Establishing A FrontLine Defense For Global Food Safety!

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"Recall" coming to an establishment near you

Success as a food service provider in today's global marketplace will requires you to promote Global Food Safety as a catalysis for organizations growth, and your staff as front line defenders of the quality and safety of food products.  Only the players that "spotlight" responsible food safety and sanitation practices as a framework that promotes a Culture of Food Safety within their organization will stay in business. 
  

Gone are the days when you just trusted your food safety planning and implementation to third parties that does not understand or have a vision of how your products will affect the global food service marketplace.  Everyone now must serves as front line defense within the organization.  This requires a understanding  your H.A.C.C.P. plan and how every delivery will affect your operation.  

Designed by NASA To Keep Astronauts Foods Safe  In Space

Designed to address food safety hazards most fear at that time. The HACCP concept was first developed by Pillsbury in the 1960s, as a quality control program to govern the production of food for the United States space program.    H.A.C.C.P. stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, a systematic preventive approach of handling foods and identifying  physical, chemical, and biological hazards that could enter into the food production processes.   By today's standards, out of the box  H.A.C.C.P. Plans do not   meet every organizations standards because every organization is as different as every organizations products offerings.  Serving great food will require the best ingredients, and promoting Global Food Safety must be the first ingredient on your menu?  Global Food Safety is not just a reference to the world as your marketplace, but also the notion that universal food safety standards must be practiced throughout the organization.  

Global Food Safety Starts At The Local Level

Global food safety starts within a local organization and must include all the stakeholders; from the busboy to the salesperson that ensures and understand how every purchased ingredient will fit into your operation Plan.  Today the world is your marketplace, no matter how you market your products.  By virtue of global marketplace that delivers ingredients for around the world, every food service operator must be ready to handle recalls of products you purchase.  To make the picture clearer, consider the tourist that is going to walk into your establishment, who just so happens to be traveling from Bangkok, China, takes your food service to the other side of the globe. Not having a policy statement on carry outs or a plan for them to carry your famous crab soup back home, makes your establishment a target for an outbreak, loss of income or worse out of business as a result of the high cost of doing business in a global marketplace.  Today, whether your market is local or China, only responsible food handling will keep you doing business.  

                                             The High Cost of Doing Business

A series of high-profile food safety incidents have helped stress the need for major improvements to the nation's food safety system.  An occurrence of E. coli in fresh spinach sickened more than 200 people in 26 states, and resulted in the deaths of five people.  The spinach industry estimated that the economic losses from this recall ranged from $37 to $74 million.  In December 2006, E. coli was detected in lettuce and sickened more than 70 people in five states, which resulted in the hospitalization of approximately eighty-six people. Initially, green onions were mistakenly thought to have been the source of the E. coli leading one restaurant to pull all its green onions from its 5,800 locations.  In 2011 and 2012 alone, food recalls will rack up some $227 Million in Economic Costs according to  Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS).

Creating A Culture of Food Safety

Gone are the days when you hire someone that does not understand food safety as an integral part of their duties and responsibilities.  Responsible employers will putting in place training, development and a means of measuring when a staff member needs to be re-trained.  Having a partner or staff members that can document operation and training instructions, as well as a way to qualify new staff and re-train and retain current staff as new products are added. Each facility should have designated personnel that are certified, and have developed critical thinking to insure your plan is being carried out.

A custom H.A.C.C.P. Plan will ensure each staff members has a working knowledge of the organizations sanitation plan, and what to do when or if a critical control point has been breached.  The custom H.A.C.C.P. Plan will also reflect menu changes, and every time a potentially hazardous event has been identified.  The what if, when, or how to handle foods or food surfaces that come into contact with processing foods becomes everybody's business when they understand your business objectives.  Promoting a culture of food safety spotlights what to do when foods do not meet the organizations standards, instead of how much an ingredient cost that compromises your operation.   

How To Measure If Your Organization Is Promoting Global Food Safety

The measure should always be; who is the least likely person in your organization to understand what will happen if a violation of food safety was to happen within your organization.  Once you have identified these persons or individuals,  ask them a series of questions.   How are ingredients received, and condition they must be stored within your facility?  If a item has been identified as recalled by a vendors: what are the steps in finding, labeling and taking out of circulation?  Handling hot foods, cold foods: if a food is suppose to be hot or cold, what are the core temperatures?   What do you do if those foods are not at the desired temperatures? How does your organization measure and or correct foods that do not meet the quality standards?  Is there any point of the day, when foods or ingredients are exposed to the temperature danger zones for more that 1 hour?  If exposed, how do we corrected, and if corrected, what actions are taken to insure these items are identified, labeled, recorded and take out of safe food supply? 

If any of these concerns or questions are evident, on any level, you have the potential of  having an outbreak within your organization and there may be a need to develop a plan or promote food safety as a workplace expectation or culture. Merriam-Webster Online states "culture" is "the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education".  To arrive at a point that food safety has become an essential ingredient; culturally engrained an expectation or process of developing your staffs intellectual and moral faculties must place.  In today's marketplace, a greater emphases on what we do to "keep products safe" vs. "how to make it good"!   

Your staff as the front line defenders of the quality and safety of food products is paramount; with the emphases on a culture of food safety! To allow food safety as a value to be secondary or anything other that "a core expectation" of employment may stresses that food safety plays a lessor importance's within the organization.  Remember promoting global food safety is everyone's business, if you are going to stay in business in a competitive global marketplace, promoting a culture of food safety must be your first objective!

Larry Bowe, Principle Consultant; H.A.C.C.P. Navigator LLC, a certified ServSafe Food Safety Instructor and Proctor, as well as a certified instructor, proctor for retail food service, grocery outlets by The National Registry of Food Safety Professionals.   

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