Post 32. Food safety culture

 

What is food safety culture?

The Global Food Safety Initiative define food safety culture as “shared values, beliefs and norms that affect mind- set and behaviour toward food safety in, across and throughout an organisation.” [1]

Why is food safety culture important? 

Food Standards Australia New Zealand state that a strong food safety culture means people understand the importance of preparing and producing safe food and being committed to doing whatever it takes to produce safe food, every time. Embedding a good food safety culture will protect consumers from harm, especially foodborne illness; protect brand reputation and derrick the business in terms of the potential financial loss associated with product recalls [2]

What is involved?

Check our this video from Safe Food Production, Queensland. 

 All businesses have a food safety culture in some businesses it drives excellence in others it allows for short-cuts and risky behaviour. Where does your business sit? How can you improve your culture? 

Start by seeing where you are now - have you defined your food safety aims and objectives? Have you allocated suitable, appropriate resources (finance, physical, human) to delivering those objectives? How do you monitor food safety attitudes, behaviours and values on a day to day basis? What is your continuous improvement plan?

Sources:

[1] https://mygfsi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/GFSI-Food-Safety-Culture-Full.pdf

[2] https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/foodsafety/culture/Pages/default.aspx