Using Data to Ensure Food Chain Security

By Maria Fontanazza

Moving forward, if food manufacturers, suppliers and distributors want to be ahead of the game, they’ll need to have the ability to view their product throughout the supply chain. During a discussion with Food Safety Tech, Trish Meek, director of product strategy at Thermo Fisher Scientific, explains the importance of product traceability in the food chain, from both a consumer and food producer’s perspective.

Food Safety Tech: In your recent article about Integrated Informatics, you cite it as an ideal solution to modernizing a highly distributed food chain. What are the challenges you see companies facing in managing their global supply chain?

Trish Meek: We’ve seen the issues related to intentional adulteration documented throughout the media, and they extend to traceability. For example, what Tesco experienced during the horsemeat scandal wasn’t necessarily intentional adulteration, but rather a matter of not understanding the supply chain. Horsemeat was introduced in France as legitimate meat and then it ended up in the UK. In this case, you have a lack of traceability and thus a lack of understanding of what has happened to your product in its lifecycle.

Trish Meek, Thermo Fisher Scientific — “With consumer demand for foods that are free of gluten, GMOs and antibiotics, it’s becoming more important to customers that they understand everything that has happened to the animal and the food source.” –Trish Meek

In this complex world of suppliers, distributors and food producers, having the ability to pull in analytical data and manage it regardless of the source (whether it’s from the initial ingredient supplier or the final manufacturer) is a critical piece in understanding the overall lifecycle picture. An integrated informatics solution provides a single source of truth for that information: From the technician operating the lab process to the lab manager who is overseeing to the integration into the enterprise-level system. It provides a complete view on everything that has happened to your data, while also enabling the management of regional specifications.

FST: What are the biggest concerns in the area of food chain security?

Meek: Traceability is key, and the common denominator is food chain security: Ensuring that you’re providing security and with an understanding of everything that happened to your product, which leads to quality assurance and brand security.

FST: What are the concerns related to food chain security?

Meek: There are a few concerns:

Adulteration
Correct label claims. For example, 30% of the populous is trying to avoid gluten. While 1% is truly allergic to it, there’s a lot of gluten intolerance. Take, for example, recent commercials from Cheerios saying they are ensuring traceability and can say with confidence that their product no longer comes into contact with wheat in any part of the process. There’s an understanding that consumers want to believe what’s on the label, from both a health and allergy perspective as well as a concern in the public around unhealthy ingredients added or antibiotics used. As a food producer, you want to make sure you can honestly state what has happened to the food and that what you’ve put on your label is true. People are willing to pay a premium, and so there’s a drive towards the premium of being able to claim no GMOs on a label or an organic product.
From a food producer’s point of view, having traceability from all suppliers is key. They want to ensure that any raw materials have been handled and managed with all the same scrutiny and adherence to regulatory requirements as their own processes. With ingredients coming from all over the world, manufacturers are relying on multi-sourcing ingredients from places they don’t necessarily control, so they need to have the traceability before the ingredients appear in the final product.

Using an Integrated Informatics Platform

Trish Meek: Through an integrated informatics platform, users can manage the entire lab process and integrate it into the enterprise system. Having the ability to incorporate the lab data is critical to ensuring product safety, quality and traceability throughout the entire supply chain. Because the solution encompasses lab processes and required lab functionalities, it enables efficiency both in the laboratory as well as across the entire operation. The solution provides an opportunity not just to the top-tier food producers but also the regionally based middle-tier companies that want to set themselves up for future growth.

The reality of the regulations today is that you must look towards the future. Twenty years ago, we weren’t including information about what nuts were present in the labeling. Now there’s consumer awareness and a change in labeling. And five years from now, there could be a different allergy that needs to be documented in the labeling. Integrated informatics gives you the business agility to take on that next step of analysis and adapt to the marketplace.

