AFRICA – Steven Carlyon, the President of one of Kenya’s leading producers of bread, meat and vegetable products, SimpliFine Foods, will be attending and speaking at the 2022 Africa Food Safety Summit taking place from 20-22 July in Nairobi, Kenya.

Steven, whose career spans over three decades has served leading producers of chilled, fresh, baked and ambient foods, both own-label and branded, such as McCain Frozen Foods, Bakkavor, Northern Foods, and Samworth Brothers.

The six-sigma trained food manufacturing business leader has experience gained across three continents with the most recent being in Africa where he served as the General Manager for Java House Africa, one of the leading coffee brands in Africa.

He kicked off his career in 1992 at McCain Frozen Foods, a multinational frozen foods company, as a Plant Supervisor. Here he was responsible for a three shift ‘Microchip’ fries manufacturing plant. This experience would later shape his venture into the frozen French fries segment at SimpliFine.

SimpliFine currently provides a range of 41 retail products including frozen meats, prepared meal accompaniments and a range of ready-to-cook prepared meals.

This is thanks to three acquisitions in 2021 by SimpliFine’s parent company, BlackIvy, a U.S. company that builds, operates, and scales businesses that drive long-term growth and resilient value in essential sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.

BlackIvy took over ownership of Ennsvalley Bakery, Alpha Fine Foods and a French fry production company based in Naivasha.

Its meat and prepared foods division attained Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000) in February this year, followed shortly by an ISO 22000 recertification of its bakery division.

Steven holds a Bachelor in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Napier University, Edinburgh. He has amassed skills and experience in manufacturing and operations management, factory build and start up, process engineering and implementing controls and measures to reduce cost of goods sold (COGS).

The Africa Food Safety Summit will host the food industry veteran in a panel discussion on “Transformational Leadership in Food Business Organisations & Mainstreaming Food Safety in Africa’s Food Industry”.

About 2022 Africa Food Safety Summit

The Africa Food Safety Summit in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) is Africa’s premier and largest international food safety, quality management and conformity conference and exhibition.

The Summit brings together regional and global experts and stakeholders to share the latest trends in science and technology; regulations, standards and compliance; operations and sustainable adoption of food safety practices and technologies in the entire agriculture and food value chain in Africa.

Held in physical and virtual format, the Summit aims at providing the platform to boost quality, food safety and conformity in Africa and the region’s fast rising food and agriculture sector that will enhance trade in local, regional and global markets.

The 2022 edition of the Summit will be held together with the AFMASS Youth Summit – a pan-African mentorship, networking and capacity building platform for university students and young professionals and budding start-up entrepreneurs in Africa’s food and agriculture sector.

To attend the summit, register at; https://summit.foodsafetyafrica.net/

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