Food safety culture implementation

Hello,

Since the SQF version has been revised, I am planning to implement Food Safety Culture in place in my organization. How am I supposed to implement it? I was planning through training.

Please advise. Thanks

Ankita Dharma

We had our Edition 9 Audit on the first day it was live. What we did to prepare for this particular section is to first find out WHERE we are. I modified a through questionnaire about FS Culture and came up with a matrix to evaluate where the employees see our culture. The auditor loved it. Going forward we will be doing it at least annually and tracking our progress and making adjustments to training, communication, etc as needed. We will also be implementing a  separate food safety culture statement. I like being able to track it from where we started and continually improve our scores. We know we have some work to do (due to some former managers and their attitudes). We did some pretty deep analytics of our initial results. 

Since I have no clue how to edit my above post. The auditor even asked for a copy of what I had created to show as an example (which I gave him)

Would you please share your questionnaire?  Thanking you

Would you please share your questionnaire?  Thanking you

How do I do that?  I don't know all the features of this site just yet. 

Morning Esutt, some features like editing posts and linking docs don't get turned on until your each a certain thresh hold I believe. I'm honestly not sure if this is a timed thing or a participation thing, most likely timed as we get quite a few bots trying to advertise on the website. 

Would you please share your questionnaire?  Thanking you

Figured it out.

Working on the Spanish version of the questionnaire now. 

Hello!

Could anyone share a food safety culture plan?  :smile: 

Thank you

I got a huge help referencing sample doc's presented on food safety culture discussions on this forum. My food safety culture plan is similar to one of those presented here. Attached - samples of my plan, policy, questionnaire, etc. In addition to the questionnaire, I have my workers a written quiz for better understanding of food safety culture. I had an audit last week and the auditor was happy and completely satisfied with what we've done so far. 

We had our Edition 9 Audit on the first day it was live. What we did to prepare for this particular section is to first find out WHERE we are. I modified a through questionnaire about FS Culture and came up with a matrix to evaluate where the employees see our culture. The auditor loved it. Going forward we will be doing it at least annually and tracking our progress and making adjustments to training, communication, etc as needed. We will also be implementing a  separate food safety culture statement. I like being able to track it from where we started and continually improve our scores. We know we have some work to do (due to some former managers and their attitudes). We did some pretty deep analytics of our initial results. 

Hi ESuttmiller, 

So you basically came up with a questionnaire and just evaluated it through your matrix? Did you write up a policy or procedure at all?

Seems the SQF code is unclear of what to actually do in this section. I have added a couple lines to our policy statement but I have not actually created a separate policy or procedure for food safety culture. Do you feel this is necessary?

Thank you, 

Chris 

We are in process of writing a separate FS Culture statement (we are seasonal so this is currently our "down time" ). We implemented some new programs based on our results. We will then send out the questionnaire at least once after we start up for the season and be able to show change from the initial data. Olenazh also posted some good information. 

Hi Ankita

We had an unannounced SQF Audit on the cusp of edition 9. We received a minor for not having a plan moving forward with food safety culture. We had put into place the anonymous suggestion box but that was not enough. We formed a steering group from across the company and as we are seasonal we had to get a questionnaire out quickly to cover the casuals employed for the season. the steering group and the plan to move forward was enough to close the audit. we have since received feed back from staff and we are now in the progress of setting up tool box meetings, informing staff of responses from the anonymity box and getting posters put around displaying food safety culture. Results brightly coloured has been displayed with percentages of each question from the staff questionnaire. once the new items have been in place for a few weeks we will put out the questionnaire again with a few more questions on it and then we will be able to measure the food safety culture. Over the close down season we will work on new items to encourage a better culture and then repeat the process again next season with the allocated seasonal workers again. To be able to measure we will have to do two surveys in the season. I have attached our plan which as we go along will probably change to suit work commitments. Food Safety Culture Plan 2021.docx   25.21KB   571 downloads