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Built for Food Safety: How Early Design Decisions Shape Sanitation, Cleanability & Compliance

Wednesday, September 9 at 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM EDT

Food safety doesn't begin on the production floor - it begins long before the first product is made.

The decisions made during facility planning, equipment selection, process design, automation, and installation have a lasting impact on sanitation effectiveness, contamination risk, operational efficiency, and regulatory compliance. Yet these critical decisions are often made before sanitation and operations teams have a seat at the table.

Join FPSA for a practical discussion exploring how building food safety into a facility from the very beginning creates stronger operations for years to come. Drawing from real-world experience across design, engineering, automation, and food safety, our panel will discuss the decisions that make facilities easier to clean, easier to validate, and ultimately safer to operate.

Whether you're planning a new facility, expanding production, or upgrading existing equipment, you'll leave with practical ideas you can apply to your next capital project.

Takeaways

    • Understand why food safety starts during facility and equipment design, not after startup.
    • Learn how engineering, automation, sanitation, and operations teams can collaborate to reduce risk from the beginning.
    • Explore design strategies that improve cleanability, verification, visibility, and long-term operational performance.
    • Recognize common planning and budgeting decisions that can create food safety challenges down the road and how to avoid them.
    • Walk away with practical ideas to incorporate food safety into future capital projects.
Chris Osias Headshot

Chris Osias

Field Service Technician, Multivac Group

Chris Osias is a Field Service Technician at Multivac Group and a proud graduate of the Food Industry Technician (FIT) Program. Since completing the program, he began his career as a Maintenance Mechanic at West Liberty Foods, where he gained hands-on experience maintaining and troubleshooting food processing and production equipment, before building a career servicing and commissioning food packaging equipment throughout the U.S. Chris enjoys solving technical challenges, helping others grow, and sharing his experience to inspire future technicians. He is honored to represent the FIT Program and discuss how it helped shape his professional journey. 

Tom Hunter HS

Thomas Hunter

Service & Installation Manager, Friesen's Inc.

Thomas Hunter is the Service & Installation Manager at Friesen's Inc., where he leads field service, installation, facility maintenance, and recruiting efforts for technical teams supporting industrial automation systems across North America. A retired U.S. Navy veteran with 24 years of service, Thomas has spent his career leading people, solving complex technical challenges, and building high-performing teams.Throughout his career, he has hired, trained, and mentored technicians in manufacturing, facilities, and field service environments. He is passionate about developing the next generation of skilled trades professionals and believes that technical ability, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to keep learning are the foundation of a successful career.Thomas is honored to participate in today's roundtable discussion and looks forward to sharing industry perspectives while learning from the students and fellow professionals.

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Louis Townsend_headshot-1

Louis Townsend, Moderator

Executive Director, Food Industry Technician (FIT) Development Program

Louis provides strategic, operational, and industry leadership for FIT, a nationally recognized workforce development program that prepares technicians for careers within food production equipment manufacturing and food processing companies and is an initiative of FPSA. Louis brings more than 15 years of leadership experience across nonprofit, healthcare, and complex operational organizations, with a background spanning finance, operations, compliance, organizational strategy, workforce leadership, and enterprise-wide process improvement. Working closely with food manufacturers, equipment suppliers, educators, and workforce partners, Louis is committed to helping employers strengthen technical talent pipelines and prepare the next generation of skilled workers for the food manufacturing industry.