Who is minding the store at USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and OFS?

Dr. Denise Eblen, who holds a doctorate in food safety microbiology from the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, is the top executive at the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, where she is known as “The Administrator.”

Outgoing Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack elevated her to the position on Dec. 9, 2024, just days before his administration ended. The backstory is not known. Vilsack may have wanted Paul Kieker, appointed by former Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, removed as the FSIS Administrator. Or, Kiecker, after five years as FSIS leader, might have wanted to go back into the field.

While the White House has not commented on the president naming a USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety to succeed Dr. Jose Emilio Esteban, the USDA has also listed Eblen as the Acting Deputy Under Secretary. Esteban was the USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety for two years and 29 days. 

While it is difficult to remain current, FSIS is a $1 billion-plus agency with as many as 10,000 employees responsible for, among other things, daily inspections of about 6,200 meat and poultry establishments, plus additional egg and catfish businesses.  The Office for Food Safety (OFS) is accountable for food safety policy and oversight of FSIS operations.

Until the U.S. Senate selects a new Under Secretary for Food Safety, Eblen will be checking her own work — and this isn’t a first at the USDA. Al Almanza, who was FSIS Administrator for more than a decade, was also “dual-hatted,” as the military calls it. He was the FSIS Administrator and USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food safety. 

Because the Under Secretary for Food Safety is so often vacant, deputy appointments, which do not require Senate confirmation, are essential, along with other OFS staffing. Sandra Eskin was Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety from 2021 to 2025. About half of that time, there was no Under Secretary, but she tried to force the removal of Salmonella from certain poultry products with a formal rule.  The new administration has pulled that rule back.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1.35 million Salmonella infections and 420 deaths are reported annually in the United States. When it withdrew the rule, USDA said it would “evaluate” whether the current performance standards for Salmonella in poultry needed to be updated.

With her Acting  Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety hat on, Eblen has some help in Room 331-E of the Jamie Whitten Building, also known as USDA Headquarters.

Brooke Leslie Rollins, who  succeeded Vilsack as the nation’s 33rd Secretary of Agriculture, named Trey Forsyth as Chief of Staff for Food Safety

He previously served as a Professional Staff Member for the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry for Chairman John Boozman. He also served in the first Trump Administration as policy advisor to Gregg Doud, the Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Forsyth graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Agricultural Business.

Sharon Elizabeth Crawford, who provides administrative support, is the only other staff member known to be assigned to USDA’s Office of Food Safety.

FSIS records show Crawford held multiple jobs between 2020 and 2023. One of the most recent records in 2023 lists a job in Management and Program Analysis with pay of $82,949. This is reported to be 40.1 percent higher than the average pay for co-workers and 15.6 percent higher than the national average for government employees.

In her assignments, Eblen is responsible for planning and implementing the organization‘s strategic goals. She has  25 years of experience at the USDA and steers FSIS  with science-based decision-making to modernize the agency’s inspection strategies, policies and approaches to improve public health.

Eblen joined FSIS in 2001 as a food safety fellow supporting the agency’s food safety and public health priorities. In 2018, she was selected as assistant administrator for the FSIS Office of Public Health Science (OPHS) after serving as acting deputy assistant administrator for OPHS from 2013 to 2015. While leading OPHS, Eblen provided expertise in scientific analysis, including oversight of FSIS laboratories and testing of regulatory samples, risk assessment, and outbreak investigation and response.

In addition to her work with FSIS, Eblen has held roles with USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). In 2015, she joined NIFA as deputy director and led its Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition, which supports research, education, and extension activities in food safety, food quality, nutrition, and obesity. 

Previously she held the position of research associate with ARS, where she studied the safety of produce.

In addition to her doctorate in food safety microbiology is from the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, she has a Master of Science in food science from Queen’s University Belfast, and a Bachelor of Science in human nutrition from the University of Ulster at Coleraine, in Northern Ireland.

As the Trump Administration’s reductions across USDA play out, as many as 30,000 job cuts could occur, but they aren’t supposed to affect the veterinarians and food safety inspectors at FSIS, which reportedly has cut 555 jobs. In its quest for a smaller federal workforce, the new administration has offered incentives to get employees to quit independently instead of waiting to be fired. Various administrative and court challenges are pending, affecting the total reductions.

Food safety at the FDA
At the Food and Drug Administration, Jim Jones quit to protest the Trump Administration’s staff reductions. Jones was the first Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods in the recently reorganized FDA, and he was assigned all food safety functions.

Lawyer Kyle Diamantas was named to replace Jones on an acting basis. Diamantas holds a juris doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law and a bachelor’s in pre-law and political science from the University of Central Florida. He’s worked for various private organizations, including representing food companies.

Diamantas, reports to  Martin Makary, confirmed in April as the 27th Commissioner of Food and Drugs. Makary, formerly with Johns Hopkins University, reports to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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Source: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2025/05/who-is-minding-the-store-at-usdas-food-safety-and-inspection-service-and-ofs/