Order up: How food safety culture impacts everyone

The value of the global food system is roughly $8 trillion, or 10 percent of the $80 trillion global economy and culture can play into these numbers. Culture is crucial in any organization and it's imperative for employees involved in food processing to feel valued and secure in their workplace. Creating a culture of appreciation for employees is important as these are the people on the frontline of our food production.  

So, what is food safety culture? According to the FDA’s Food Safety Culture Systematic Literature Review, it’s the aggregation of the prevailing, relatively constant, learned, shared attitudes, values, and beliefs contributing to the hygiene behaviors used within a particular food handling environment. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), consuming contaminated food resulted in an estimated 600 million people, almost 1 in 10 people in the world, getting sick, leading to 420,000 deaths every year.

So, it's essential to take the first steps to define and plan for a mature food safety culture, as it requires commitment and hard work. Culture requires constant attention – it must be nurtured and adjusted to be relevant and reflective of an organization’s operating environment.

To significantly reduce foodborne illnesses, we should foster, support, and improve a culture of food safety on farms, at home, and in food facilities. Achieving this takes effort to impact and change human behavior, making sure employees in these environments prioritize and pledge to food safety practices. As you build and support a mature food safety and quality culture, you'll encounter challenges around organizational resilience, fraud, employee turnover, and recognizing new foods and allergens.

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), an industry-driven global collaboration dedicated to advancing food safety, believes that to be successful and sustainable, food safety must go beyond formal regulations to live within an organization’s culture. There is good culture and there’s bad culture. By promoting a good culture, organizations can achieve many positives.

Culture maturity

Just as every organization has its mission, values, and vision, every organization has a unique culture. However, organizations that have more mature cultures tend to share these common characteristics:

• Clear company vision and values
• Like-minded employees who work in teams and cross-functionally
• A structure where the leadership team consistently interacts with employees
• Good pay and benefits
• Employees are empowered to make decisions
• Promotion on merit alone
• Personal training and development

 In contrast, less mature cultures often feature:

• Hierarchical structures
• Employees doing repetitive jobs with little responsibility
• A ‘blame’ culture and defensiveness when mistakes are made
• Different functions working in silos and a rules-led environment

In this kind of atmosphere, mistakes can be made by poorly motivated employees and swept under the rug. Likely, they will also have high employee turnover as people don’t want to work in an environment where their contribution isn’t valued. Many costly issues, from food poisoning incidents to workplace injuries, are directly related to human behavior. Therefore, creating an established food safety culture brings numerous benefits.

Benefits of a mature food safety culture

• Effective recruitment and new staff selection
• Improves business performance
• Reduces costs associated with poor quality
• More efficient change management processes
• Empowers near-miss reporting, leading to fewer incidents and recalls
• Enables professional development and effective succession planning

With the benefits listed above, you may be wondering how to achieve this. What can you do to develop and support your organization toward a more established food safety culture? There is a framework that can help.

A solution for developing a mature food safety culture

PAS 320:2023 provides a framework using the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) methodology and process approach to support organizations in developing, maturing, and sustaining the continual improvement of food safety cultures. Large and small organizations can use this approach. It provides recommendations to enable the design of a strategic change plan to achieve the desired food safety culture.

Maintaining production quality and safety in the food and retail industry means using and upholding precise standards to protect your operations from disruption. This PAS gives guidance on how to mature, sustain, and continually improve a food safety culture within an organization.

Management commitment is fundamental to building the foundation for a food safety culture as a catalyst for business improvement, sustaining the continual improvement of the organization’s food safety performance, and maturing its food safety culture with the mindset that food safety is a whole food supply chain responsibility, regardless of the organization’s size or complexity. PAS 320 helps do all of this while contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 on ending hunger and achieving food security and sustainable agriculture, and Goal 3 on good health and well-being.

Conclusion

All employees, from all organizational departments, should embrace food safety. They should be responsible for reporting food safety issues related to their role and beyond their responsibilities. Additionally, employees should be empowered to initiate positive change. Supporting an organization in maturing and sustaining the continual improvement of its food safety culture is an important, shared responsibility.

BSI can support you in developing your food safety culture. Good food safety can protect your customers, people, and reputation. Learn more about food safety culture and how it can help your organization stay ahead of the curve. How can your organization implement and support a mature food safety culture to improve employee well-being and food safety standards?