Managing Risk, from Farm to Fork with Julie Anna Potts, Meat Institute CEO

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How do you foster a culture of food safety at the top?

Juliana describes non-competitive knowledge sharing, executive-level questionnaires, and why C-suite tone is critical for food safety governance.

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Episode notes

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

In this episode, Justin interviews Julia Anna Potts, President and CEO of the Meat Institute, about her career, background, lifelong interest in agriculture and food, and how she joined the Meat Institute following a career in environmental law. The discussion covers the role of the Meat Institute in the food supply chain and how it serves member companies and the food industry in general, through its food safety best practices and a free online course, "The Foundations of Listeria Control." Julia reveals the Protein PACT initiative and explains how food safety relates to risk management with their shared values. She tells how meat processors are good community members.

Listen for advice on the culture of safety and how it starts at the very top of the organization.

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:17] About this episode of RIMScast. We will be joined by Julia Anna Potts, the CEO of the Meat Institute. We'll discuss food safety and education, and risk frameworks that the Institute uses to ensure that our food and supply chains are clean. But first…

[:47] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED Exam Prep with AFERM will be held on December 3rd and 4th. The next RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep with PARIMA will be held on December 4th and 5th. These are virtual courses.

[1:03] Links to these courses can be found through the Certifications page of RIMS.org and through this episode's show notes.

[1:11] RIMS Virtual Workshops! On November 19th and 20th, Ken Baker will lead the two-day course, "Applying and Integrating ERM."

[1:24] "Managing Data for ERM" will be led again by Pat Saporito. That session will start on December 11th. Registration closes on December 10th. RIMS members always enjoy deep discounts on the virtual workshops.

[1:40] The full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's notes.

[1:52] This episode is released on November 18th, 2025, Day Two of the RIMS ERM Conference in Seattle, Washington. We've covered a lot of ERM ground in the last few episodes. For more ERM, click the link to the RIMS ERM Special Edition of Risk Management magazine in the notes.

[2:18] RIMScast ERM coverage is linked as well. Enhance your ERM knowledge with RIMS!

[2:24] On with the show! Our guest is Julie Anna Potts. She is the President and CEO of the Meat Institute. She leads the Institute in implementing programs and activities for the association.

[2:38] She is an agricultural veteran, previously serving the American Farm Bureau Federation as its Executive Vice President.

[2:47] With Thanksgiving coming up next week in the U.S., I thought this would be a great time on RIMScast to talk about food safety, food production, and what another not-for-profit is doing to ensure the safety of our products and the speed and efficiency of our supply chain.

[3:07] We're going to have a lot of fun and talk turkey, so let's get to it!

[3:12] Interview! Julie Anna Potts, welcome to RIMScast!

[3:27] Julie Anna Potts and RIMS CEO, Gary LaBranche, are both part of the Committee of 100 with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. They get together with other association heads across industries. Julie Anna says it is very valuable.

[3:44] Julie Anna and Gary were talking in the summer about food safety and about what the Meat Institute does, and Gary invited her to be on RIMScast.

[3:57] Justin notes that it is the week before Thanksgiving in the U.S. Juliana says they are doing so much in Washington now, and food safety is always top-of-mind around the holidays. There are lots of turkeys and turkey products being sold in the United States.

[4:45] Julie Anna says turkey is cultural for Thanksgiving, and poultry, and how you cook it and handle it in the kitchen is incredibly important for food safety.

[5:01] Justin asks, Is fish meat? Julianna says fish is protein, but we don't classify it as meat or poultry. Justin wants to keep the argument going with his family at Thanksgiving.

[5:31] Julie Anna says they have lots of arguments around the Meat Institute, like whether ketchup belongs on hot dogs. Julie Anna says the answer to that is no.

[5:41] Julie Anna has been at the Meat Institute for a little over seven years. She came in as President and CEO. She has been in Washington for most of her career, since undergrad. She graduated from law school in D.C. and worked at a firm.

