Richard Carlson is responsible for overseeing company quality, plant regulatory and food safety activities. He began his career with Hormel Foods in 1990 as quality and process control engineer at the Austin Plant in Minnesota. He has held quality assurance and production management positions at the Stockton Plant in California, the Owatonna, Minnesota facility and the Jennie-O Turkey Store in Willmar, Minnesota. In 2000, he was named director of quality assurance at Jennie-O Turkey Store and assumed the position of vice president of quality management there in 2010. He moved to the Corporate Office in Austin and became vice president of quality management at Hormel Foods in 2014. Carlson received his bachelor’s degree in food science from Purdue University.
Q&A
Tell us about your role at Hormel Foods.
My role is to lead quality management, which means from an innovation perspective we want to make sure that all new products we develop and introduce to the marketplace are going to comply with regulatory requirements, that they’re high quality and they’re food safe.
How does innovation apply to quality control and food safety?
There’s an expectation that we continue to produce safer processes and safer products. At the same time, we’re always driving for a better-quality product. In terms of innovation, if you think about our founder in his charge to go to your workstation every day and try to do it a little bit better than it was the day before, that idea of continuous improvement and innovation go hand in hand. We’ve had a long history of innovating in product categories and in technologies that have set us apart from other people in the food industry.
Why do you think innovation is important in your role?
We have to avoid that dogma of “we’ve always done it this way before.” Those are dangerous words that don’t allow you to move forward or challenge yourself. And you can’t grow from a place of comfort.
What is one of the more notable innovations in QC that stand out to you?
One that I’m very proud of is the work that we did during my time at Jennie-O. We created the commercialization of the first high pressure pasteurized ground turkey. We not only produced a very safe product, but one that could be marketed fresh with an extended shelf life. This opened a whole new world of possibilities with how we could merchandise and sell a product like that into the marketplace.
Why should consumers or customers care about innovation in QC and food safety?
I think consumers and customers take innovation in food safety and QC for granted. Those types of expectations are baked into the social contract that a consumer has with Hormel Foods when they’re making the choice to spend their hard-earned dollars on one of our products.
How is innovation critical to the culture of Hormel Foods?
If you’re not moving forward, you’re stagnating. Our company has this incredible legacy of innovating in process, in product, in culture, with so many examples over our 133-plus year history where we have changed the game time and again.
What inspires you in your work?
My main source of inspiration is this team of 20,000 professionals around the company working toward the common goal of making Hormel Foods a better, stronger company. It’s being a part of a team of dedicated professionals that energizes me and makes me want to come back to work every day.
