Hear from a Food Safety Program Manager at Sysco

Name: Adam Carswell

Title: Food Safety Program Manager

Company: Sysco Southwestern Ontario

Years worked in current role:1

Years of experience in food industry: 14

In 300 characters or less describe your job:

The role of the Food Safety Program Manager at Sysco is to monitor and ensure compliance of our Operations to a defined set of Policies and Procedures that are designed to ensure every case of every product we received, store and distribute is safe and of the highest quality possible.

What are the top 3 characteristics you need to be good at your job:

• A passion for doing what is right
• A desire to constantly improve
• An understanding that people eat food, it’s not just a thing

Why did you decide to pursue a career in food?

Throughout my childhood I always had a good time around food, whether cooking it, serving it, or eating it. During my last year of University, I ran a bar on campus and began to enjoy the service industry. Following that year, I immediately began a job as a restaurant manager and from there moved into the Food Safety Training and Consulting business. Today, I draw upon all those experiences to ensure that we at Sysco ship nothing but great products to all our customers knowing they are safe and of the highest quality.

Top 3 advice tips for students and new grads coming into the industry 

• Treat food with respect and care
• Treat your colleagues with respect and care
• Treat every day as an adventure, because no two are the same

Tell us why your Food Job Rocks?

I am proud to know that I work for a company whose vision is to ensure that our customers both value and trust the products we ship them every day. With that, I have the responsibility to ensure that the food we ship to every hospital, daycare, restaurant or stadium is as safe and of the highest quality possible. And when we deliver on these promises, I know we have help to give every customer a truly great experience.

Favourite quote?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. -Albert Einstein.