October 19, 2015

Food Safety Danger: More Than Half of Employees Go to Work Sick

By Maria Fontanazza

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Today the Center for Research and Public Policy (CRPP) released a survey that highlights several key findings related to how frontline food workers operate and approach their jobs. Commissioned by Alchemy Systems, the annual “Mind of the Food Worker” survey revealed enthusiasm on the part of these employees to continue to grow and move up the ranks within their organizations while also underscoring what has become an increasing problem across all U.S. industries—the fact that employees still show up to work when they’re ill.

“Leadership doesn’t believe that people go to work when they’re sick,” Holly Mockus, product manager at Alchemy, told Food Safety Tech. “If people are sick, they should stay home. Not only are we talking about [infecting] people who you’re working with, but we’re also talking about foodborne illnesses that can be transmitted into food.” Employees go into work when they’re sick for a variety of reasons: They don’t want to let their fellow coworkers down (46% provided this response in the survey); they feel peer pressure as a result of staff shortage; or they feel they simply don’t have a choice due to attendance policies and can’t afford to lose pay (more than 45% of respondents gave this answer). “As an industry we have to take a look at the policies and procedures, along with the way that we’re staffing, and see what we can do to alleviate this [issue]”, says Mockus.

Good News on the Frontlines

Food & workplace safety — Worker confidence reflects a paradigm shift in the food industry.

When confronted with a food safety or product issue, 93% of respondents said they had the confidence to stop working. “The industry has made the paradigm shift that we’ve all been striving so hard to achieve over the last several years,” says Mockus. “The fact that [food workers] understand their role, food safety and workplace safety, and are willing to take responsibility to ensure they stop something that is going awry—that was a very positive thing to come out of the survey.”

The other area of optimism on the frontlines concerns the enthusiasm of workers in improving performance—67% of respondents expressed an interest in being involved in the development of training. This response indicates a movement towards more proactive employees who want to be part of the solution and make a difference. The key takeaway here is for corporate leadership to leverage the institutional knowledge that these in-house frontline workers have to further improve the business and how it operates.

“The food industry needs to take a step back and stop thinking about their workers as hourly workers and instead as an asset to the business,” says Tara Guthrie, communications at Alchemy. “Right now they’re not traditionally viewed as human capital in a corporate world, but they could be a big asset and have a big impact on the bottom line.”

How Employees Learn: A Shift in Mindset

Worker satisfaction — Businesses need to change how they collaborate with and train employees.

Millennials and the reliance on technology have changed how employees learn and operate in the workplace. Within the leadership survey results, nearly 33% of respondents are making changes to adjust to how millennial employees learn. “Traditional management style doesn’t always work well with millennials,” says Mockus. This particular generation is also more in tune with using technology to communicate—even when they are sitting across from each other. Mockus indicates that leadership needs to clearly communicate to millennials the importance of understanding their role within their organizations, especially from a day-to-day operation level, as well as present information in a manner that captures their attention, allows them to retain the information, and enables them to put it into practice every day. This strategy should also extend to other generations of frontline workers. “I think all of us have become accustomed to having immediate information that is encapsulated and contained within a few words,” says Mockus. “We are so used to scanning information and moving on. We have to keep in mind that the way in which people are learning, retaining information and using it is changing. Companies that work toward accommodating those millennials will also be doing a good service for the rest of the adults in the workforce.”

Food Safety and communication gaps that impact the workforce — The survey found some key findings related to communication gaps that impact the workforce.

The survey polled more than 1200 food employees working within production, processing, and distribution—from farms and ranches to slaughterhouses and food processing plants to commercial bakeries, retailers and distributors. It was conducted earlier this summer, and employees were located in the United States and Canada. One of the goals of the survey is to give the industry active takeaways to further drive safety in the food supply. “We are trying to understand the food workers because they’re such an important part of the whole supply chain,” says Mockus. “They are the most important ingredient in every product that is produced.”

For more key findings, view the Mind of the Food Worker survey.

Next month’s Food Safety Consortium conference will address issues related to employee training, Food Safety Culture, compliance and much more. Register here. The event takes place November 17-20 in Schaumburg, IL.

