Food Fraud: Protecting your Brand Through Transparency

Karen Mills is Director of Quality Assurance for High Liner Foods Inc. (Canada) and operates out of High Liner’s processing facility in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She leads teams that are responsible for internal food safety and compliance as well as supplier/vendor import and regulatory compliance. Karen received her B.Sc. in Animal Science from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, Nova Scotia. High Liner Foods Inc. is a processor and marketer of superior quality seafood. The company began in 1899 with the founding of W.C. Smith & Company, a salt fish operation located in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Today, it is one of the largest prepared seafood processing operations in North America producing a wide range of products in our four operating facilities, located in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, New Bedford MA, and Newport News, Virginia under the brand names: High Liner®, Fisher Boy®, MIRABEL®, SEACuisine® brands (among others) throughout North America.

Mitchell Weinberg is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Supply Chain Assessment Technologies Corporation (INSCATECH). INSCATECH has created a comprehensive solution to protect the world’s food supply from Food Fraud. Through its involvement with the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Food Fraud Think Tank, Mitchell was instrumental in introducing the concepts of food fraud vulnerability assessments and food fraud control programs to the industry. In addition, Mitchell pioneered and is the sole provider of forensically based food fraud investigations. Through its international network of specially trained food fraud detection operatives, his team works discreetly and legally in virtually every food producing country around the world, to expose those committing food fraud.

Sara Zborovski is a Partner in the Toronto office of Norton Rose Fulbright Canada. The Norton Rose Fulbright team has deep expertise and unrivalled experience in the critical and unique issues facing clients in the food and beverage industry. Sara provides timely advice on regulatory, business and intellectual property issues while assisting food and beverage companies in market access and in areas of compliance. She helps clients navigate the Canadian regulatory landscape and advises on product classification, advertising and marketing programs (including product labels), compliance programs and on all matters relating to food safety, including crisis management, advocacy before the inspectorate and product recalls.