Former Sr. Director, Head of Global Product Safety and Regulatory Affairs
General Mills, Inc. – Innovation, Technology and Quality
April 4-5, 2018
Sarah joined General Mills in 1983 spending 32 years there in a variety of roles and departments including R&D, Operations and most recently Quality & Regulatory Operations. In her last position covering 10 years, she was responsible for leading General Mills global product safety and regulatory affairs department. This department had responsibility for leading the establishment of food safety & sanitation standards, the assessment and measurement of product safety risk, auditing of GMI operations, identifying emerging issues & prevention strategies and management of global regulatory affairs. Sarah had direct responsibility for leading the food safety incident management team. She represented General Mills external interests in numerous scientific, trade and regulatory associations.
Externally in the United States, Sarah provided industry leadership in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rulemaking process including quarterly engagements with FDA’s leadership team. She chaired Grocery Manufacturers Association’s (GMA) FSMA Rules and Regulatory Committee and was a frequent speaker on the topic of FSMA strategy and preparation. Sarah participated on several IFT agency projects in the areas of traceability and food defense. Sarah was on the GMA’s Science & Regulatory Affairs Executive Board of Directors and was past Chairwomen of their Biotechnology and International Committee. She chaired the American Frozen Food Institute Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Committee; was the industry representative for the Association of Food and Drug officials; was a member of the MN Food Safety and Defense Task Force; founded the Food Industry Regulatory Breakfast meetings in the Atlanta area; and was active in a number of other task forces and associations.
Internationally, Sarah has been involved in numerous food safety and regulatory organizations and activities. At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperative Food Safety Forum’s Partnership Training Initiative Network she was an invited speaker four times delivering talks on practical risk analysis (Singapore), developing food safety plans for the supply chain (China), incident/crisis management (United States) and roles of risk-based inspections for corporate oversight & governance (Korea). Sarah actively participated in advancement of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) on the communications, global regulatory and US-Canada working groups. She was involved in the World Bank Global Food Safety Partnership’s metrics and evaluation working group. Sarah frequently presented at General Mills Global Supplier Schools in India, China, Brazil, Spain and the United States.
Sarah Geisert received her B.S. from the University of Missouri in 1981 and M.S. from the University of Nebraska in 1983. Both degrees were in the area of food science. She grew up on a farm west of St. Louis, Missouri. She has been married for over 25 years and has one son, 25, whom is an actuary for Deloitte. Sarah is on the Second Harvest Heartland Board of Director’s advancing a mission to end hunger in Minnesota through community partnerships. She is an active member of PEO, a philanthropic education organization, focused on the advancement of women.