October 14, 2015

FDA to Weigh In on FSMA Enforcement at Food Safety Consortium

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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How will FDA enforce the new FSMA rules? It’s a question that has been circulating throughout industry over the past few months, and it will be answered at this year’s annual Food Safety Consortium conference next month. Michael Taylor, JD, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at FDA will deliver the opening plenary presentation on November 18, which will be followed by an “Ask the FDA” interactive town hall meeting. During the afternoon,

Roberta Wagner, deputy director of regulatory affairs at CFSAN will discuss FSMA implementation and FDA’s strategies for gaining and maintaining industry compliance with the new rules. The agency will also be participating in several conference sessions dedicated to the FSMA rules that will be finalized by November, including:

Foreign Supplier Verification
Preventive Controls in Human Foods
Preventive Controls in Animal Foods
Produce Safety
Third-Party Auditing
Voluntary Qualified Importer Program

During the event, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will also be answering questions related to regulatory compliance and food safety issues at a Small Plant Help Desk.

Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety at Walmart

Beyond FSMA-related topics, the Food Safety Consortium conference will feature several concurrent food safety and quality assurance tracks, workshops and training programs in compliance, food manufacturing and operations, supply chain management, food labs, and foodservice and retail. Food Safety Culture is an especially hot topic right now, and the conference will address the practical ways to actually measure behavior and start taking action. Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety at Walmart will deliver a keynote presentation, “Food Safety = Behavior” on Wednesday, November 18.

October 13, 2015

California Becomes First State to Ban Antibiotics in Livestock

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Last week California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that bans the use of antibiotics in meat production. The legislation, SB-27 Livestock: use of antimicrobial drugs, prohibits the administration of antibiotics in livestock unless ordered by a licensed veterinarian via a prescription or veterinary feed directive. As such, the law bans using drugs to promote weight gain or improve feed efficiency.

Several organizations, including the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), are applauding the legislation. On the NRDC’s blog, senior attorney with the organization’s health program, Avinash Kar, praised the passage of the final bill. “We’ve fought for many years to get the FDA to take genuine action on this issue, but the FDA has basically given the issue lip service and failed to take meaningful action,” wrote Kar.

The legislation, also the most stringent nationwide, goes into effect January 1, 2018. It requires that the Department of Food and Agriculture, in collaboration with the Veterinary Medical Board, the State Department of Health, and other organizations put together antimicrobial stewardship guidelines and best management practices on how to properly use “medically important antimicrobial drugs. The departments would also be required to collect data on the use and sales of these drugs, along with data related to antibiotic resistant bacteria, and livestock management practice data.

Violation in the bill’s provisions will result in a civil penalty of up to $250 for each day the violation occurs, as well as up to $500 in administrative fines for each day the violation occurs.

The use of antibiotics in meat and poultry has been highly controversial for years, as it has been blamed for an increase in antibiotic-resistant infections. In addition, resistant bacteria can be transmitted to humans through the consumption of food. Antibiotic resistance and food safety has been a high priority by the CDC, which estimates that Salmonella and Campylobacter, cause nearly 410,000 antibiotic-resistant infections in the United States annually.

October 8, 2015

How Social Responsibility Affects Food Safety

By Maria Fontanazza

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Today, the idea of engaging in socially responsible practices goes beyond a feel-good concept. When considering food safety, social responsibility can have a big impact on a company’s bottom line, especially with the increased complexity of supply chains, as more ingredients and products are being imported.

According to Anna Key Jesus, senior director of quality systems at Amy’s Kitchen, social responsibility ties into food safety in a few ways:

Increasing market size for large companies equals more imported products as ingredients for processed foods
Differing labor laws from country to country, along with their oversight globally, require vigilance regarding employee rights and safety
A growing and global social media presence has pushed consumers to demand that food companies engage in socially responsible practices

Jesus, who spoke during a recent webinar, “Social Responsibility As a Driver for Food Safety”, discussed how food companies should be implementing socially responsible practices within their organizations and the ethics of providing a safe environment for workers.

