1 The Importance of Food Safety Culture

Food Safety is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as: “the conditions and practices that preserve the quality of food to prevent contamination and food-borne illnesses.”

The concept of keeping food safe has been around since people began traveling from place to place and eating meals outside the home. One of the most significant contributors to modern day food safety is Upton Sinclair’s book, “The Jungle” written back in 1906. It was through this book that the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were both passed in 1906. Additional food safety regulations have been written and passed since this time.

Food safety within an organization focuses on obtaining, maintaining, and serving food that is safe for human consumption. It is the organizations’ ability to follow the rules and regulations of the governing body of that location, state or federal body. In the United States, this includes the local, state, and/or federal health department, the Food and Drug Administration, the United States Department of Agriculture, among others. These rules and regulations include mandated standards put into place to ensure the operation is taking complete care to prevent, minimize or eliminate food borne illness. Such measures include HACCP recipes, temperature logs, daily operational control sheets as well as other documents along the management cycle of control.

In addition to minimizing food borne illness, food safety helps us maximize our food dollar and profits while minimizing moneys spent should an outbreak occur. In 2018, according to PubMed.gov the cost of a single foodborne illness outbreak ranged from $3968 to $1.9 million for a fast-food restaurant, $6330 to $2.1 million for a fast-casual restaurant, $8030 to $2.2 million for a casual-dining restaurant, and $8273 to $2.6 million for a fine-dining restaurant (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29656701/)

This is money that the operation will never recover. This is the cost of the outbreak in terms of legal fees and laws suits. This is not the cost to the operation in trying to win back customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is almost priceless and the word of mouth that comes with it often causes the restaurant to close.

Food Safety Culture is defined by the Global Food Safety Initiative as:

“Shared values, beliefs and norms that affect mindset and behavior toward food safety in, across and throughout an organization.”

Foods Safety Culture deals with the emotions, behaviors, and attitudes of all the employees toward food safety practices and execution within the organization. It deals more with doing the right thing, even when no one is looking; it is promoting positive food safety behavior in all employees not because they have to but because they want to. It is promoting an open dialogue between all levels of employee so those who see poor behaviors can go to their supervisor without fear of retaliation.

As you can see, Food safety Culture is much more than processes and procedures of the operation but rather the attitude and integrity your staff must have to do their job up to standard even when they are not being evaluated.

As you can see Food Safety is the “what must be done to keep food and people safe”, while Food Safety Culture “is building a trusting, mutual respect relationship between all employees” to do the right thing.

Establishing a food safety culture within an existing organization may be one of the hardest things a Compliance Manager can do as food safety behaviors have already been established throughout the organization. These behaviors have either been taught, encouraged or gone unchecked and therefore these poor practices are the existing culture. If the negative behaviors outweigh the positive ones, then the existing food safety culture is in poor shape and the behavior shift will be very expensive to change. However, with persistence, dedication and modeling positive behaviors, retraining positive behaviors, there can by a cultural shift.