Meet Jill, one of the founders of Food Safety Solutions Inc.!
Prior to founding FSS, Jill worked for over 10 years as a Food Safety Specialist in meat, bakery and a variety of other food commodity industries which gave her extensive experience in quality, food safety, program building and employee training.
Jill really enjoys the challenge of helping companies start their food safety programs from scratch and assisting facilities in improving their existing programs. She has a hard work ethic, values clients time, has the ability to see the big picture, and at the same time, knows where the details need to be. Although she doesn’t have a creative bone in her body, Jill can “MacGyver up” solutions to challenging situations.
Let’s get to know Jill a little better:
What was your first job in the food industry?
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- At a meat and seafood value added plant in Calgary, AB way back in the late 1990’s. It was right before meat packing was required to be HACCP accredited by CFIA. I was hired in ‘98 and we had less than 6 months to prepare and go through our first CFIA HACCP accreditation audit. We had no google to look anything up back then and I had to ask my boss for a computer to work on. We passed our accreditation audit on our first try, which was unheard of back then AND we had 11 HACCP Plans!
What’s the furthest you’ve had to travel for this job?
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- When I was doing my shadow and witness audits to become a BRCGS auditor in 2010, there weren’t enough certified auditors to shadow or witness in North America. So after 2 shadow audits in Minnesota, the CB I was working for sent me to the UK, where I had my last shadow audit south of London and my witness in Wales at a lamb factory. I can’t believe that I rented a car and drove myself around the country and was then able to pass my witness audit!
What’s the strangest location you have worked?
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- Because I had experience working in a seafood plant, I was asked to do a food safety audit for Unilever on a commercial fishing and processing boat. I flew to Seattle, arrived just in time for the man overboard training, and then set off for 48 hours until they were able to find enough fish to harvest and process. By day 3, I was notified that they had enough fish, so the audit could start anytime. It was mostly a self guided audit, where I was on my own the whole time figuring out the entire fishing process, trying not to get sick and combing through binders and binders of records. The boat processed fish 24/7 until the boat was full or they were done fishing. Since I had already been waiting around there for 3 days, I needed to get this audit done ASAP and get off this boat!. Once the audit was over, I notified the Captain that it was done and I could leave whenever it was possible. Unfortunately for me, it was halibut season and all the chartered small boats that they use to transport visitors back to shore, were busy with tourist fishing, so I was stuck on the fishing trawler for an additional 4 more days than I wanted to because they couldn’t find a charter boat to come get me! Boarding the charter boat and the 7 hour ride back to shore is a story for another time.
What’s your favorite prerequisite program
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- Probably Sanitation – it’s usually a hard and technical program to put together; it’s a big puzzle that you’re trying to solve, and you aren’t sure of all the pieces, but when it finally comes together, it’s pretty satisfying and everyone on the team learns ALOT!
Please share a top consulting client success story:
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- That’s tough, there are so many great clients! We have quite a few very long term clients that have been with us since day 1 of our inception or for more than 10 years. They rely on us to ensure their food safety programs are working efficiently and effectively and that they are ready at any time to pass their regulatory or third party food safety audits. We really appreciate that they put their trust in us year after year.
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