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Austin: I am Austin Welch, Meritech’s hygiene expert, and today we will discuss food safety culture. My background for food safety culture comes from consulting and education. I worked with a large -scale manufacturer and designed a strategy and educational plan to identify the area for improvement in the food safety culture, and to implement this improvement in the entire organization.
How do companies define and develop a strong food safety culture?
Austin: Do I first believe that developing a powerful food safety culture begins to talk about what food safety culture means? This term is still relatively new to the industry. GFSI has been doing great things to define what food safety culture is. A simple phrase that keeps coming back when discussing food safety culture is that it is the way we do here. It is always a way to summarize what food safety culture is. It’s a way we process hygiene. How to manage hygiene. It is the way we hire and board people. It is a way to maintain a relationship with foreign suppliers. All of this includes food safety culture. Therefore, the first element is to destroy it and make sure we are all on the same page. This is the food safety culture. Then it starts to identify the area you want to improve, but it is a broad topic.
Find educational resources for food safety culture
What is the biggest obstacle to making food safety culture at the company level?
Austin: One of the difficulties in starting a food safety culture at the enterprise level is that many people in the company’s team generally don’t think about food safety every day. If you are selling, there is a quota. If you are in the merger and acquisition, there are certain quotas associated with merger and acquisition. The same applies to HR, on boarding and R & D. Most of these goals and metrics are associated with certain tasks and do not consider food safety. One of the elements always observed in food safety development at leadership and administrative levels is to determine the metrics to be inspected within your role. If you are in M & A, how do the decision -making process affect food safety, and how should you consider that decision?
What is the impact of food safety education on food safety culture?
Austin: As a background knowledge of corporate learning and education, education strongly believes that education is one of the key factors of strong food safety culture. This is because we all need knowledge at the base level. Not everyone in the field is to act in a way that helps food safety. Often, many food safety education programs focus on knowledge. They provide information to the staff, then learn the quiz with the quiz, check, confirm the confirmation, and now say that they have this information. But what we actually understand when we run food facilities is about technology. It is about the employee bringing the knowledge and transforming it into technology. Unfortunately, knowledge is not always translated directly into technology. You must practice work. Therefore, finding a way for employees to develop this new technology is a key factor in developing a powerful food safety culture.
To see educational materials, visit Food Safety Toolbox
What is the advantage of a powerful food safety culture?
Austin: The advantage of a powerful food safety culture is to automatically reduce the recall and improve employee fraud. Employees want to do the right thing. I go to work and say, “How can you poison someone today?” So it improves fraud because it knows that you want to do the right thing. The third advantage is customer loyalty. If you have a recall, it is difficult to rebuild customer loyalty. By maintaining a powerful food safety culture with less recalls and less mistakes, the partner’s loyalty to work with consumers will increase.
How do you act differently for facilities with strong food safety culture?
Austin: A company that actually exceeds the expectation of food safety culture development is a company that talks about it every day. This is a constant focus. When discussing safety, hygiene or hygiene, it reflects the value and culture within the organization. In this way, it is not only a one -year seminar you attended, but also included in the daily discussion point in the organization in the front line or marketing department.
How can the facility help to achieve GFSI recognition food safety certification by building an effective food safety culture?
Austin: For those who want SQF, BRC or GFSI certification, a powerful food safety culture automatically automatically achieves the automatic certification. This is because you can check it immediately when the auditor arrives. We can observe the culture as soon as we enter the facility. What does the GMP area look like? How do people wear and take off clothing? How are they cleaning shoes when they go in? Are they picking up things from the floor when they fall from the line? By implementing the culture, you do not need to perform the last minute drill before the auditor arrives. It’s another day at work because it’s a way we work here. Establishing and rooting in the culture already in the organization makes the authentication process smooth because it is already doing everything in the checklist.
Find out how Meritech’s automatic hygiene equipment can help you achieve GFSI certification.
How can automation help to support a powerful food safety culture?
Austin: Automation is a good way to improve food safety culture. There are already many things that can promote quality and safety perspective and food safety culture. The more we can worry on the plate, the better. So are you seeing something like automated handwashing? This is why I was happy to work in Meritech. Because hand washing is a consistent problem in the food industry. It did not disappear. Education does not help the problem. So what do we do? Automate and make it completely simple. Someone came in and grabbed his hand for 12 seconds, BAM, they were over. They are ready to go. great. Now worry about the following lists.
Learn more about automated handwashing stations