“Any company that willfully operates an unsafe working environment for their employees is less likely to provide a safe processing environment for their customers,” said Jesus, adding that unsafe working environments can lead to increased turnover, employee accidents involving loss of attention or oversight, and the presence of blood borne pathogens or other potential safety events. “These conditions directly impact the safety of products.”

She emphasized the use of the SA 8000 standard to drive social responsibility within companies The auditable standard is based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights and is used across industries to protect the basic rights of workers, specifically calling out the prohibition against child labor and forced labor. “Forced or slave laborers do not live in an environment of personal safety,” said Jesus. “Under the conditions that they are held in, it is nearly impossible to promote GMPs or food safety guidelines. We can state with confidence that there are not good manufacturing practices when slave labor is involved.”

SA 8000 components address the following areas, all of which tie back into continuous improvement:

Child labor
Forced or compulsory labor
Health and safety
Freedom of association and right to collective bargaining
Discrimination
Disciplinary practices
Working hours

Jesus urged food companies to carefully look at their own labor practices, as overworked and exhausted employees are the number one cause of accidents in the workplace. This is not only a legal and ethical issue from an employee perspective, but it also affects the execution of sound food safety practices within manufacturing facilities.

October 6, 2015

FDA Awards $600,000 for FSMA Training Center

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Today FDA announced its strategy for training the food industry as part of the successful implementation of FSMA. This included awarding a $600,000 grant to the International Food Protection Training Institute (IFPTI) to establish a National Coordination Center. This center will serve an important function in the training process for the food industry.

“One size won’t fit all when it comes to training,” according to an FDA release. “The most important goal that the FDA expects of any training program is the outcome—that it advances knowledge among the food industry to meet FSMA requirements.” The agency indicated that there will be different options and delivery formats for the training, but wants all hands on deck—domestic and international stakeholders from government, industry and academia—to work with FDA on developing and delivering the training to food suppliers.

The major components of the FSMA Training Strategy include:

Crafting the FSMA alliance curricula
- The alliances include the Produce Safety Alliance, the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance and the Sprout Safety Alliance
Alternate training options
Cooperative agreements, including a five-year agreement with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
Establishing the National Coordination and Regional Centers to support training delivery
Delivering the training
- The three above alliances are developing a Train-the-Trainer program to provide training via an established process. A range of partners will be involved, including the Association of Food and Drug Officials, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, and the Association of American Feed Control Officials
A FSMA collaborative training forum co-chaired by FDA and USDA

October 5, 2015

Beyond the Fluff: Leadership Must Demonstrate Food Safety Culture Through Actions

By Maria Fontanazza

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As the popular phrase goes, if you’re going to talk the talk, then you need to walk the walk. This expression really does ring true when discussing an effective food safety culture within an organization. Timothy Ahn, senior technical manager of food safety at LRQA sheds some light on the importance of management commitment as a foundation for success in implementing a food safety culture and how employee training fits into the picture.

Food Safety Tech: In your column on Food Safety Tech, “Tackling the ‘Why’ of Food Safety”, you touch on the point that food safety culture needs to start at the top. What are the issues in management today that prevents a food safety culture from flourishing within organizations?

Timothy Ahn: First, it’s important to define food safety culture. It can mean a lot of different things to people. The culture is the collective behavior from the organization around shared values and beliefs. From that perspective, it’s extremely important the leadership understands its beliefs and values. The collective behaviors of the leaders become really important, because we’re also talking about how the leadership sets management commitment and drives what’s important in the organization. The organization will follow whatever the leaders do and not necessarily what they say. That’s the issue—having the ability to get commitment from leadership that is demonstrated through their actions, which then transfers into rewards, objectives and consequences. What are the issues that are preventing the culture from embedding itself? Actions aren’t aligned with their words. You have a senior leadership group that will say one thing, but then their actions are different.

In addition, when cascading priorities are very different, food safety doesn’t get the right messages. It’s about growth, market share, profits—all of those financial measures are extremely important, because they have consequences and are also rewarded. Meanwhile, depending on the organization, the objectives around food safety culture may or may not be talked about, defined, or even rewarded. It’s really about making sure that the organization has cascading priorities.