[5:59] Julie Anna has been in agriculture, representing farmers for years. She went to the Senate as Chief Counsel of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She has been at the Meat Institute for the last seven years.

[6:19] Food and agriculture have been central to Julie Anna's career and also to her family life. Her husband grew up on a farm. Julie Anna is two generations off the farm.

[6:32] They love to cook, dine out, and eat with their children; all the things you do around the holidays, and gather around the Thanksgiving table. They have passed to one of their three children their love of food traditions. She's their little foodie.

[6:52] Julie Anna has a career and a personal life that is centered around food.

[7:11] The Meat Institute members are the companies that slaughter animals and do further processing of meat. They are in the supply chain between livestock producers and retail and food service customers.

[7:35] To be a general member of the Meat Institute, you have to have a Grant of Inspection from the Food Safety Inspection Service of the USDA. The Federal Grant of Inspection is a requirement to be able to operate and to sell into the market.

[7:56] When we look at the capacity we have at the USDA, in the last several months, we're not seeing a decline in capacity, but more emphasis on our Food Safety Inspection Service.

[8:18] Through DOGE, voluntary retirements, through additional resources coming in with the One Big Beautiful Bill, and through recruiting, the Meat Institute is seeing its member companies have staffing, even through this government shutdown. They're considered essential, as always.

[8:54] The Meat Institute was established in 1906 for the purpose of addressing food safety and industry issues. Those are Jobs One, Two, and Three, every day. The Meat Institute has all kinds of education it offers to its members.

[9:15] The members of the Meat Institute have strong food safety programs. They have HASSA Plans and third-party audits. The Meat Institute helps any member company of any size, from 25 employees to global companies, with education on, for example, Listeria training.

[9:53] The Meat Institute has just launched an online platform that has had great uptake. If you have associates in your business who have never had food safety training, for all levels of folks, there is online, free, and freely available training on how to deal with Listeria.

[10:19] All the Meat Institute member companies have significant Food Safety staffing and Food Safety Quality Assurance Programs. Julie Anna praises the people throughout the industry who work in Food Safety for their companies. It's a life-or-death matter.

[10:45] Food Safety staff are always seeking to become better, so the Meat Institute has a Food Safety Conference and Advanced Listeria Training (an in-person module). They interface with the regulators, who are partners with the Meat Institute in this.

[11:14] The Meat Institute is always striving for better Best Management Practices across everyone's programs, which are never just the minimum. A philosophy of doing just what is compliant does not get you into the best space.

[11:36] The Meat Institute is here to encourage Best in Class, always. Food Safety is non-competitive in the Meat Institute. Everyone across the different-sized companies, from 25 employees to 100,000, can feel comfortable sharing what's working for them.

[12:06] That is important when it comes to conferences and other things they do. Let's be candid with each other, because nobody can get better if you're not.

[12:17] The Meat Institute has seen cultural issues where CEOs don't think about Food Safety and Quality Assurance because they have great people taking care of it. That's true a lot of the time, until it isn't.

[12:42] The tone that needs to be set at the very top of the organization is that this is hugely important for risk management. Hugely important for your brand and your ability to operate.

[12:56] The Meat Institute board asked, if we are pushing culture down through the organization, what kinds of questions do I need to ask, not just my Food Safety Team, but everyone, and demonstrating my knowledge, understanding, and commitment to governance of this big risk?

[13:31] The Meat Institute created a template of a set of questionnaires for executives. It is a C-Suite document and documentation.

[13:47] It's a voluntary questionnaire for a CEO, regardless of company size, indicating that you understand how important this is in ensuring that everything that you push down through your organization, culturally, is focused on Food Safety.

[14:05] The link to the Listeria Safety Platform is in this episode's show notes.

[14:11] Justin says the structure of the Meat Institute is very similar to the structure of RIMS, with open communications and knowledge-sharing, or else the industry does not grow or improve.

[14:27] Justin says it sounds like the industry executives are stepping up their game amid the tumult coming out of Washington. Julie Anna agrees.

