Food safety professionals excel at preventing accidental contamination through HACCP, GMPs, and sanitation protocols—but the intentional adulteration demands a fundamentally different and more sophisticated layer of protection against deliberate malicious acts. Safety programs alone are not likely to be effective against an adversary with intent which is why food defense requires a different set of skills not typically found in conventional food safety and quality training. This session bridges the gap for non-security experts by clearly defining “what good looks like” when utilizing the most common physical security measures typical in food defense programs such as video surveillance, electronic access control, and key control. Drawing on real-world food defense audits and industry case studies (including facilities that earned top BRCGS/SQF scores yet still had critical IA gaps), attendees will receive practical, actionable guidance on selecting, deploying, and evaluating existing systems whether an organization has a corporate security department or simply wishes or needs to self-assess. The presentation will demonstrate how to integrate physical security into existing food safety programs without requiring a full security department. Attendees will leave equipped to spot compliance and practical security risk weaknesses, strengthen mitigation strategies, and move beyond checklist-driven audits to true regulatory resilience and brand protection.