Sally Johnston

Sally is Manager Food & Beverage at the Ministry for Primary Industries. She leads implementation of the Food Act 2014 – the first change to New Zealand’s food safety law since the 80s. Sally has worked at MPI (and formerly New Zealand Food Safety Authority) since 2002. She has held a number of roles, including Manager of Food Science and Assistant Director of the Compliance and Investigation Group.

Before working at MPI, Sally was employed by Kiwi Co-Op Dairies (now Fonterra) as a lab technician, and within 6 months was promoted to become one of the on-site Microbiologists.She has a BSc (Microbiology & Genetics), an MSc (Microbiology) and a Masters in Dairy Science and Technology.

Sally has extensive experience in regulatory systems (export, import and domestic), investigations, developing and implementing standards, making decisions in response to breaches of legislation, developing and implementing procedures for contracted agencies and developing systems to identify significant issues and trends. She brings all this experience to bear in implementing the new food safety law.