Developing A Strong Food Safety Culture - Interview with Austin Welch

Full Transcript:

Austin: I'm Austin Welch, a hygiene expert with Meritech, and today we're going to discuss food safety culture. My background in food safety culture comes from consulting and education. I used to work extensively with large manufacturers to identify areas for improvement within their food safety culture and then design strategies and educational plans to implement those improvements throughout the organization.

How do businesses define and develop a strong food safety culture?

Austin: I believe developing a strong food safety culture begins with, first of all, having a conversation about what food safety culture means, right? This term is still relatively new to the industry. GFSI has done an excellent job of defining what food safety culture is. The simple phrase I keep returning to when discussing food safety culture is that it's the way we do things here. That is always how we can sum up what food safety culture is. It's how we handle hygiene. It's how we manage sanitation. It's how we hire and onboard our people. It's how we maintain our relationships with our foreign suppliers. All of that encompasses food safety culture. So, the first element is getting it down and ensuring we're all on the same page. This is what food safety culture is. Then, we start identifying what areas we want to improve, but it's such a wide-ranging topic.

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At the corporate level, what is the biggest obstacle to creating a food safety culture?

Austin: At the corporate level, one of the challenges in initiating food safety culture is that many people within the corporate team typically don't think about food safety on a day-to-day basis. If I'm in sales, I have a sales quota. If I'm in mergers and acquisitions, I have a specific quota tied to mergers and acquisitions. The same applies to HR, onboarding, and R&D. Most of those goals and metrics are tied to those specific job functions and do not consider food safety. One of the elements I've always observed in developing food safety at the leadership and administrative level is to determine what metrics we will examine within your role. If you're in M&A, how does your decision-making process affect food safety, and how do you take that into consideration when making those decisions?

What is the impact of food safety education on a food safety culture?

Austin: With a background in corporate learning and education, I strongly believe that education is one of the key elements of a strong food safety culture. This is because, at a fundamental level, we all need knowledge, right? Not everyone entering the field has the necessary information to act in a manner conducive to food safety. Often, many food safety education programs focus solely on knowledge, right? They provide the information to the employee, then quiz them to ensure they have learned it, and then they can check it off and say, okay, now this employee has this information. However, what we really understand in running food facilities is that it's about skill. It's about the employee taking that knowledge and transforming it into a skill. Unfortunately, knowledge doesn't always directly translate into skill. You have to practice things. So, finding ways for employees to practice what they have learned to develop this new skill is truly a key element of developing a strong food safety culture.

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What are the benefits of a strong food safety culture?

Austin: The benefits of a strong food safety culture automatically reduce recalls and also improve employee morale. Employees want to do the right thing. I don't think anybody goes to work and says, "How can I poison somebody today?" So it improves morale because they see that you want to do the right thing. The third benefit is customer loyalty. If you have a recall, it's really hard to rebuild that customer loyalty. By maintaining a strong food safety culture, with fewer recalls and fewer mistakes, you will obviously see increased loyalty from both your consumers and the partners you work with.

For facilities with strong food safety cultures, what do they do differently?

Austin: The companies that I see really exceeding expectations in developing food safety culture are those that talk about it every day, right? This is a constant focus. If we're discussing safety, hygiene, or sanitation, it reflects the values and culture within the organization. This way, it's not just a once-a-year seminar you attend, but it is embedded in the daily discussion points within the organization, whether on the frontline or in the marketing department.

How can building an effective food safety culture help your facility achieve a GFSI-recognized food safety certification?

Austin: For those of you seeking SQF, BRC, or any of the GFSI certifications, having a strong food safety culture automatically gives you a significant advantage in achieving that certification because when the auditor arrives, they can immediately see it. We can observe the culture as soon as we enter the facility. What do the GMP zones look like? How are people putting on and taking off their apparel? How are they cleaning their shoes as they enter? Are they picking things up off the floor when they fall off the line? By having that culture embedded, it means you don't have to conduct a last-minute drill before the auditor arrives. It's just another day at work because this is how we do things here. Having that culture already established and ingrained within the organization makes the certification process seamless because you're already doing everything that will be on that checklist.

Learn how Meritech's Automated Hygiene Equipment can Assist with Achieving GFSI Certification

How can automation help support a strong food safety culture?

Austin: Automation is a great way to improve food safety culture. There's already so many things that we have to worry about from a quality and safety standpoint and driving that food safety culture. The more things we can take off of our plate to worry about, the better. And so looking at things like automated handwashing, right? This is a reason that I was thrilled to come work at Meritech is because handwashing is consistently an issue within the food industry. It has not gone away. Education is not helping the issue. And so what do we do? Let's just automate it and make it so that it's completely simple. Someone walks in, sticks their hands in for 12 seconds, bam, they're done. They're ready to go. Okay. Now let's worry about the next thing on the list.

Learn more about Automated Handwashing Stations