Building a food safety culture requires buy-in from everyone

Anyone who has spent a few years working in the food industry, whether you are involved with the production of foods, beverage or ingredients, knows the truth of Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

It is up to the processor’s management team and staff to build the programs necessary to keep Mr. Murphy out of their operation. One of the tools that more and more operations are adopting is what is known as “the food safety culture.” The term may be relatively new, but the philosophy is not. In fact, the philosophy may well go back as far as 1844, when Alexandre Dumas wrote “The Three Musketeers.” In other words:

“All for one and one for all, united we stand, divided we fall.”

In other words, everyone in the operation is working together towards a common goal of food safety. The “food safety culture” verbiage may be relatively recent, but there are food processors that have adopted the philosophy all over the world. As an example, I was in a facility in Southeast Asia once that had developed its own food safety culture. At their morning management meeting, the management staff stood and together recited their food safety philosophy. It turned out that each and every worker in the plant not only knew this philosophy, but were able to explain it and their role in ensuring the production of safe, high quality products; all for one and one for all.