FST: When taking a holistic approach to employee training, what are some of the challenges that companies can expect to encounter?

Ahn: I put food safety into three different buckets that build on top of each other.

At the bottom is the foundation. It’s around good manufacturing practices and all the foundational activities that need to be in place for factory operations. How often you clean your equipment? What do you do around allergens? Can you trace your materials from one end to the other? Do you have a pest control program?
Our food safety system: This includes things around HACCP: Do you have a HACCP plan in place? Do you understand what your hazards are? Have you defined your control measures?
The last bucket is around the management system that drives food safety. Have you defined your objectives? Do you have a policy? Do you conduct a management review? Do you have an internal audit?

The issue with training is many operations only focus on the foundation. You need to have people who know how to clean equipment; you have to make sure that the pest control is done; you need to have good allergen management. Those are all pretty well done. Now you’re starting to get more traction in the second bucket, which is around HACCP, because with FSMA, HACCP is no longer an option; you need to be able to do it.

But the missing piece in many organizations is at the top—the management systems. This is important, because when you talk about culture, that’s where it gets embedded within an organization—through implementation of the management system.

If you look at this holistically, you need to train across all of those areas, not just in the foundation. You can differentiate yourself from organizations that have effective food safety management systems (not just food safety systems) because they’re training across all those buckets.

The other part of training is management systems. Who do you train? Besides targeting first line employees and operators, you also need to train senior managers because these managers, along with leadership, need to better define the objectives and policies. What does it mean to conduct an effective management review? What does it mean to do an internal audit? What’s a good corrective action process? The training often falls apart because organizations haven’t embedded that very well.

FST: Do you see differences between implementing these practices in small versus large organizations?

Ahn: There are differences, but it’s not necessarily a function of the size of the company. It’s more around how they’ve approached developing and organizing their management system and in particular, their food safety management system.

FST: In reality, how long does it take a typical company to create an effective food safety culture?

Ahn: There are two parts to that question.

My belief is that if you want to implement a food safety culture, you need to create a food safety management system, otherwise it is just all words and talk. It’s what you do, not what you say. The way to do that is to embed a food safety management system within your organization.

The two questions are: How do you get to initiate it? And, how long does it take to execute once you decide to initiate?

To address the first question: How do you initiate it?

There are a couple of ways that it can happen. There’s nothing like a crisis to get the fire under somebody’s feet, whether it’s a recall or an incident, it will draw attention to the fact that there’s a problem and something needs to happen. But, that’s reactive and detrimental.

The other way to initiate is that if you have enlightened leadership—an owner or group of owners who understand where they want to go, where they need to go, what needs to be avoided and understands the importance of the organization’s culture in getting to the right place, etc.

Secondly, once you start this process, how long does it take to get this type of system running?

Based on my experience in implementing food safety management systems like FSSC 22000, it takes anywhere from 18 months to 2 years to get it established, and then probably another 18 months or so to actually fully implement. So it’s not something that happens in a couple of months. It takes some time to really get it implemented and embedded, because these are foundational elements you must put into place. There’s a lot of momentum involved, and it has to move throughout the organization.

The term food safety culture has gotten a lot of attention—it’s a buzzword. But what does it really mean and how do you make it come to life? That’s really where people need to start looking. You make it come to life through implementation of structured food safety management systems—ones that are verified, and independently verified. Put substance and real work around your food safety culture instead of using a lot of fluffy words to describe it.

Traceability in food manufacturing, Honeywell

October 1, 2015

Traceability Not a Trend. It’s a Reality.

By Maria Fontanazza

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Businesses throughout the food supply chain are using a variety of traceability tools to capture critical information during the path from the field to the consumer. Traceability has always been viewed as an important capability within the supply chain, but FSMA, coupled with retailer and consumer demand, is pushing it to the highest levels yet.

