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Jeff Varcoe

Jeff Varcoe

Vice President of Quality Assurance & Food Safety at The J.M. Smucker Co.; Ph.D. in food safety and microbiology; expert on AI in food safety prediction

Jun 15, 2026

5:39
What should actually happen next inside a food plant? And how should companies decide whether AI is signaling a real operational threat or it's just an early warning to investigate? You know, how much of a hallucination are we on? What do you think, Jeff?
5:56
Well, I think your term using hallucination is something that's got to be worked through through your validation and verification process of the AI tool itself, which is why we were saying at the onset of this conversation that It's still about people being involved, and this is a tool that's going to help.
6:15
But nonetheless, as you work through and gain confidence that your system or your predicting tool is working, you still have to have your reactionary criteria.
6:25
So if you have an issue going on with production or an issue going on in an area, you have to consider putting things on hold.
6:32
You have to do follow up investigation.
6:34
You have to have remediation.
6:36
and all the follow through that comes through from a normal program without AI.

7 MINS LATER

13:34
That's going to be our challenge, really, to consider that data in a way that is the right decision at the end of the day.

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