What is The Rotten Apple?
The Rotten Apple is an independent publication dedicated to 🍏 food safety 🍏 food fraud 🍏 sustainable supply chains 🍏
Hi, I’m Karen!
I do the hard work for you. Every week I scan hundreds of news articles, blog posts, forums, newsletters and social feeds for relevant food and ag news. The Rotten Apple is where I share a carefully curated collection of the most interesting, useful and actionable insights from the week.
You get short, sharp reads, with links to more information on each item if you want to go deeper, plus the occasional deep dive to stimulate your knowledge centres.
"Your newsletter is insightful, well researched and I like the humorous touch. What pushed me over the edge from unpaid to paid was your article on biofilms, which was a fantastic compilation of the state of knowledge. Thank you" Stephen, PPB Technology
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to:
Cut through the noise, clear your inbox of clutter and feel confident you won’t miss out on anything important
Stay ahead of emerging issues in food safety and food fraud: new hazards, new trends, updates to standards, without having to filter through pages of fluff and filler
Get insider info you won’t find in mainstream industry media: case reports, personal stories, insights from the front line
See the global picture, not just North America or the United Kingdom.
Expand your knowledge, discover new ideas for training, be part of the community.
You won’t find:
x Press releases from food companies about their latest ‘initiatives’ or products.
x Advertorials about equipment, systems or services for food production.
x Self-promotion for my consulting business. While I do offer food fraud products, training and consultancy services, I don’t promote them in this newsletter.
Free subscriber benefits
Free food safety resources (templates, videos, downloadables, directories, posters)
Ordinary weekly issues before they are archived
Premium subscriber benefits
As a premium subscriber, you can get full access to:
📚 Complete archive of food safety articles (arranged by topic)
🔐 Browse the Knowledge Vault without limits (templates, posters, PDF articles)
👩🎓 Instant access to 34+ rigorously researched premium guidance docs, topic explainers and training sessions where we deep dive into a practical topic (for example, Food Defence 101, and Food Safety Culture: Best Practices and Resources)
📌 Weekly food fraud news, incident reports and emerging issues
🔍 Searchable database of food fraud incidents with verified sources
🧐 7+ downloadable e-books of past issues
Most subscribers expense it with their employer, but if you pay yourself, it’s tax-deductible1.
Need to ask your manager? Here’s an email template:
Top tier benefits
‘Good Apple’ subscribers support 5 extra annual student subscriptions
Feel great supporting expert, human-generated reporting
🍏 Learn more about paid subscriptions here 🍏
Top Posts
🌿 As Safe as Table Salt (Not) How Monsanto convinced the world that glyphosate was safe
🍦 Epic Fails at the Icecream Factory Big Olaf ice cream had Listeria in their product for months, were operating without an operational food safety plan and initially refused to stop selling the icecream after it was linked to Listeria illnesses.
🥛 Milk Fraud Done Differently Secret compartments, a sharp-eyed quality manager and hush-hush responses by company executives
🦐 Allergen Management: An Awesome Free Tool A fabulous interactive tool for food allergen management processes in manufacturing facilities.
What do premium subscribers say?
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“Thank you for a great newsletter- always such amazing content. now upgraded.” - Sarah
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“Reliable, easy accesable, good information which I can read on th go and use in my day to day operations.” - Rika
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“We passed our recent audit thanks to this website. Subscribing to Rotten Apple is like hiring another person to give you an extra hand for food fraud mitigation.” - Deepa
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“I found valuable information in this site that could not find anywhere else.” - Maria
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“Valuable newsletter for all food safety professionals! Thank you :)” - Vilma
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“I work in Dairy manufacturing and a lot of what you publish is valuable in this industry. It is a great avenue for keeping up to date with issues and trends relating to food safety.” - Caroline
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“Thank you for providing objective information in a concise format which enables me to stay abreast of situations and trends without spending hours researching. I appreciate your efforts in assisting those of us in the trenches of the Food Safety/Food Fraud landscape.” - Concetta
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“Very useful info regarding food safety around the world” - John
Connect with Karen
Find me on…
Email me at…
Karen @ authenticfood .co [remove the spaces from this address first]
Message me through Substack
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*(probably😉)