Technology solutions that provide continuous identification and verification include mobile computers, scanners, RFID and mobile printers. While growers, packers, wholesalers, distribution centers and retailers involved in the fresh produce, poultry, meat, and seafood segments are using these technologies, speculation continues about adequate adoption levels.

The larger food providers are embracing track and trace technologies, while smaller business have been much slower to adopt, according to Bruce Stubbs, director of industry marketing at Honeywell Sensing & Productivity Solutions. “It’s going to be difficult to convince the smaller growers to invest in the technology—a lot of them see it as a cost,” he says. “What’s helping is that the retailers are starting to push back and say they are going to require their suppliers to be compliant with [traceability] mandates and if not, they won’t do business with them.”

Out in the field, companies are leveraging scanning and printing technologies, including smart printing technology (essentially a PC with printing capability). The printer hosts data capture and traceability software, providing the tasks and traceability through the software to the scanning devices. It can capture and print the food traceability label, which contains the discreet information, at the point of harvest. At the transportation level, businesses are using mobile computers to scan and capture product information that tracks down to the details from what part of a field, or even which tree in an orchard, a product has been harvested. Traceability technologies are including sensors throughout the cold chain to monitor temperature and humidity as the product is transported from point A to B. All information moves forward into the production facility and the retailer’s distribution center. Once at the retail store level, grocers will be able to pinpoint, within potentially thousands of stores, the specific batches and lots, a key capability in the instance of product issues and recalls.

Traceability is a holistic process, and the potential for its continued growth within the food industry is high. “I see it becoming more prevalent as consumers demand it, and retailers and manufacturers must adapt. I also see them moving away from paper,” says Stubbs. “We’re close; it’s almost like there’s a trickle in the dam right now, but I really believe that over the next couple years, the dam will break and most [companies] will need to adopt [traceability solutions] or they won’t be able to effectively do business with a lot of the food retailers.”

Stubbs also anticipates an increased adoption of 2-D barcodes versus 1-D linear laser barcodes, as 2-D barcodes can contain far more information. “We are at the tip of those technologies—they exist. It’s just the integration of these systems and providing the information in a format at the supplier or food manufacturer level,” he says.

How is your company implementing traceability solutions? What challenges and benefits are occurring as a result?

September 30, 2015

Are Mobile Apps a Game Changer for Food Safety Professionals?

By Maria Fontanazza

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Many food safety and quality assurance (FSQA) professionals are constantly on the go in the workplace. They can be found on the floor of a manufacturing facility, off-site conducting supplier audits, or out in the field performing pre-harvest inspections, just to name a few locations during their busy day. “To benefit from food safety automation, these folks need more than the capability of logging into a system through a desktop,” says Levin. “They need a true mobile app that provides automation support out in the field,” says Barbara Levin, senior vice president of marketing and customer community at SafetyChain.

While other industries have been quick to adopt mobile platforms, the food safety industry has been much slower. Adoption is, however, gaining traction. In a recent conversation with Food Safety Tech, Levin talks about the value of FSQA mobile apps in today’s environment, where access to real-time, actionable data is crucial for the food industry.

Food Safety Tech: What common challenges faced by FSQA teams do mobile apps specifically address?

Barbara Levin: Mobile apps allow collection of FSQA at the point of origin, along with immediate access to the information for analysis, CAPA and reporting:

