Over the last several weeks you have seen a few stories by our pair of Pulitzer Prize winning writers, Ross Anderson and Andrew Schneider, and they are promising more (stories and Pulitzers). Dan, Helena, Mary, Gretchen and Cookson continue to do important stories, and we have had several great Op-eds by author, Michele Simon. My daughter Olivia has recently joined the Food Safety News staff doing recall pieces. She tells me she is also working on a story about “celebrities who barf” and is taking a tour of the Pike Place Market with a health inspector next week. We continue to get great stories from freelancers and interns as well as several other Op-ed pieces. I continue to consider increasing staff as several major papers have been cutting theirs. I have also been reaching out to food safety thought leaders to get their written perspective on how we can make our food supply safer.

Clearly the above is the important part. However, how Food Safety News “feels” is also something that is important. Over the next week you will be seeing some visual changes. Starting at the top, the header will be a bit bigger – just to make sure you know we take this seriously. You will also see the front page moving from four columns to three. The goal here is to cut down on the clutter a bit and to highlight some of the top food safety stories of the day. Further down the page you will see that many of the news feed and blog “boxes” have gone. However, the best of them have been retained and can be found in the new “box” entitled “Hot Food Blogs.” We’re renaming the “Opinion and Contributed Articles” section to “Featured Editorials and Guest Opinion”. Photos of the authors will be displayed beside their contributions. We will also be highlighting “Food Recalls” in its own section. We will also set apart the “Most Read On Food Safety News” as a way of keeping some of our best stories in front of readers a bit longer.

The other thing that you will notice is that we have decided to set aside space for ads. Although I intend to continue to subsidize Food Safety News, given the number of free subscribers and daily and returning visitors, pulling in additional revenue is not only fair, but also a way to enhance Food Safety News. Again, with major dailies cutting back on their coverage of food safety issues, I think there continues to be a place where high quality journalism can reside.

Thank you for your support. I welcome your feedback.