BRC Standard 1.1.2 - Food Safety Culture

Hi, 

Do you all mind if i ask what you are putting in place for the new food culture section on Issue 8. We are a small company so would like to avoid paying out thousands to someone to come in and do a questionnaire on everyone.

I was wondering if this is someting we could create in house and do our selves. I think I could put a good questionnaire together, analyse the answers and then do a list of steps to take place to improve culture / create a report. 

can you post the actual code requirement please

Hi, 

 

Do you all mind if i ask what you are putting in place for the new food culture section on Issue 8. We are a small company so would like to avoid paying out thousands to someone to come in and do a questionnaire on everyone.

 

I was wondering if this is someting we could create in house and do our selves. I think I could put a good questionnaire together, analyse the answers and then do a list of steps to take place to improve culture / create a report. 

Hi Nikki,

Start with this:

Senior management are responsible for delivering a “It is how we do things here” food safety culture by:

Leadership – starting from the top

Demonstrating visible commitment

Effective communication of company philosophy and policy

Ensuring there is accountability from the top of the organisation to the bottom

Developing employee confidence and mutual trust

Developing reward schemes including ‘Employee of the Month’ award

Ensuring all employees are accountable, engaged and understand the value of integrity and proactivity

Developing an action plan for the development and continuing improvement of food safety culture

You can also then develop and conduct your own internal surveys.

Kind regards,

Tony

1.1.2

The site’s senior management shall define and maintain a clear plan for the development and continuing improvement of a food safety and quality culture. This shall include:

·         Defined activities involving all sections of the site that have an impact on product safety

·         An action plan indicating how the activities will be undertaken and measured, and the intended timescales

·         A review of the effectiveness of completed activities 

Hello Nikki R,

I have slowly been working on this for BRC V8, although I am not complete I will gladly point you in the direction I found some good information from.

1) http://www.foodstand...es/default.aspx

- Gives you a good guidance on the questions to ask in a questionnaire, plus a few other bits to look at.

2) Although its BRC you are doing have a look at the attached GFSI food safety culture document I have attached.

This has given myself a good starting point. I am planning to do a questionnaire for 15% of our workforce to get a general concensus of our current food safety culture, see which area we are weakest in and create a document plan with timescales etc.

Hi Swiftee,

Thank you for this, it made interesting reading. So far I have managed to make a procedure and questionnaire which is currently being completed by all staff. When that is completed I am hoping i will be able to analysis the results without to much difficulty and put an action plan in place. I used the FSA's Food Safety Culture diagnostic toolkit for food inspectors. It is a lot of reading but cleared a lot of thing up for me. I have attached the toolkit and questionnaire in case they help you out as well x 

Thanks Nikki R, I have looked at this but didnt find it too useful personally. Thanks anyways.

I think you need to be very careful on the questionnaire. As few questions as possible would be best. if it is still effective that is. Also i would ask questions that would not prompt corrective actions, and that also depends on how many questionnaires you have/ the frequency of questionnaire. If you are comfortable with adding another huge headache in regards to ensuring corrective actions and preventative measures are in place and effective. just my .02

Hello Nikki R,

I have slowly been working on this for BRC V8, although I am not complete I will gladly point you in the direction I found some good information from.

 

1) http://www.foodstand...es/default.aspx

- Gives you a good guidance on the questions to ask in a questionnaire, plus a few other bits to look at.

2) Although its BRC you are doing have a look at the attached GFSI food safety culture document I have attached.

 

This has given myself a good starting point. I am planning to do a questionnaire for 15% of our workforce to get a general concensus of our current food safety culture, see which area we are weakest in and create a document plan with timescales etc.

Thanks for sharing this.

Together with the IFSQN webinar from 2016 I hope I can get enough information to complete our work with this new requirement.

Might be easier to buy the Interpretation Guidelines (if they already exist (?)) ?.

They do and are free of charge on BRC Participate. Please find relevant pages (2) attached.

Thks. Admirable intentions but one half-wonders if BRC are slightly grasping for new material to justify ver8.

A boosted "Management Commitment" ?

