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New industry-led global guidance sets out the role of people and culture in enabling food safety and product quality

LONDON, April 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — A food safety culture that prioritizes people and supports collaboration in manufacturing facilities, food service businesses, restaurants or retail stores can help improve quality, minimizing the risks of contamination or recalls while also benefiting productivity and talent retention.

New global guidance from BSI, the business development and standards company, developed through consensus with industry giants including Walmart, McDonald’s, Kerry Foods and 3M, and published this week, identifies that the common factor in food safety incidents, quality failures and recalls is people rather than failures of machinery or technology. Equally, when issues occur, people are the key to avoiding recurrence.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), consuming contaminated food results in an estimated 600m people falling ill every year, leading to 420,000 deaths. A desire to tackle this led to a round-table discussion at the 2019 International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) Annual Meeting, then, ultimately, the creation of an industry steering group. The resulting document, Developing and sustaining a mature food safety culture (PAS 320), is designed to guide organizations of all sizes across food, beverage and retail to create a culture where people are prioritized, all employees embrace food safety, take responsibility for reporting issues, and are empowered to initiate change.

Relevant to anyone from manufacturers and factory workers to restauranteurs and baristas, the guidance has been published by BSI following extensive sector discussion on food safety culture, including what it is, how to measure it and how to ensure continuous improvements. The document defines food safety culture as the “shared values, beliefs and norms that affect mindset and behavior toward food safety in, across and throughout an organization.”

It notes that creating and maintaining a strong culture that preserves quality and reduces risk requires management commitment and a mindset that safety is the responsibility of everyone at every stage of the food supply chain. Culture is also highlighted as key for employee retention, improving quality and decreasing contamination risk by decreasing turnover rate.

PAS 320 includes steps for identifying gaps and then implementing a plan for change. It makes recommendations related to leadership; the organization’s vision, mission, values and policy; organizational structure; responsibilities, accountabilities and authorities; guiding coalition team; interested parties; change champions; influencers; and food safety documentation. The guidance also includes advice on how prioritizing people in the sector not only supports improved food safety but also brings other benefits, including investment return, business performance improvement, reduction of the costs associated with poor quality, and enhanced efficiency.

The US FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety blueprint states that dramatic improvements in reducing the burden of foodborne illness cannot be made without doing more to influence the beliefs, attitudes, and, most importantly, the behaviors of people and the actions of organizations.

Neil Coole, Director, Food and Retail Supply Chains at BSI, said: “A positive food safety culture that prioritizes people and gives everyone a stake in driving quality can have a transformative effect and help reduce the risk that comes from unsafe food. This starts with leadership taking steps to turn ambition into action in order to build and sustain continuous improvements across their organization and the wider supply chain.

“Ultimately, moving from seeing food safety culture as a compliance issue to an investment in people can offer huge benefits for individuals, organizations and society as a whole.”

Scott Steedman, Director General, Standards, BSI, said: “It is tragic that so many lives are lost globally every year to contaminated food. This is something nobody in the industry can ignore, and urgent steps to change this are required. We understand that the common factor in food safety-related risks is people, and it is an organization’s culture towards food safety that presents the opportunity for continuous improvement. PAS 320 provides the guidance to empower people to make a positive impact on the future of the food industry.

“Enabling a robust food safety culture is vital for enhancing quality and safety across the food sector. Strengthening understanding of what best practice looks like and how everyone in the food sector can play a role, by enhancing global consistency and offering clarity, can help food sector organizations accelerate change and support the realization of quality and food safety ambitions. This new standard on food safety culture can build confidence in the global food industry and offer long-term benefits for everyone.”

Media Contact:
Chad Quinn, PR Manager, Americas, BSI
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +571-758-8638.

Notes to Editors:

About BSI

BSI is the business improvement and standards company that enables organizations to turn standards of best practice into habits of excellence, “inspiring trust for a more resilient world.” For over a century, BSI has driven best practice in organizations around the world. Working with over 77,500 clients across 195 countries, it is a truly global business with skills and experience across all sectors, including automotive, aerospace, built environment, food and retail and healthcare. Through its expertise in Standards and Knowledge, Assurance Services, Regulatory Services and Consulting Services, BSI helps clients to improve their performance, grow sustainably, manage risk, and ultimately become more resilient.

To learn more, please visit: www.bsigroup.com

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SOURCE BSI Group Americas Inc.

Latest food items recollects illustrate a “disturbing” deficiency of food security society, in accordance to Dr. Vanessa Coffman. A single in 6 People drop sick from foodborne health issues per year these days.

Making matters worse, the general public is typically left perplexed by foodstuff-recall push releases stuffed with tough-to-understand jargon, Coffman extra.

“Consumers aren’t obtaining the actionable information and facts they will need, in the format they want it in, to efficiently eliminate harmful solutions from their houses,” Coffman, director of the Alliance to Cease Foodborne Disease, instructed The Foodstuff Institute. “Unless a recall is significant, multistate, and gets picked up by the news, it usually goes unnoticed shoppers would have to be checking multiple governing administration web sites every single working day to get the entire scoop.”

Just lately, a total of 97 individuals throughout six states were still left sick by E.coli, in an outbreak maybe tied to contaminated lettuce employs in sandwiches marketed at Wendy’s places to eat, claimed HealthDay. By August 23, there have been 152 food stuff safety recalls issued by the USDA.

Additionally, of remembers issued by the USDA’s Inspection Service, 24 have been categorized as Course I – that means they are considered “most concerning” because they are linked to solutions “likely to induce really serious harm or dying.”

MISCONCEPTIONS PERSIST

It’s distinct, according to Coffman, that foods manufacturers, suppliers, and co-packers have to have to strengthen their inside meals safety cultures and worry that initiative to personnel. As a result, the Alliance – which is effective in collaboration with foods protection professionals at the likes of Kellogg, Amazon, and Costco – recently distributed a Meals Security Society Toolkit for scaled-down corporations.

Nevertheless the amount of recollects has not always greater in latest decades (there ended up 63 FSIS-linked remembers in 2021, in contrast to 131 in 2019, for instance), Coffman feels the remembers could be documented to the general public additional correctly.

She also feels there are numerous misconceptions when it comes to food stuff recollects. For instance, quite a few buyers feel most remembers basically aren’t that important – an situation worsened, Coffman explained, by the point that most recall press releases characteristic phrases like “voluntary recall” and “out of an abundance of warning.”

“The (misconception) that issues me the most is that recalls are not significant and they will not affect you,” Coffman reported.

Possible Alternatives

Coffman feels food stuff firms require to use technological advancements like applications and push notifications to alert the general public of recalls. And, she added, remember notices must ideally consist of specific guidelines that are less complicated for buyers to comprehend.

“Currently, shoppers ought to glance at a good deal of codes, and non-uniform ‘best-by’ dates, to detect (recalled) merchandise,” Coffman spelled out. “This will cause confusion, leading to individuals feeding on potentially perilous meals or, alternatively, throwing away correctly fine things.”

Tag: Recalls

Positive food safety culture that prioritizes people “key to reducing risk of contamination or recalls”

As Food Recalls Mount, Experts Urge Food Safety ‘Culture’ Change