The latest news, trends, analysis, interviews and podcasts from the global food and beverage industry

John Hanlin, PhD, vice president of R&D and food safety and quality management systems at Ecolab, explores how food and beverage companies can strengthen food safety by examining attitudes, behaviours, leadership and engagement with best-practice techniques at every level of the business.

Every food and beverage company has a culture around food safety. But only some of them are actively shaping and strengthening it. When it comes to defining what, exactly, a “strong food safety culture” looks like, a surprising number of operations struggle to define it comprehensibly and in actionable terms.

Many opt to define food safety in terms of what isn’t happening. For example: 'Food safety means successfully avoiding product contamination, excess scrap/rework and recalls'.

Avoiding incidents is obviously a key outcome of strong food safety practices. But what’s often missing is a deeper look at how leading food and beverage manufacturers create the culture that drives those results. In its ideal form, food safety culture is the foundation of your food safety and quality management system. It is the vehicle through which a strong HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) plan translates into consistent, concrete food safety wins at every level.

At the heart of food safety culture are four central pillars – attitudes, behaviours, leadership and engagement – that food and beverage manufacturers can use to build and maintain a strong foundation for their food safety and quality goals. These pillars offer a direct path toward a stronger food safety culture with concrete action items leaders can put into place.

Pillar 1: Attitudes

The way your team acts begins with the way they think.

In the same way, a strong food safety culture begins with the attitudes held by its employees and the emphasis the company places on food safety. Ultimately, the sign of a good culture is what your teams do when no one from management is watching.

Putting attitudes into practice

• Build an enthusiasm for food safety into every training programme. Remind the people working production lines that they are doing more than just producing a unit to fulfil a quota: they are creating real food that real people are going to eat or drink. Building this awareness into food safety training is the first step toward setting teams up for success.

  
  

• Tailor on-the-job food safety training to the specific requirements of a given task or responsibility as opposed to offering generic platitudes, eg. 'remember to prioritise food safety'.

  
  

• Demonstrate respect for your employees' time and perspectives by incorporating their feedback and suggestions into the continuous improvement of food safety procedures.

Pillar 2: Behaviours

Effective food safety requires clear communication, consistent action and real accountability. Strong cultures ensure teams follow well-defined, enforced standards.

Putting attitudes into practice

• Clearly define parameters for hygiene practices (handwashing, proper clothing, work boots and PPE) when entering production areas. Create guidelines for further action when employees violate these hygiene practices.

  
  

• Create a centralised repository for the collection of data concerning SSOPs, complete with documentation on whether a cleaning and sanitation activity was performed, traceable to each individual.

  
  

• Build a centralised repository that can serve as a go-to source for job-specific food safety instructions and procedures.

Pillar 3: Leadership

Proper food safety behaviours are put into effect by floor operators, but they must be modelled by leaders and supervisors. Why? Because at the end of the day, leaders are responsible for drawing the clear connection between strong food safety and good business, an end result that benefits team members at every level. If it appears to be unimportant to supervisors, it will be viewed as unimportant to production associates.

Putting leadership into practice

• Regularly incorporate food safety talking points into leadership communications and take care to directly connect them to positive customer and employee outcomes.

  
  

• Make food safety ambitions concrete by setting food safety goals each year. It is far easier to rally a team around a specific target as opposed to vague rhetoric.

  
  

• Demonstrate respect for food safety procedures by holding yourself accountable to the same standards as floor operators whenever you are observing onsite. If they can't wear their watch on the floor, neither can you!

Pillar 4: Engagement

Food safety is not a one-and-done endeavour, nor is food safety culture. By continuously engaging with floor operators and team members of all kinds, leadership can leverage the on-the-ground expertise pulsing throughout their teams toward smarter, more efficient and more effective food safety practices.

Putting engagement into practice

• Create a regular cadence for soliciting employee feedback on food safety procedures. Gauge employee opinions on how well current procedures are being followed, whether new rules and restrictions are required, etc.

  
  

• Consider an always-on means of collecting anonymous feedback through a digital tool.

  
  

• Celebrate food safety wins, both big and small. Actively recognise the work of food safety leaders and other employees who bring food safety initiatives to life - through a recurring spotlight in an internal newsletter, for example.

Prevent missteps. Prioritise safety. Build a lasting culture.

The above four pillars provide a foundation for deploying your HACCP plan and delivering high-quality, food-safe products consistently. As you continue to fine-tune your food safety culture, it’s also useful to keep an eye out for the warning signs of a weak culture, all of which fall under what we like to call ‘The Four Cs’:

Conflicting priorities: Teams aren't working as a cohesive unit.

Warning signs: Preventive maintenance is consistently pushed back; sanitary design is deprioritised.

Complacency: Teams don't have the tools or training they need.

Warning signs: There is no desire to seek out pathogens within the plant; damaged equipment and utensils go unreplaced.

Carelessness: Teams don't understand how seemingly small actions connect to food safety.

Warning signs: Pre-op teams release visually soiled equipment to production; damaged equipment and utensils go unreplaced.

Consequences: Teams lack accountability and motivation.

Warming signs: Responsibility for food safety is passed around like a hot potato; employees aren't being recognised for achieving food safety and quality metrics.

Remember: Your food safety culture is the foundation of your food safety and quality management system, and a genuinely motivated, educated and empowered team is the foundation of your food safety culture. When the people who keep your operations running share an understanding of food safety’s central role and a commitment to meeting food safety goals, there is no limit to how powerful your food safety function can grow.