I am struggling with what to do to comply.  I am assissting a very small company (40 people)  They have worked for the business for many years and 99.9% English not their first language but have a good understanding of BRC HACCP etc.  The process is simple and there is only the Managing Director and me as technical consultant as the senior team. I don't want to over burden the company I need to keep it really simple.  Is a questionnaire the only way to start this process?  Check out https://techni-k.co.uk/culture-survey/ for free questionnaires

Thanks for your help 

Hello Techgirl,

Looking at all the information provided at the moment they seem to all start with a questionnaire. The Food Safety Culture Module from BRC is also a questionnaire this module was developed by BRC Global Standards in partnership with TSI. I have attached the information document for this module. 

I have attached the questions I have put together, which is a combination of questions I have found from different sources while looking into this clause. This is WIP as I need to add some quality questions still but should give you an idea. I would start off with something similar see what the workers thoughts are to each questions, see where the workers feel the company is weaker at and then put a plan together to improve this.

Example: If the questionnaire reveals staff feel the responsibility for food safety is the directors responsibility only, come up with a plan to improve this perception so that they come to understand it is the responsibility of everyone. 

Hope this helps.

We plan to put in a Suggestion Box--for starters--on this new clause.

not sure if this has been stated elsewhere on the forum, but make sure if you have cameras on site that the suggestion box is not in view of the camera....this has been stated by BRC Trainers verbatim.

BRC Food Culture Guidelines Mar19.docx   41.8KB   1045 downloads

1.1.2

 

The site’s senior management shall define and maintain a clear plan for the development and continuing improvement of a food safety and quality culture. This shall include:

·         Defined activities involving all sections of the site that have an impact on product safety

·         An action plan indicating how the activities will be undertaken and measured, and the intended timescales

·         A review of the effectiveness of completed activities 

This can be found in the BRC Food Culture Guidance notes:

The auditor told us that for this clause 1.1.2 we should have an detailed plan, it could be a 5 year plan. The plan should indicate clear action that will be taken, not only stating we will do "this" to improve "that". But a plan with a timeline, this will be done at this time, etc. 

It's kind of blurry this clause in the BRC version 8.

I feel like it's more of a HR project.

Somebody know why BRC decided to add this kind of clause to the new version?

We're trying to elaborate our plan, we did a small survey with multiple answer question as a start.

The auditor told us that for this clause 1.1.2 we should have an detailed plan, it could be a 5 year plan. The plan should indicate clear action that will be taken, not only stating we will do "this" to improve "that". But a plan with a timeline, this will be done at this time, etc. 

It's kind of blurry this clause in the BRC version 8.

I feel like it's more of a HR project.

Somebody know why BRC decided to had this kind of clause to the new version?

We're trying to elaborate our plan, we did a small survey with multiple answer question as a start.

Hi S-S,

Based on comments in parallel thread linked below, Looks like yr auditor's "detailed" expectation is somewhat out of step with current BRC thinking -

https://www.ifsqn.co...re/#entry141306

For now, our HR department is actually handling this Food Safety Culture program for us. They start with a survey on our company values (as many of you suggested) & small non-mandatory meetings every Friday y(with Mexican breads :)

Surprisingly, quite a bit of plant employees want to interact with plant management as well. It all starts with creating the right Environment … I guess.

HT

Thank you. 

Hi Swiftee,

 

Thank you for this, it made interesting reading. So far I have managed to make a procedure and questionnaire which is currently being completed by all staff. When that is completed I am hoping i will be able to analysis the results without to much difficulty and put an action plan in place. I used the FSA's Food Safety Culture diagnostic toolkit for food inspectors. It is a lot of reading but cleared a lot of thing up for me. I have attached the toolkit and questionnaire in case they help you out as well x 

Great work. Can you also attach the procedure ? It would help several members. Cheers

(> Post 6)

(> Post 14)

We finally had our BRC audit last week and walked away with 1 NC. Our auditor said my food safety culture questionnaire, policy and procedure was the best he had seen so far! So happy to help anyone else still struggling if needed.

Since it's apparently tried and true, and if you have no issues with posting the information, I'd encourage you to do so.

Marshall

Nice discustion