Getting timely feedback on non-compliances for CAPA. When FSQA data is inspected at the end of the shift on paper, finding non-conformances often means rework. The instances in which this happens are too numerous to count. With mobile apps, you receive timely feedback. Information in the system is immediately analyzed to specs, so you’re catching non-compliances at the earliest point possible.
Consistency in following your FSQA programs. This could be your USDA HACCP plan, FSMA HARPC plan, GFSI program, customer quality attributes and other components of your FSQA programs. Program components change all the time (i.e., Specifications, processes, rules in HACCP, GFSI code, forms, workflow, etc). Are FSQA managers confident that everyone is following the most up-to-date program? Is everyone following the workflow and doing everything in the right order? Are they completing tasks accurately? Using the right forms? Unfortunately companies find out that steps are missed or outdated forms were used during an audit; or when missed steps result in expensive rework or in the worst case, a customer rejection, withdrawal or a recall.
Mobile apps will always have the most up-to-date forms, processes, specs and more. They act as a coach, leading the FSQA team member through the proper steps. When you enter incorrect or incomplete information on paper, it may not be detected until the end of the day or shift. A mobile app will issue an alert if incorrect information is entered; and it won’t let you submit a form if all fields aren’t complete. Because all of the updates are made in the system and pushed out to the app, if the specification changes while an FSQA team member is on the plant floor, when he or she logs in, the latest spec will always be there. You’re ensured that only the up-to-date program is being followed and that only the most up-to-date forms are being used.
A lack of information for continuous improvement trending. If you have multiple facilities and products (resulting in mountains of FSQA paper), it’s a huge, manual task to make all of the data useful and relevant. With mobile apps, all FSQA data is entered “once and done,” making it accessible and actionable for immediate FSQA result tracking, daily KPI reporting and continuous improvement.
Audit readiness. Mobile apps take audit readiness to a different level. With FSMA and GFSI, the saying is, if it’s not documented, you didn’t do it. By collecting FSQA data at the point of origin, all data is time and data stamped and uploaded to your permanent FSQA record. There’s no redundant data entry, mistakes are avoided, and there’s greater record efficacy that helps companies be audit ready, on demand.

FST: What is the biggest benefit that FSQA mobile apps offer?

Levin: The first benefit is real-time feedback. If you think about how things were done in the past, using an example of a pre-harvest inspection, you’re out there with a clipboard, making observations and recording non-compliances. Then you have to go back and enter the information into a spreadsheet, or turn it into a PDF, and send it to the food safety manager, who may or may not be sitting at his or her desk. Waiting to get a response equals time lost. And in the food industry, time equals money.

When you’re entering information into a mobile app, it analyzes that information in real-time and according to specifications. When there are non-compliances, alerts are pushed to the FSQA manager – wherever [he or she is located]. The manager can then generate a CAPA, which can then be completed, documented on the mobile device and electronically signed off by the manager. The process is expedited, and expensive rework is avoided.

The second benefit involves data efficiencies. When data is collected on a mobile device, it’s entered only once and is then immediately available for multiple uses, such as a customer’s certificate of analysis, attachment to GFSI code for audit, or to be produced upon demand for a regulatory inspector. With a manual system, there’s a tremendous amount of redundant data entry. We hear this all the time from food safety folks— that they feel like they’re managing paper instead of food safety programs. When data is entered into a mobile app, it’s accessible immediately to FSQA, operations, vendor purchasing, management – any stakeholder who has a need.

“The Power of FSQA Automation Via Mobile Applications” Download the whitepaperFST: What approach should be taken to encourage the investment in and implementation of an on-the-go FSQA mobile platform?

Levin: I would love to think that in an ideal world, the creation of operational efficiencies that enable a higher level of confidence that you are sending out safer food is enough. Food companies are businesses, and they have obligations to consumers, which they take very seriously. But they also have obligations to their shareholders. When we talk to folks who really want this, it’s very easy to create a business case to senior management based on ROI. When you can close the gap by hours and days in the food industry, that time equals money. Avoiding rework also saves money. And there’s ROI in faster sales throughput and increased shelf life by reducing hold and release times. We’ve heard from our customers that the solutions have paid for themselves and started to create ROI within three to six months.

September 22, 2015

From the Top Down, Gaining Management Support

By Maria Fontanazza

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The importance of accountability at the employee level should not be underestimated. Food safety professionals recognize this, and gaining support from management is key. In this video interview from the 2015 IAFP conference, Laura Nelson, vice president of business development at Alchemy, shares her thoughts on how companies should not only train their employees but also track the effectiveness of that training.

This year’s Food Safety Consortium Conference (November 17-20, 2015 in Schaumburg, IL) features sessions on employee engagement and involvement in Food Safety Culture. Register now.

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How Employees Learn: A Shift in Mindset

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