[14:47] Julie Anna says the Meat Institute has been driving that progress. It is incredibly important. Julie Anna thinks that in a lot of industries, there is a pull and tug between the companies and regulators.

[15:07] In the case of meat and poultry inspection and what the Meat Institute does with FSIS, it is a collaboration. The inspectors verify for consumers what the companies are doing to keep food safe.

[15:28] It is up to the company to decide how it is going to do this effectively and successfully and get better at it.

[15:41] Numerous third parties do audits and help customers across the supply chain, but the responsibility rests with the companies.

[15:59] The Meat Institute staff has highly technical people who come out of academia, out of the plant, having done FSQA, Legal, and safety regulations. There are folks who have been in inspection in the government at FSIS.

[16:29] The Meat Institute has several staff whose job it is to stay on top of the latest improvements and ensure that everybody knows what those are, and in dialogue with our FSIS inspection leadership here in Washington, D.C.

[16:46] The Meat Institute looks to FSIS to make sure that consumer confidence is there. It does nothing for our industry if consumers think that FSIS isn't being an effective regulator. [17:11] The Meat Institute companies have to be the ones that do more than the bare minimum to ensure they're doing the best they can. The Meat Institute's philosophy is always to push further and further.

[17:25] There is an expense associated with that. The Meat Institute does its best to help manage that risk for its companies by giving them everything they need to be the best that they can be.

[17:40] The Meat Institute has 36 employees. They are very transparent in the Food Safety world. They want non-members to take advantage of all their resources in Food Safety. A lot of the things they offer on education and regulations can be accessed without being a member.

[18:14] The Meat Institute has recently joined an alliance to stop food-borne illness and is looking to get more engaged in that organization. That's across several segments, not just meat and poultry.

[18:35] The Meat Institute has committed and re-committed over the years to the efforts it makes with its companies. The Meat Institute looks for its companies to be leaders in the Food Safety space.

[18:53] Quick Break! The RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management is our live virtual program led by the famous James Lam. Great news! A third cohort has been announced, from January through March 2026!

[19:14] Registration closes January 5th. Enroll now. A link is in this episode's show notes.

[19:22] Save the dates March 18th and 19th, 2026, for The RIMS Legislative Summit, which will be held in Washington, D.C.

[19:31] Join us in Washington, D.C., for two days of Congressional Meetings, networking, and advocating on behalf of the risk management community. Visit RIMS.org/Advocacy for more information and updates and to register.

[19:45] We've got more plugs later. Let's return to our interview with Meat Institute CEO Julie Anna Potts!

[19:56] Julie Anna says a lot of our companies are also regulated by the FDA because they do further processing. For example, pizzas with pepperoni, or any number of mixed products that have both FDA and USDA regulatory personnel on site.

[20:20] FSIS is, by far, more present and more in tune with what member companies are doing than the inspectors at the FDA.

[20:30] Justin asks if restaurants can be members of the Meat Institute. There is a segment of membership called Allied Members, which includes restaurants and grocery stores. If they are not processors, but they are procuring meat and poultry for sale, they are in the meat industry.

[21:09] The Meat Institute has had a great deal of interaction on many issues with its retail and food service customers.

[21:25] Shortly after she joined the Meat Institute, Julie Anna was handed a mandate from the board to be proactive and lean in on the things consumers are interested in with an initiative to continue to maintain or rebuild trust.

[21:48] These are things like food safety, animal welfare, environmental impact, and worker safety. They call this initiative Protein PACT (People, Animals, and the Climate of Tomorrow). Food Safety is front and center in Protein PACT.

[22:13] The Meat Institute has a way of focusing its efforts through this lens of improvement in five areas that work together to reassure consumers. When they know that you're working on all these issues and trying to improve, it increases trust in all the above issues.

[22:54] Retail and Food Service customers in the industry want to know more and more. They want to know upstream, what are you doing to get better?

[23:05] They want to know how they can take the data that you are collecting anonymously and in the aggregate to communicate at the point-of-sale area to ensure that their customers, collectively, are getting what they need?

