Food Safety Culture and its Elements

INTRODUCTION A new buzz word “food safety culture” has become very popular in food processing industries lately. Along with the concepts of food safety compliance and conformance, the most discussed concept in food processing industry now a days is “food safety culture”. One of the very important reasons for it is introduction of the concept of food safety culture as part of the requirements of the standards like BRC, SQF and other GFSI certification schemes. So when organizations start developing food safety culture, they go with developing documentations like SOP, checklists and records for the same.

- Sumedha Jalgaonkar*

Also when auditor do assessments for food safety culture, food safety culture is judged by system, documentation, checklists and records for monitoring and verification of effectiveness of food safety culture. However, food safety culture is a “practical” concept more than a “theoretical” concept. Along with the objective evidences of SOPs, checklists and records, the food safety culture will be judged by some practical approach of the organization towards food safety.

WHAT IS FOOD SAFETY CULTURE?

Food safety culture is the values of an organization with respect to food safety. The culture especially means “doing the things with responsibility, awareness and integrity even when no one is watching”. It is just not about understanding of importance of food safety but also knowing what is individual’s role in protecting it.

A strong food safety culture helps a facility both to prevent and catch deviations in their processes that impact the safety, quality, and legality of their products and also likelihood and severity of a recall impacting that site.

Just like the concept of PRP and HACCP, food safety culture also proves to be “preventive measure” for ensuring food safety in organization.

Here is the list of a few important factors which are crucial for developing, consistently maintaining and improving food safety culture of the organization:

LEADERSHIP