Food Safety Next

Roundtable Sessions

Focused Discussions. Real Solutions. Lasting Relationships.

We have completed our 2026 Roundtable at the Sea Palms Resort on Saint Simons Island (for details, see below)

Supply Chain Risk Management using Enterprise AI, June 24–25, 2026

Food Safety Next roundtable session in progress

At the heart of Food Safety Next are our roundtable sessions — intimate, facilitated discussions that bring together senior food safety business leaders and other business functional leaders in foodservice to tackle the industry's most pressing challenges. These are not panel presentations or lecture-style sessions. They are structured conversations designed to surface real insights, share proven best practices, and spark collaborative problem-solving among peers.

Each roundtable is carefully curated around a specific topic or emerging issue, ensuring that every participant brings relevant experience and a genuine stake in the outcome. The result is a uniquely productive environment where leaders can speak candidly, challenge assumptions, and leave with actionable strategies they can implement immediately.

How our roundtables work:

Small group, high impact — Each session is limited to a focused group of senior leaders, fostering the trust and openness needed for meaningful exchange.
Expert facilitation — Discussions are guided by experienced facilitators who keep conversations strategic, balanced, and outcome-oriented.
Actionable outcomes — Roundtables are designed to produce concrete takeaways — from shared frameworks and best practices to collaborative initiatives that extend well beyond the session itself.
Part of a continuous cycle — Roundtables are a core element of the Food Safety Next leadership cycle, connecting to our annual conference and ongoing community engagement to sustain momentum and deepen relationships year-round.

From the Roundtable

Saint Simons Island, Georgia. June 24–25, 2026.

Our first supplier-sponsored roundtable convened senior leaders from across the foodservice industry for two days of honest, structured conversation about supply chain risk and enterprise AI — and the first in a series we will continue in the years ahead.

Dr. Hal King opens the June 2026 Food Safety NEXT Roundtable on Saint Simons Island

Where

Sea Palms Resort

Saint Simons Island, Georgia

Topic

Supply Chain Risk Management

Using Enterprise AI

Format

Two-day executive roundtable

Limited to senior leaders across food safety and other business functions in foodservice

Senior business leaders from leading foodservice brands came together at Sea Palms for focused sessions on the application of enterprise AI to supplier risk management. Across two days, food safety business leaders with their supply chain business function leaders — shared candidly about signals needed to track risk, challenges, and the questions they are still working through to use AI.

What the roundtable surfaced

The Future of Food Safety Management with AI

The first session of the Roundtable examined enterprise AI and the signals needed from the data for effective supply chain risk management. Papa John’s is also using AI to examine signals to predict top supply chain origin risks. Key early warning signals include elements of supplier performance, operations and logistics, external and environmental risk signals, and customer complaint and inspection trends.

Data Architecture, Validation, and Governance

The second session included discussions on the need to ensure data integrity and validation that would enable important functions such as Document data extraction (e.g., pulling values from a supplier COA or specification PDF, or turning an emailed certificate into a record) or real-time monitoring/anomaly detection (e.g., tracking cold chain temperatures across locations, or detecting a forged COA that does not match the active specification).

Supplier risk management put to the test

The final two sessions of the Roundtable examined AI solutions for supplier risk management. The group prioritized supplier onboarding, active monitoring, and deviation detection and response as the highest-priority areas. Participants then explored how AI capabilities could be applied to strengthen these functions, including identifying risks, monitoring supplier performance, and responding to potential food safety issues. A guided mock pilot walked participants through AI-assisted detection of undeclared allergens.

Roundtable participants listening during a facilitated session

Wide view of the full Saint Simons Island Roundtable in session

Our Sponsors

Exclusive Media Partner

Food Safety Magazine is the exclusive media partner for Food Safety NEXT. Adrienne Blume, Director of Editorial & Industry Engagement, attended in person and published full coverage of the Saint Simons Island Roundtable — including participant case studies, attendee perspectives, and the questions the day set up for the industry.

Read the Full Recap

Salt marsh at the edge of Saint Simons Island, Georgia

The Setting

Where enterprise food safety leaders came together.

Sea Palms Resort sits at the edge of Saint Simons Island's salt marsh on the Georgia coast — a setting intentionally chosen to take leaders out of the office and into the kind of focused, trust-building environment that conversations like these require.

The roundtable format reflects our core belief that the future of food safety will be shaped through candid dialogue and collective expertise — not by any single organization working alone. By convening the right people in the right setting, we create the conditions for breakthrough thinking and industry-wide progress.