Every year, I hear from teams across our industry facing the same reality: increased scrutiny from regulators and customers, more ground to cover with the same resources, and the constant pressure to turn lessons learned into lasting change. I’ve been in enough conversations with food safety leaders, plant teams, technical experts, and suppliers to know how real those pressures are – and to know that when the right people are in the room, teams leave with practical ideas, trusted perspective, and solutions they can put to work.

As a chair of the Meat Institute’s Food Safety and Technical Affairs Committee, I’ve watched the Meat Industry Food Safety Conference become one of the most practical, peer-driven events in our industry. The 2026 conference—September 15-16 in Oklahoma City—isn’t a parade of speeches. It’s two focused days designed to help you connect science, data, and lessons learned to address regulatory expectations, make operational decisions, and shape business priorities.

This Event Exists to Reduce Foodborne Illness

At this conference, everything we focus on ties back to a single mission: fewer foodborne illnesses coming from the products our industry makes. That mission is not abstract; it shows up in the decisions teams make every day, often under pressure and with limited information. It's the standard against which our work should be measured. When you sit in these sessions, you’re not just passively learning—you’re strengthening the practices, decisions, and cross-functional alignment that protect consumers and your company’s reputation.

What's On the 2026 Agenda

Here are the sessions I'm most excited about — each one addresses challenges our members are working through every day and offers practical ideas teams can take back to their organizations:

Root Cause Analysis: Turning Investigation into Prevention

• Offers practical frameworks to identify the drivers behind incidents
• Helps teams move from rinse and repeat responses to lasting prevention

Metagenomics – Raw and RTE Applications

• Translates metagenomics from research concept to operational reality
• Covers how environmental surveillance is evolving and what it means for risk assessment, quality systems, and customer expectations

USDA Updates

• Keeps attendees current on FSIS priorities and expectations
• Helps teams anticipate what’s ahead rather than react after the fact

These topics matter now more than ever. Evolving regulatory expectations, increased customer scrutiny, and the pace of operational decision-making all require an understanding of the current science, what data is most important to collect, how to interpret that data, and most importantly how we can apply these principles for operational success and stronger alignment across functions.

The Value You Won't Find on the Agenda

Some of the most valuable moments at this conference happen between sessions. The networking reception, hallway conversations, and candid exchanges over lunch are where real benchmarking happens. I have seen attendees leave with a new contact, a fresh idea, or a different way to frame a challenge they had been carrying for months. Where else can you compare notes on a Listeria investigation, a regulatory challenge, a foreign material question, or a new testing approach with peers that have had the same experiences and who understand the stakes? For many attendees, that peer network is one of the most valuable takeaways—and one you’ll keep drawing on long after you leave Oklahoma City.

Join Us in Oklahoma City

None of us solves this industry's challenges alone. The work of reducing foodborne illness, strengthening compliance, and building more resilient operations requires people who are willing to share what they know, ask hard questions, and keep raising the bar—together.

I hope you’ll join us. Two days in Oklahoma City will give you practical tools, current regulatory insight, and a network of peers committed to the same mission.

Register today at meatinstitute.swoogo.com/foodsafety26 — and bring the colleagues who help turn food safety priorities into daily practice.

Dr. Philip Bronstein
Chair, Food Safety and Technical Affairs Committee, Meat Institute
OSI Group