[23:23] Julie Anna saw this recently at H-E-B, a popular grocer in Texas. Julie Anna walked through one of their huge, beautiful, newly renovated stores. The engagement the ultimate customer has is in the store, asking questions of the butcher.

[24:07] It's wonderful to be able to say, If you have food safety concerns, we have a relationship that we can give you the knowledge you need to answer those concerns, and it's coming very consistently across the industry.

[24:40] Justin asks, When the Meat Institute members lean in, are they leaning in at 85% or 93%? You'll only get ground beef jokes here, on RIMScast! Julie Anna says, it's all good. Justin says those kinds of jokes are called The Manager's Special.

[25:17] One Final Break! RISKWORLD 2026 will be held from May 3rd through the 6th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. RISKWORLD attracts more than 10,000 risk professionals from across the globe. Guess what! Booth sales are open now!

[25:37] This is the chance to showcase your solutions, meet decision-makers face-to-face, and expand your global network. Connect, Cultivate, and Collaborate with us at the largest risk management event of the year. The link to booth sales is in this episode's show notes.

[25:53] Let's Return to the Conclusion of My Interview with Meat Institute CEO Julie Anna Potts!

[26:16] Julie Anna was an environmental lawyer in private practice. Her work involved the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and Superfund. One of her clients was the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF).

[26:42] When Julie Anna left the firm, she moved in as General Counsel to the AFBF, the largest general farm organization in the U.S. Besides environmental law, she worked there in lots of other types of law as General Counsel.

[27:06] At the Meat Institute, Julie Anna collaborates with the AFBF. The ag sector in Washington, D.C., is very collaborative. The Meat Institute works closely with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and the commodity groups.

[27:35] Everybody is connected. If you are working on an animal issue, you're going into crop groups and animal health companies. The Meat Institute works with everyone. Their philosophy is, We all get better when we share knowledge.

[28:03] That's the basis of the conversation Julie Anna and Gary LaBranche had in the summer about this podcast. The Meat Institute has resources it would love to share on the risk management of food safety issues.

[28:20] The Meat Institute also knows consultants and other help outside of the meat industry that they can point people to, as needed. The Meat Institute would love to be a resource to the listeners of RIMScast. You can check out the contact information in the show notes.

[29:02] Julie Anna is familiar with risk professionals. She serves on the board of Nationwide Insurance. Nationwide Agribusiness has Food Safety expertise. When Julie Anna practiced law, she worked with clients on helping them manage risk and assess potential outcomes.

[30:09] Julie Anna says risk management is one of her favorite topics. How do you plan to recover from a flood after a hurricane? How do you plan for farm animal disease? There are now three animal disease outbreaks that are constantly on their minds at the Meat Institute.

[30:31] The Meat Institute helps run tabletop exercises with its companies, sometimes involving government officials, as well. It's New World Screwworm to the South. It's High Path Avian Influenza, which has crossed over from poultry to dairy and beef cattle.

[30:48] Julie Anna continues, We have African Swine Fever, which has not gotten to the United States, thank goodness! All of these require a certain level of preparedness. So we work on it as a policy matter, but we also need to operationalize what happens when this happens.

[31:16] The pandemic is a good recent example of what happens when things fall apart. Member companies have a very limited ability to hold live animals if they're not going to slaughter. They don't have anywhere to go.

[31:44] The pandemic was an example of what happens when something reduces capacity and the animals start backing up. It's incredibly important that things work. The pandemic was unimaginable to a lot of people. It tested our risk management models.

[32:10] Once we were there, dealing with it, we had incredible adaptability to the circumstances we were facing. That only happens if you face certain problems every day to keep that plant running. For member companies, if the plants don't run, the animals don't have a place to go.

[32:37] Farmers get a lower price for their animals, consumers have the perception that there's not going to be enough food, and there's a run on the grocery stores. During the pandemic, it righted itself really quickly, once we got some PPE, etc. in place, and some guidance.

