I was recently in Milan, sitting in a room with insurance executives, talking about food recalls. I don't take those conversations for granted. Getting face time with people who have influence over how risk is priced and managed is exactly the kind of access that moves our work forward.
Change in this industry can’t come from one direction. We've spent years working with individual companies on the process side. It changes how companies behave when a recall happens — but it’s slow work, and the supply chain has a lot of companies in it. That's part of why we helped form the Alliance for Recall Ready Communities. Getting industry participation and buy-in at a broader level is how process improvements start to become norms.
The technology side has had to develop in parallel. Modernizing recall management only works if the systems support it. The regulatory environment has added its own complexity — administrative changes, legislative delays, shifting priorities at the agency level. Progress there has been uneven, and anyone working in food safety right now knows that the landscape is not certain.
So when I sat down with those insurance executives in Milan, what I was bringing to the table wasn't a single solution. It was the argument that all of these pieces — process, technology, regulation, industry standards — need a business case to move faster. That's where insurance comes in.
The structure we've been developing is designed to do something specific: make recall readiness something worth investing in, ethically and financially. Most people in this industry want to do right by consumers. The problem is that business decisions have to clear a higher bar than good intentions. If readiness reduces your insurance costs, it stops being just the right thing to do and starts being the smart thing to do. The idea is that companies demonstrating recall readiness — defined roles, tested processes, documented infrastructure, trading partners who are equally prepared — represent a measurably lower risk profile that should be reflected in insurance pricing.
What struck me in Milan was how receptive the room was. These are people who understand risk for a living, and explaining how recall risk moves through a supply chain — manufacturer to distributor to retailer to consumer, with liability and cost flowing back the other direction — made sense to them.
The process work is happening. The industry coalition is growing. The technology is ready. The regulatory environment will continue its slow progress forward. The insurance piece is one more angle. Not the only one, and probably not the fastest one. But every angle matters, and a room full of people in Milan willing to have a serious conversation about it is a great step in the right direction.
