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


Sept 9 @ 11:30 am - 12:30 pm EDT

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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.
Kara Scherer

Kara Scherer

Head of the Food Safety Division, Dennis Group

Kara Scherer is the Head of the Food Safety Division at Dennis Group, one of the largest global Food and Beverage engineering firms. Kara is responsible for regulatory and hygienic design compliance for all design-build projects. In addition to supporting Dennis Group’s expert engineers, she offers an array of food safety consulting services including FSPCA certificate courses. Throughout her career, she has gained the unique ability to deliver manageable, innovative, and cost-effective programs that balance food safety and quality in manufacturing environments.

Tim Barthel-1

Tim Barthel

Executive Vice President, Cybertrol Engineering

Tim Barthel is the Executive Vice President for Cybertrol Engineering, where he has worked since 2007. During his years at Cybertrol, Tim started out as a Project Engineer doing automation projects, and has served as the project lead for a number of multimillion-dollar projects. Tim is involved in developing best practice automation solutions for existing and potential customers. He specializes in plantwide operational design approaches with totally integrated automation and information systems for greenfield facilities or existing plant upgrades. Tim regularly presents at major conferences on these topics and collaborates with industry partners to ensure Cybertrol provides best practice solutions for our clients.Tim holds an Electrical Engineering Degree from the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE).

Jason Klein-1-1-1

Jason Klein

Director of Operations, Commercial Food Sanitation

Joining in 2025, Jason Klein brings a proven track record of experience to his role as Director of Operations for Commercial Food Sanitation (CFS).Jason has worked in the food industry since 1995, building extensive expertise in baking through his long tenure at Grupo Bimbo. Over the years, he has taken on a wide range of responsibilities across operations and supply chain, including sanitation, distribution, quality assurance, food safety, product design, auditing, process control, engineering design, project management, and operations leadership.He concluded his time at Bimbo Bakeries as Plant Manager, a position he held for seven years, where he drove both quality excellence and strong financial growth.Jason’s key strength is leveraging versatility and strong relationships to build collaborative solutions for efficiency, quality, and food safety.

Matt OShea

Matt O’Shea, Moderator

Publisher, Sosland Publishing

Matt O’Shea, publisher of Dairy Processing magazine/Sosland Publishing. I’ve spent my career in business-to-business media. Over 20 of those years have been in the food/dairy industry. I’ve always appreciated the innovation, energy and commitment that people have given to the food industry. I find it continuously challenging and rewarding.