[32:59] The member companies relied heavily on the CDC to tell them how to get people in so the plants could run. It was difficult for everyone. Julie Anna thinks that we learned a lot from that experience on how to help your company troubleshoot in the moment to keep going.

[33:37] Julie Anna addresses how PFAS issues are being handled. It's an EPA issue and a state's issue for regulations on packaging and recycling. The state issues are predominant. Environmental issues are being addressed at the state level. We could end with 50 regimes.

[35:04] That's where there's more risk for the Meat Institute and its members, especially companies that sell nationwide. There is very little state regulatory work that the Meat Institute does directly.

[35:26] The Meat Institute is examining how to utilize other resources to figure out, with a small staff, how to monitor and stay ahead of these things for our members. That's very much on their minds. The EPA's work has been swinging back and forth between administrations.

[36:02] It's hard to convince a business of a good recommendation if the rules are going to change with the next administration. It's a problem of where to invest in things like measuring emissions and what to do to satisfy customers when the rhetoric changes dramatically.

[37:04] Justin says we've had a different administration every four years for the last 16 years. He says if he were a business owner, he would do everything he could to make sure the water coming in and going out is clean to avoid verdicts. Nuclear verdicts are through the roof.

[37:27] Julie Anna speaks of social inflation by juries wishing to send a message to big corporate entities. She says member companies are dealing with these issues all the time. What's the right amount of rulemaking for effluent limitation guidelines?

[38:20] The Meat Institute had opposed what the Biden administration had proposed, given that the number of companies it estimated would not be able to stay in business was close to 80. The Trump administration has backed off and is leaving in place what was there before.

[38:52] That's all part of the Federal policy debate in D.C. It does not diminish the commitment its members have to be good community members. They work in their communities. Julie Anna was just down in East Tennessee at a wonderful family company, Swaggerty Sausage.

[39:16] They do water treatment. They are beloved in the community because of how they take care of people. They bring in pigs from North Carolina and turn them into sausage. Julie Anna met the fifth generation. He is eight months old.

[39:40] Julie Anna had a great visit with people, understanding how their commitment to the environment and animal welfare, and the things they can show their community members that they are doing, works for them. Julie Anna saw how the sausage is made, Justin adds.

[40:28] Justin says, You've been such a delight to speak with, and we've learned so much. Is this the busiest time of year for your members, with Thanksgiving coming up, the religious holidays coming up, and then New Year's? Are they keeping Safety at the top of their risk radar now?

[40:59] Julie Anna says Our members, and we, keep Safety at the top of the risk radar every single day. It does not get harder during high-volume days.

[41:15] There's a spike around Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. There's a lot more turkey happening around Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas, but certainly, hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages, brisket, and all kinds of things. It's cyclical.

[41:49] Julie Anna wishes Justin could come into a plant with her, walk through, and see the number of times there are interventions for food safety. X-rays for foreign material. Sprays for certain types of pathogens, and the ways in which the hide is treated.

[42:14] It is such a huge part, and they are so proud of what they do. They are happy to show anybody how we continue to hold that up as the most important thing. Worker Safety is also hugely important. We're talking about our humans and what we do to protect them.

[42:42] Safety is really important, and it does not receive any less attention at busy times.

[42:50] Justin says that's a great sentiment to close on. It has been such a delight to speak with you, and I'm so glad we had the chance to do this. It's going to be especially impactful now, just ahead of Thanksgiving and the religious holidays, and the New Year.

[43:16] Special thanks to Julie Anna Potts of the Meat Institute for joining us here on RIMScast just ahead of Thanksgiving 2025. Links to the Meat Institute resources are in this episode's show notes, as is RIMS coverage of Food Safety and related topics.

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[45:09] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. Please remember to subscribe to RIMScast on your favorite podcasting app. You can email us at Content@RIMS.org.

[45:21] Practice good risk management, stay safe, and thank you again for your continuous support!

Links:

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Meat Institute

Meat Institute — Foundations of Listeria Control