The Importance of Food Safety Culture

By Dr Thomas Buehler

This has been recognized and now there is a global push to implement food safety culture by regulatory and certification bodies.

 

In 2021 the EU commission published an update of one of its fundamental food safety documents, namely, Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, which is part of the hygiene package regulations, and a general reference point for the last 17 years. The updated Annex incorporates the importance and general requirements of food safety culture now.

In 2020, Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Hygiene revised their principal food safety reference document, the General Principles of Food Hygiene (CXC 1-1969). The updated version now emphazises the management commitment to food safety as a “fundamental element for the successful functioning of any food hygiene system”.

In 2018, a GFSI working group published "A Culture of Food Safety". A global position paper that features as part of GFSI benchmarks and certification programs.

 

What is Food Safety Culture?

Practical day-to-day prevention and food safety risk management can’t always be anticipated to the very detail. This needs personnel who know what and why they do certain things and when to act. They must also do the right thing even when nobody is watching. In other words: your food safety management system will only perform if you have the right food safety culture behaviors and values in place. Getting there requires training: to understand the background, and the implications of your actions or lack of action.

 

Food safety culture is all about how your company, starting with top executives, think about food safety. You will see it through the attitudes and behaviours that your people have about food safety. This will come out of the environment that is created to openly discuss food safety concerns and act on them. In a former workplace, we often talked about “living” our beliefs and questioned whether this was part of what we do and how we think. If beliefs and thoughts are aligned with the principle that all foodborne illnesses are preventable, then the choices and actions that people take will contribute towards that goal of creating a food safety culture.

 

Why Should I Focus on Food Safety Culture?

Your food safety program is only as good as your people. More than their skills and knowledge, I am referring to their beliefs and conviction to follow proper food safety principles even when no one is watching. Your beliefs influence your behaviours every day. Behaviour can come from what people believe the consequences of their actions will be. For example, think about the action you take to wash your hands after using the restroom. I can explain the effectiveness of washing your hands, but if I am not able to convince someone to believe that washing their hands will help to prevent them and others from getting sick, then it will be difficult for me to convert a person who doesn’t wash their hands to someone who does wash their hands.

For me personally, I try to take food safety with me wherever I go. For example, when I prepare food at home for myself or others, I make sure that I wash hands before cooking. I do this not because I worry about someone reprimanding me, but because I believe this is how I will protect my family and friends from getting sick. When I share the background of this behaviour with my family, it helps improve our food safety culture at home.

 

Where Do I Start?

Food safety culture requires managerial leadership and commitment on all employee levels. This includes the awareness of food safety hazards, hygiene requirements and food safety practices. It asks for the appropriate prioritization, communication, training, and continuous improvement of all aspects that are relevant for the management of a food safety system. Here is a practical proposal on where and how to start:

• Create a cross functional team, with input from all roles, to create a clear vision. Senior Management leadership and ongoing support is critical.
• Assess current baseline to understand your starting point and where more focus is needed.
• Develop training and educational materials aligned with your expectations and vision.
• Establish short and long-term goals and metrics.
• Measure progress against goals to ensure improvement is being made.
• Communicate vision, goals, progress, and successes often to have a lasting impact.
• Assessing the strength of your current food safety culture can help determine where improvements may be needed. 

 

How Can Ecolab Help?

Supporting our customers’ commitment to safe food by providing solutions, services and expertise to eliminate foodborne pathogens, improve cleanliness and sanitation, and help keep food safe is central to our culture. We discuss it at all levels of our organization, and it is a driver of our work to advance food safety around the globe.

As you begin to review and strengthen your food safety culture, it is important to have a partner that understands the journey and can help you along. Your Ecolab account manager can serve as an extension of your team and provide perspectives to help address complacency and enhance food safety, from a friendly voice helping to guide your teams to be mindful of food safety during their daily interactions to more extensive assessment and improvement strategies. Beyond this, Ecolab can offer a food safety assessment to help you gain insight on your food safety culture progress including benchmarking against other companies. This service is supplemented by staff trainings to build food safety awareness on selected key topics.