the feed

Food safety culture has been a popular phrase lately. Most would agree that it’s an important concept, but how do we actually build one and strengthen it? A company’s food safety culture is determined in large part by the strength of its food safety program – one can’t prosper without the other. The critical cog between these two are people – their ability to consistently perform the necessary behaviors to execute a successful food safety program. 

By design, training courses should be created to focus on critical learning objectives that are foundational across the broad food industry to reduce a plant’s risks. Typically, many of these courses are needed for compliance to GFSI schemes such as SQF, BRC, IFS, FSSC 22,000; regulatory requirements including those from USDA-FSIS, FDA, and OSHA; and EPA and NLRB requirements. Specific courses can be created to achieve a variety of goals, such as compliance to internal standards, proficiency in job tasks, increased productivity, general awareness and communication, culture-building, etc., so score achievements in these areas are obviously discretionary.  

Need a new year’s resolution that will pay huge dividends throughout the year? Now is the perfect time to take a hard look at the results of your operations in 2015 to identify areas for improvement. Where were your successes and failures in safety, product, and people? What pictures does your data paint in the areas of quality, yield, and productivity?