Food Code forwards and backwards, and I dabbled with GMPs during my time with a state department of agriculture, but the Produce Safety Rule? GAPs?? These are pretty new to me, so I have a lot to learn. I’m excited to bring my expertise in retail food safety to the team and look forward to learning from the talented team at Food Safety Strategy for the areas I’m less familiar with!

When you're not thinking about food safety, what hobby or activity brings you the most joy or energy?

You know that calm and peaceful feeling you get sitting around a campfire in the woods listening to all the forest noises? That’s the feeling I chase when I’m not working. I love to be outside camping, hiking, and kayaking, really just enjoying all there is to see and do in the great outdoors. I also just had a baby so that adds a whole lot of joy into my life- lots of coos and smiles thus far. I’m hoping she likes the outdoors as much as I do!

Anything else to add?

How did you get your start in food safety?

My journey actually began in a restaurant when I was about 16. I had an amazing experience dining with my mom- everything was perfect- the meal, the ambiance, the service. I still remember how the whole experience made me feel and from that point on, I knew I wanted to positively impact people’s lives through food. I started working in the food industry at a young age, went to school for hotel and restaurant management, and found myself managing kitchens right out of college. I fell in love with the food safety side of things when I started to follow around our third-party auditors. I discovered that I had a keen eye for details and a knack for reading and interpreting regulations (NERD!). I started inspecting with local and state health departments and moved around in the regulatory space for years before settling in a non-profit that focused on supporting the field of food safety (among other fields in environmental health). Through all the different jobs I had, I kept thinking how I could help people make food and make it safely. That’s why I started consulting- to provide assistance to those who want it and need it to keep their food safe. It’s like I always say, everybody eats and everybody deserves safe food.