Dr. David Acheson has more than 40 years of medical and food safety experience, having practiced medicine for several years and serving in prominent roles with both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service prior to forming TAG in 2013.  David graduated from the University of London Medical School and practiced internal medicine and infectious diseases in the United Kingdom until 1987 when he moved to the New England Medical Center and became an Associate Professor at Tufts University in Boston, studying the molecular pathogenesis of foodborne pathogens.

At the USDA, David served as the Chief Medical Officer of the Food Safety and Inspection Service. He then joined the FDA as the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) Chief Medical Officer; from which he moved to Director of CFSAN’s Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response; and was then appointed as the Assistant and then Associate Commissioner for Foods. In this role, David held agency-wide leadership for all food and feed issues, and he developed the 2007 Food Protection Plan, which served as the basis for many of the authorities granted to FDA by the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Since founding TAG, David has used his regulatory insight, food safety knowledge, and expertise in crisis response to advise food industry clients around the globe on how to best manage risk in a global supply chain and evolving regulatory landscape. He has published extensively and is internationally recognized for both his public health expertise in food safety and his research in infectious diseases. He is a sought-after speaker and regular guest on national news programs; serves on a variety of boards and food safety advisory groups of several major food manufacturers; and is a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians (London) and the Infectious Disease Society of America.

A resident of Bigfork, Montana, David enjoys anything outdoors and travelling with his wife all over the world.