Reinforcing a Strong Food Safety Culture
Establishing and maintaining a robust food safety culture is one of the most effective methods to ensure food safety. With numerous elements involved in a food safety culture, we engaged in a discussion with one of our Hygiene Experts, Karen Choy, to explore the key concepts of enhancing a food safety culture. Watch the video above or check out the transcript below!
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Full Transcript:
Karen: Hi, my name is Karen Choy, and I'm the Regional Sales Manager for Meritech in Canada, and today we're going to be talking about food safety culture. My background is in equipment sanitation, GMP, and production in the food industry. My expertise in food safety began when I was responsible for overseeing the sanitation operations at a leading food processing company, where I managed production and daily cleaning activities to ensure safety and quality standards were adhered to.
How do businesses define and develop a strong food safety culture?
Karen: Ultimately, having a strong food safety culture benefits all in the long run. It keeps the customer safe, it's less costly for the company, and it keeps the company in compliance. Having a strong safety culture also keeps the employee safe.
For example, I have a client who praised Meritech's Automated Hygiene systems, especially during the pandemic. So their actions, along with our systems, prevented the employees from getting sick and it resulted in zero outbreaks.
On a management level, what can be done to support and encourage employees to get involved with food safety culture?
Karen: So on a management level, I strongly believe that supporting a strong food safety culture starts from the top. It's important to lead by example. It's also important to be consistent. For example, if a person is acting out of compliance, then it's important for frontline management to bring them back into compliance and to have daily conversations on the topic of food safety.
Visit the Food Safety Toolbox for Training Resources
When a company has a strong food safety culture, what can management do to continue to support the food safety culture?
Karen: Consistency is the key when managing a team. Generally, employees want to do a good job, and when they see that management stresses that food safety is important, they will want to follow. Continue to have conversations, providing continuous ways to improve, bringing in ideas, technology to improve the food safety culture.
Discover Educational Resources about Food Safety Culture
When a company has a strong food safety culture, what can management do to continue to support the food safety culture?
Karen: A way that Meritech can help strengthen the food safety culture is to eliminate the guesswork for hand hygiene and footwear hygiene. Our 12-second hand wash is consistent each time and hand washing with the EVO Systems saves time and money. Any time automation is applied, it can definitely improve the process.
Learn more about Automated Handwashing Stations
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