My fears have come true, auditors asking to see evidence of a food safety culture. It is on the checklist. The problem is not that it is on the checklist but rather HOW we will audit it and assess it.
So do you have a food safety culture?
In the food industry there have been a number of instances that echo with the story of a swimmer fighting for his life. The question that food safety professionals have to ask is: Am I prepared to dive in?
The food industry, like any other, is not a perfect world scenario, and parallels between the case study in Part 1 and potential risky situations in food premises equate to consequences to consumers
I frequently discuss the importance of having a food safety culture with operators of a variety types of companies, and they all seem to tell me the same thing: “my company has a great food safety culture."
It is time to realise that we need something more than just systems and checklists to manage and improve food safety in South Africa. We need to figure out what it is we've missed, and do it!
We were privileged to host an amazing wealth of knowledge at this year's Food Safety Culture Workshop held this year in Johannesburg. You can view some of the speakers presentations here.
This article briefly cover the elements that Frank Yiannas considers to be the characteristics of an effective food safety culture, and more importantly, why food safety culture is so important
Were I the CEO of a 1,900-store restaurant chain with 45,000 employees and had just had six foodborne illness outbreaks in six months, what would I do this coming Monday morning?
