Founder & President of Women in Food Safety: Career Insights with Melody Yu | That’s a Food Job! #133

About Melody Yu

Melody Yu, Six Sigma Black Belt, PCQI Lead Instructor, and SQF Trainer, is the President and Founder of Women in Food Safety (WIFS), a nonprofit built to pipeline the next generation of female food safety leaders. With a B.S. and M.S. in Food Science and Engineering from the University of Maryland, Melody’s career has touched nearly every stakeholder seat in the industry, from R&D at Beyond Meat to compliance at SQFI, quality assurance at Lidl US, and food safety leadership at StarKist and TreeHouse Foods. After running WIFS as a side project since 2020, she recently made the leap to lead the now 501(c)(3) nonprofit full-time, alongside her own food safety consulting business.

What We Cover in This Episode

In this second conversation with Melody, she and Veronica dig into how she decided it was time to leave her corporate role and run Women in Food Safety full-time, the personal checklist she uses to know when to stay in a job versus move on, and what “middle management” really means for food safety professionals trying to climb toward director and VP roles. Melody also shares how WIFS supports students through mentorship, virtual gatherings, and two new international chapters, and how students can plug into the community themselves.

Watch the Episode Below

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Links

• Melody Yu LinkedIn ? https://www.linkedin.com/in/melody-ge-54116717/
• Women in Food Safety Website ? https://www.womeninfoods.org/
• Women in Food Safety LinkedIn ? https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-food-safety

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Nothing You Do Is Wasted
• 00:28 – Welcome Back, Melody
• 01:26 – Life Since Round One
• 03:38 – Going All In on WIFS
• 04:22 – Mapping a Food Safety Career
• 05:20 – Starting in R&D
• 07:45 – Learning the SQF Code
• 10:08 – Visa Limbo and Consulting Years
• 13:01 – Find What You Like
• 13:39 – Opportunities for Today’s Students
• 14:38 – Stay or Go? Her Checklist
• 17:42 – Fitting In vs. Belonging
• 19:00 – Certifications Worth Getting
• 20:04 – Try Everything While You’re Young
• 22:35 – Why She Founded WIFS
• 23:17 – The Food Science Club Moment
• 25:34 – Bridging Academia and Industry
• 27:39 – Two New Global Chapters
• 29:44 – How Members Find Solutions Together
• 32:20 – 1,700 Members and Counting
• 35:33 – What “Middle Management” Really Means
• 37:29 – What’s Next for WIFS
• 39:52 – How Students Can Get Involved