Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole

Welcome back. Episode 8 opens 2026 with a single focus: leadership, leadership, and more leadership. When the stakes are high, do leaders rise to the moment, or do they take the easier path that creates bigger problems later?

Darin reflects on recent meetings in Washington, D.C. with FDA and USDA officials around recall readiness, using real-world analogies to explore why preparation on paper is not the same as being ready ...

Episode 7 wraps the year with the kind of energy only this podcast can deliver. Gennette and Darin look back on a whirlwind season and take listeners behind the scenes of Darin’s fourth trip to the Dubai International Food Safety Conference. From camel mishaps to unexpected main-stage moments, the conversation jumps between humor, travel memories, and the deeper truth that food safety always follows them home.

This episode...

Four Horseman and Dolly and Poop Podcast! OH MY! This episode is a full-on poo-poo platter: part chaos, part confessional, and part tribute to the people holding the line in food safety. Darin and Gennette debrief from the Food Safety Consortium, where Darin joined the “Four Horsemen” panel of Poisoned voices. They talk documentary aftermath, public apathy, and going viral for all the wrong reasons.

Plus, U.S. Air Force ve...

In Episode 05 of Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Gennette turns the mic on her co-host, Dr. Darin Detwiler, for a deep-dive (literally) into the making of his serialized New Food Magazine story, Silent Enemies. It’s part interview, part retrospective, part "what was I thinking?" and all about the invisible forces that shape both our food systems and our sense of responsibility.

From submarine reactor rooms to food sa...

In Episode 04 of Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Gennette Zimmer and Dr. Darin Detwiler open with a check-in and an invitation behind the scenes. They reflect on what it means to be four episodes in, the surprising ways listeners are responding, and the purpose that keeps them showing up (even when things go off script).

The conversation flows into a thoughtful unpacking of their “Four A’s” framework: awareness, alli...

In Episode 03 of Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Gennette Zimmer and Dr. Darin Detwiler open with a moment of quiet gravity: the ten-year anniversary of the Peanut Corporation of America trial. They reflect on what that landmark case meant not just in terms of legal precedent, but in human cost. It’s a sober look at how accountability in food safety is still the exception, not the rule.

Later, Darin and Gennette are ...

In Episode 02 of Confessions of a Food Safety A**Hole, Gennette Zimmer and Dr. Darin Detwiler dive into the strange dualities of this work—how legacy sometimes shows up in the form of a bad buffet, and how an awkward moment in a banquet hall can become a defining memory.

From fielding fan selfies at a food safety conference to being recognized by a comedian at a random show in LA, the conversation become a reflection on wh...

In this kickoff episode, Gennette Zimmer and Dr. Darin Detwiler pull back the curtain on what it really means to be a “food safety a-hole”—and why that label, while uncomfortable, might actually be a badge of honor. Darin shares his deeply personal origin story: the 1993 E. coli outbreak that took the life of his young son and catapulted him into a decades-long career advocating for safer food practices. The conversation i...