The “choice to chase” Listeria should not and cannot be made lightly. This is not a task to be given solely to the Food Safety & Quality Assurance (FSQA) department. Senior management across the organization needs to understand what this means, be educated on the actions and consequences, share the risk, and share the accolades. In a very real sense, all of this relates to the food safety culture of the company and its business success. Dr. Lone Jespersen addresses these factors in her paper on economic gain and a mature food safety culture.
No company is going to say publicly they would not make a choice to chase. It’s unethical, and bad business practice. However, it’s their actions which are telling. How they chase is what matters. The hierarchy of the chase:
- Close your eyes and hope nothing happens.
- Put the FSQA organization on the front line to handle any audits and inspections which relate to the microbiological cleanliness of the plant. They are on their own.
- Form a FSQA + Sanitation Team that is charged with plant cleanliness. They are on their own.
- Provide the FSQA + Sanitation Team whatever it needs to assess Listeria risks in the plant–people, equipment, training, and budget.
- Expand the “choice to chase” team to include the HACCP team, and representatives from senior management.
- Charge the team with finding Listeria species wherever they may be, and communicating those results to management.
- Charge the team with finding Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) wherever it may be, getting DNA results for Lm, and comparing those results with the CDC’s database, PulseNet.
The challenge (and opportunity) with the latter two approaches is that the company will end up with data demonstrating that Listeria exists in the plant. If Listeria is in the plant, it could get in the food. Hence, many senior managers do not want to know these kinds of results, and they enable an organizational culture that does the same. See point #1, above.
Looking for Lm and finding it in non-product zones can be truly enlightening and empowering. Confirming that its DNA is not in the CDC database can be comforting–no one else has found “your” Listeria in their plants or in listeriosis cases. This gives you the freedom to contain your own problem.
In all cases except #1 above, sanitation and microbiological results must be shared properly with senior management. This requires ongoing education, and a competent team that can address contamination (this requires senior management to hire the right people). Why is this important? Of course it’s to make sure everyone is on the same proverbial page regarding the data. But far more importantly, it’s to raise everyone’s awareness of food safety risk to the company’s products.
Sharing data, sharing ideas to solve contamination problems, and sharing effectiveness of corrective actions serve the purpose of sharing the risk across the company, i.e., the senior management team. Said another way, senior management needs to be aware of all the data, at all times.
If leadership listens and provides resources (and stops shipping product when appropriate), then the FSQA team is well supported and can feel empowered to work even harder to make the choice to chase Listeria. This is the kind of culture and support which matters most to making sure Listeria is managed well. It is also the kind of environment FSQA professionals can be proud of, knowing they are making a very positive impact on public health.
This is the 6th in a series of 6 Listeria in Food Plants articles. See the Related Articles below to read the series.
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