21st Annual Global Food Safety Summit

Roberto has 30 years experience in Food business, spent mainly in managerial roles across R&D and in Q&FS, from Innovation to Research, from Product Development to Industrialization.

Roberto holds currently two roles, being Vice President Global Quality & Food Safey and RD&Q Strategy & Portfolio Management at Barilla group

Frans Verstraete graduated in 1985 as agricultural engineer at the University of Ghent (Belgium). After his studies he held positions at the University of Ghent and thereafter at the Belgian Ministry of Agriculture and he was for a period technical adviser of the Belgian Minister of Agriculture. He is working for the European Commission since 1997. In the European Commission he has had various functions and since 2000 he is working at the Directorate General Health and Food Safety. He is responsible for the elaboration, development and management of the EU-legislation on contaminants in feed and food.

Andres Del Rio is a global regulatory affairs and health sciences leader with more than 18 years of experience in the food, nutrition, and FMCG industries. He currently serves as R&I Director and Global Lead of Regulatory Affairs & Health Science at Lipton Teas & Infusions. Previously, he held senior leadership roles at Danone, Marks & Spencer, and Unilever, with expertise spanning innovation compliance, nutrition science, product development, and global regulatory strategy. He is passionate about bridging science, regulation, and business innovation.

Petra Luber is a Head of Unit at the German food safety authority. Together with her team she is responsible for incident and crisis management in the area of food safety. They take care of the management and clarification of food-borne outbreaks and try to prevent future crisis events.

Petra has three decades of professional experience in the field of food microbiology and in the assessment and management of microbiological and chemical risks in foods. After working in a contract laboratory and as a consultant for food industry she became a risk and crisis manager at the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety in 2006. She has published 20 papers in peer review journals.

Petra holds a PhD in Medical Microbiology and a Master’s degree in Biology.

Steven Ross Glass is an experienced and highly skilled Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner and senior leader in the food industry. With a range of experience across the profession, his focus has been on health and safety, food safety, and environment/sustainability. Steven possesses enhanced qualifications, skills, and experience in these fields.

Throughout his career, Steven has developed leadership and director-level skills through study with the Chartered Institute of Management, as well as practical experience managing and directing large, diverse teams and functions. He has also cultivated key personal attributes such as teamwork and sociability through leisure pursuits in climbing and skiing.

Currently serving as the Global Director of Food and Product Safety at Just Eat Takeaway.com, Steven is responsible for overseeing food safety policy and procedure across the JET group. He liaises with national regulators, coordinates responses to trends, incidents, and projects, and leads a team of subject matter experts to establish a global standard in food safety online.

Prior to his current role, Steven held positions such as Global Head of Food Safety at Just Eat Takeaway.com, Safety and Standards Director at Benugo, Director of Health and Safety (Retail) at Benugo, and Head of Quality and Compliance at a previous organization. He has also gained valuable experience as an Environmental Health Practitioner at various councils.

Steven holds a Diploma in Nutrition and Health in the Community from the Royal Society of Public Health, as well as certificates in Event Safety and Anti-Social Noise Measurement from the Institute of Licensing and the Institute of Acoustics, respectively. Throughout his career and personal life, Steven has demonstrated a commitment to professionalism, simple engagement, and service.

Simon is a Research Fellow and food allergen subject matter expert for Mondelez International based in the UK.

Simon is an internationally acclaimed specialist in the field of food allergens. He is a biochemist by training and gained experience of working in a variety of sectors within the food industry before joining RSSL in 2002. In his RSSL role Simon has worked with global blue-chip manufacturers, retailers and ingredient suppliers, as well as manufacturers of specialist dietary products to provide guidance on risk assessment, risk mitigation and management and analytical techniques for allergen detection in foods. Simon’s remit involved a broad scope of projects, from futureproofing corporate allergen policy through to independent expert site risk assessment and training programs and incident management.

Since 2005 Simon has been a key advisor to the Cadbury and more latterly Kraft / Mondelēz International (the parent company of RSSL - RSSL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mondelēz) business on allergen control and responsible for developing policy and training. In 2016 Simon became an extended member of the Food Safety Team and is currently the Global Lead for Food Allergens and Food Allergy advising the business on both proactive allergen strategy and reactive lead for allergen incidents.

Simon is affiliated with numerous professional bodies, industry groups and technical committees (ILSI Europe, FDF, BRC, EFSA, FSA, FARRP, GMA) and has published several articles in peer reviewed journals. He was also principal editor for the ‘Handbook of Food Allergen Detection and Control’. He was presented with a technical leadership award in 2014 for contributions to food safety and a SOFHT industry award for the development of RSSL’s practical allergen workshops. He was also awarded ‘Food and Drink Scientist of the Year’ at the FDF awards in 2018.

Simon was one of the first to develop a methodology for quantitative allergen risk assessment, which is becoming widely accepted as industry best practice. This methodology was adopted by Food and Drink Europe in their 2013 allergen management standard. This approach to risk assessment is the foundation of RSSL's allergen consultancy service and training courses.

Simon is a fully qualified HACCP practitioner and lead auditor. Experienced trainer who has developed a number of factory workshops and food safety training programmes for chemical and allergen hazards

Korinna is Quality Director for EMEA at Ingredion with 25 years of experience in the food industry. She is with Ingredion in the last 16 years and lead Quality strategy implementation, enabling people and organization to drive business relevant improvements in areas of Customer Experience, Food Safety, Regulatory Compliance and Supplier Quality Programs across the region.

Before joining Ingredion, Korinna worked with H.J. Heinz in different quality roles in plants in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

Korinna holds an MSc Food Safety & Quality Management from University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, UK and a Dipl. oec.troph. from University of Kiel, Germany.

Korinna lives near Hamburg with her family. In her free time she enjoys discovering new countries and cultures and loads of sport outside: cycling, field hockey and skiing.