Looking for Novel Ways to Promote Food Safety in Manufacturing
As a quality and food safety manager for a medium to large sized ingredients manufacturer, I'm looking for ways to promote food safety and the culture of quality.
Well, there is this, which I guess to date is the definitive book.
Since this is a requirement in BRC 8, I'm struggling a bit with this as well.
Anyone have a Silver Bullet?
Marshall
One idea I read somewhere - make it personable. Have a bulletin board and put on top - why food safety matters or something of that nature. Get pictures from employees of who matters most to them and put on the bulletin board.
A food safety or quality employee of the month. A potential reward - a close parking spot.
One of the most unique and successful engagement programs I saw in a facility was many years ago, in Nicaragua at a sugar cane processing facility. I was truly impressed when I saw not only how visible their program was, but how the staff took to it. In the end it wasn't any specific "thing" they did, it was their approach; they engaged their marketing team to design and implement the program. As I thought about it, it made sense, the experts at creating a connection between product and individual are the marketing people. Since that time, I have seen a few companies take the same direction, with positive results. One of those times that maybe the technical team isn't the right choice for a facility project.
To build a food safety culture, involve your team and develop advocates on the production floor. You will encounter folks who really "get it". Make sure they are key players in the implementation systems. Explain why an initiative is important then have the team participate in developing the solutions. This is a powerful part of both HACCP team effectiveness and floor level implementation.
There are a hundred perks or rewards you can give out, but having people care about the results is priceless! People make it happen not mugs.
I like to bring up cases of food poisoning, or a good tampering case always gets everyone to listen for a moment.
Hello,
There has been an interesting webinar by IFSQN around this topic, see link below. It might be very helpful, if you haven't seen it yet.
Kind regards,
Gerard Heerkens