Former FDA Food Safety Chief Frank Yiannas joins ambient IoT specialist Wiliot as strategic advisor
Ambient IoT data platform specialist Wiliot reports that Frank Yiannas, the former Deputy Commissioner of Food Policy & Response of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), has joined the company as a strategic advisor.
Yiannas will help advise the food and retail markets on the ways in which the ambient IoT, and the real-time, item level visibility it delivers, can help meet the FSMA Rule 204 obligation that requires the safe tracking of food products and the sharing of traceability data with the FDA and consumers.
“The FDA's New Food Traceability Rule has become a catalyst for retailers to modernise their supply chains,” says Wiliot CEO Tal Tamir.
“Frank’s leadership in food safety and response will be pivotal in helping us educate the market on how this moment and the adoption of ambient IoT by some of the world’s largest retailers can enable the food business to meet their societal and regulatory traceability requirements.”
“Our Visibility Platform provides food retailers with a real-time view into each product throughout its journey from farm to store. Frank has a unique understanding of how that will transform the food industry – reducing waste, extending shelf life, improving quality, and optimising labour – while helping retailers maintain FSMA 204 compliance and its mandate for accuracy.”
Yiannas will also advise Wiliot on how to best leverage its platform within the food safety ecosystem.
He will collaborate with executives, solutions development leaders, and sales and marketing teams on the appropriate approach for retailers to achieve FSMA Rule 204 compliance using its Visibility Platform.
He will also advise on key partnerships with consultants, systems integrators, and applications software vendors to bolster the platform to enable food companies and their software application partners to deliver a comprehensive FSMA Rule 204 solution.
“Modernising food safety is critical to the health and wellbeing of people everywhere,” Yiannas says.
“This goal cannot be achieved without creating greater transparency and traceability throughout the entire food continuum – across farms, food processing and distribution centres, and retail stores. Wiliot, through its pioneering use of ambient IoT, is in a unique position to enable this transparency to become a reality faster and more efficiently than others.”
“They have demonstrated that their Visibility Platform – using battery free postage stamp sized IoT Pixels – is a game-changer that can significantly help the entire food industry create safer, more traceable supply chains.”
Finalised in November 2022, the FDA’s FSMA Rule 204 rule establishes a foundation for end-to-end food traceability by focusing on tracking food at each step across the supply chain and expands beyond ‘one-up, one-back’ traceability.
The goal is to create visibility within the supply chain to enable a better response to foodborne illnesses, contamination, and other public health and safety issues. The rule, which has now been finalised, has a January 2026 compliance deadline.
In addition to serving under two different administrations as the Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a position he held from 2018 to 2023, Yiannas previously spent 30 years in leadership roles with Walmart and the Walt Disney Company.
Wiliot’s battery free IoT Pixels can attach to any food product or packaging to connect it to the internet and embed it with intelligence.
Once attached, products push out item or case level information about their location, temperature, carbon footprint, and more – equipping food retailers and companies with the real-time data that is now required as part of FSMA Rule 204.
”Frank tends not to focus on vendor solutions, so his appointment is a testament to the merits of this new wave of ambient IoT tools,” says Tamir.
“It represents the latest evolution of RFID technology and builds upon its successes in ways that helps retailers to reduce labour costs, increase efficiencies, manage their carbon footprint – all while also achieving FSMA Rule 204 compliance.”
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