SQF – The Road Ahead: Interview with Robert Garfield
Food Safety Tech: We’re very excited to have you kick off the SafetyChain/Food Safety Tech GFSI Leadership Webcast Series with your August 22 webinar, “SQF – The Road Ahead” webinar. Can you start by telling us what is new with SQF today? What are some of the things you’ll be talking about in terms of current changes?
Bob Garfield: We’re very busy here. We have a new version of our code, 7.2, which was introduced in the beginning of July. GFSI benchmarks standards every 3 years. Historically, SQF hasn’t waited for every 3 years to revise our code. This is the second time since our last benchmark that we will be revising our code based on the best science and technology that our stakeholders are putting forward. We’re pretty excited about that. We’ve added in some things that we think are important for all suppliers and people using the SQF code to keep them at the leading edge of science, technology, and the needs of buyers. That’s the primary one, but there are a bunch of things that I will be talking about as well in the webcast, including new modules on produce, feed, and pet food.
FST: We’re sure that unannounced SQF audits will be a topic of many questions during the webcast. What are some of the key takeaways attendees will leave the webinar with on this topic?
Garfield: Change is always difficult for some organizations. I understand why, but going through the SQF process is not to just get a certificate on the wall. We know from our stakeholders that it’s a commitment to food safety management, all the time, from the top to the bottom of a facility’s management. A facility needs to be audit-ready all the time, and we believe that the unannounced audit protocol that we are establishing will allow facilities to accomplish that audit readiness goal. We are fully aware that regulators and other food safety stakeholders are more and more looking at unannounced audits as the direction that food auditing needs to take in order to ensure consumers that what we are doing is the best it can be. It’s the most that we can do to ensure the safety of the food supply.
Garfield: Yes, there is. The business driver that is the primary focus of SQF is exactly what our executive committee from the Food Marketing Institute has told us – that the value proposition for SQF is to improve safety internationally as much as possible. Retailers are the closest that anyone can get to consumers. They believe that the purpose and the scope of SQF has to be continuous improvement to make food safety as close to foolproof as possible.
FST: What are some of the things we’ll learn in the webinar about why embracing change is critical to the ongoing success of SQF?
Garfield: Change is always critical and important. Embracing change is critical to the success of SQF because it is not a stagnant standard. It changes as science and technology evolve. Food safety and food safety management in particular are two areas that are constantly evolving as we learn more about how to protect the food supply chain, and we continuously update the code to make improvements that reflect this. Change is critical to the success of SQF. We are constantly evolving the code – it’s a process that must be ongoing.
FST: We know that you’ll be providing advice on how companies can start today to prepare for tomorrow’s SQF. Can you tell us some of the topics you’ll be addressing in this part of the webinar?
Garfield: To clarify, SQF doesn’t provide advice – we provide guidance with the SQF code. As we continue to evolve the code, we also evolve our guidance to support that process. I’ll be talking about things we do to help our users and stakeholders to evolve their own knowledge. For example, I’ll discuss our advanced practitioner course that we’ve just started to offer to help practitioners gain better understanding and know-how about how to manage food safety at their facilities.
FST: It has been said that SQF certification is a very good start to preparing for FSMA compliance. What are some of the key points you’ll be addressing when it comes to FSMA compliance?
Garfield: It is a good start. SQF is an international code and there are things in the code that are equal to or above what FSMA is requiring. There are also areas that are different. This is why we’ve hired Dr. David Acheson to do a comparison of our code against FSMA’s proposed preventive control and produce rules. Both of these comparisons are available on our website at www.sqfi.com. We’ll be able to make more comparisons/gap analysis when the final rules come out in 2015. As I discussed with FDA, we’ll look at the final rules and see how we match, exceed, or may need to do some work on our particular code if we think it’s appropriate.