Cindy Jiang is a senior director, Global Food and Packaging Safety, Global Supply Chain & Sustainability, for McDonald’s Corporation. Her responsibilities include developing food safety strategic plans, leading the effort to establish and maintain strong global supplier food safety and quality management systems and programs, having science- and risk-based food safety standards and policies, anticipating and managing food-related emerging issues, supporting the markets with farm-to-restaurant food safety practices, and elevating the food safety culture within the corporation, supplier, and franchisee communities.  

Cindy has been the lead for McDonald’s Food Safety Advisory Council since 2002, a forum for sharing food safety knowledge and best practices among leading suppliers and external experts. She has been actively engaged with industry and government collaboration on food safety. She has served on the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Board since 2008 and is currently a member of the Board for SSAFE and IFIC.

Cindy began her career with the McDonald’s Corporation after receiving an M.Sc. in food science and nutrition from the University of Wisconsin in 1990. She has held various positions at McDonald’s Corporation, from a food chemist to a quality assurance consultant, a senior quality assurance manager, and a director of food safety. Cindy has been actively engaged in leading the effort on harmonization of food safety standards by working with the food suppliers, the foodservice industry, certification program owners, and auditing firms since early 2007. She is a senior member of the American Society for Quality and has been a member of Institute of Food Technologists since 1989. She is also a current member of the International Association of Food Protection. She is passionate about advancing food safety for the benefit of consumers.

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In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Cindy [19:43] about:

  • The importance of meetings, team building activities, and volunteering in an effort to keep food safe
  • The collaborative process McDonald's follows when new equipment needs to be developed
  • McDonalds' approach to new employee training
  • What regulators are looking for when they visit a foodservice establishment
  • Understanding why collaboration is necessary and valuable
  • Why food safety is not an area of competition
  • McDonalds' three-leg stool system
  • How McDonald's communicates with its many suppliers
  • How McDonald's suppliers are required to have at least one GFSI benchmark certification
  • Why there are so many benchmarked schemes, and why having a consolidated benchmarked scheme isn't feasible
  • Government-to-government and government-to-business meetings
  • Food safety culture
  • Why every business within the food sector should be ready for an unannounced visit 24/7
  • McDonald's and World Food Safety Day
  • The ongoing challenge of meeting consumers' ever-changing expectations
  • Technology, predictive analytics, and using data to predict potential foodborne illnesses and outbreaks
  • How McDonald's has been delivering food in other countries years before it became a trend in the U.S.
  • The importance of mastering soft skills, communication, and networking even in a science-based field

News Mentioned in This Episode
EFSA Identifies Three Food Safety Priorities for the Next 5–10 Years; Codex Agrees to Tackle E. coli in Certain Foods  [3:57]
Researchers Dissect 17 Years of Salmonella Outbreaks [8:51]
Viral Story: The Blue Bell Ice Cream Licker [11:12]  

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Author(s): Staff