LRQA Americas discusses – How training can drive a food safety culture
21st February 2012
Training plays a critical role in assuring food safety. We can take our cues from recent work done by the GFSI. With the objective to improve food safety systems across the globe, the GFSI developed a tool kit to help food suppliers meet GFSI recognised certification schemes. During several pilots conducted in Egypt and other countries, 65% of participating food companies failed to meet basic food safety requirements defined by the GFSI. However, after a dedicated training period of employees of those same food companies, 45% of the previously failed organizations met the requirements. There are other factors that we need to consider when we look at training. Two critical components are Food Safety Culture and Food Safety Management. In an article that appeared in the December 2010 edition of the GFSI newsletter, Frank Yiannas, Vice-President Food Safety at Wal-Mart, talked about the importance of creating a behaviour-based food safety culture rather than focusing on just implementing a food safety program. Frank described the critical difference in an organization that has adopted a genuine food safety culture, “(behavior-based) food safety managers have figured out a way to go beyond accountability. They’ve figured out a way to get employees at all levels of the organization to do the right things, not because they’re being held accountable, but because they believe in and are committed to food safety. They create a food safety culture.” According to Professor C J Griffith, Emeritus Professor Cardiff School Health Sciences, Operational Food Safety Performance, the collective food safety practices used within an organization are achieved by taking into account both Food Safety Culture and Food Safety Management. Professor Griffith defines Food safety Culture as ”the aggregation of the prevailing relatively constant, learned, shared attitudes, values and beliefs contributing to the hygiene behaviours used in a particular food handling environment” and one must “Provide staff with a common sense of food safety purpose.”
Vel Pillay, Food Safety Programme Manager LRQA Americas