Data Explosion Threatens Food Safety

Prerequisite programs are oriented to achieve, maintain, and improve the environment for creating products that are compliant with sanitary and regulatory requirements. Foreign material control, chemical control, and allergen control are some examples of prerequisite programs. These programs are legal requirements; however, they are flexible and depend on factors that include the type of facility, country of origin, and target for export.

Food safety: While prerequisites focus on environment, food safety focuses on the management and improvement of prerequisite programs. Traditionally, food safety is generally referred to HACCP. Like prerequisites, HACCP is non-negotiable, with hazard analysis and critical control points based in science. Food defense has been required in the U.S.—and for countries exporting to the U.S.—for some time, but with the advent of the FSMA, the focus on intentional contamination has grown.

Quality: Quality goals concentrate on achieving, maintaining, and improving processes to attain defined product quality. Quality is not truly a part of food safety because it’s entirely possible to create a safe food product that does not meet quality standards. Quality is obviously a critical component of operations, however, and has its place in any organizational management system.

Training: Senior management must put in significant effort to educate the staff and equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge to achieve food safety goals. Every member of the organization must know the food safety and quality objectives of the enterprise and how these can be accomplished. Also, the company needs to be able to move beyond mere execution of instructions and must gain knowledge of how to stay up to date, improve, and apply food safety approaches according to product type and environment.

Culture: Most importantly, in conjunction with a well-structured food safety management system, organizations need the right “tone from the top.” Building an organizational culture that focuses on food safety is the way to induce awareness and sense of responsibility in the enterprise. Skills applied in a vacuum will not change the behavior of employees.

Evaluation: The evaluation methods in a food safety management system should include inspections, audits, and data collection for key performance indicators. Evaluation is one of the key components of a food safety management system where automation can greatly enhance the organization’s ability to improve. Suitable technology can help senior management take a snapshot of current food safety conditions and analyze trends over time.

Putting it all together, the three programs of prerequisites, food safety, and quality are held together by management support systems of training, culture, and evaluation to achieve a sustainable food safety management system.

Technology

Understanding the complexities of today’s food safety environment and the uniqueness of clients’ food safety requirements and programs, AIB International decided to leverage technology to manage its own quality as well as to protect clients’ confidential data. AIBI’s goal was to implement a holistic system—processes, people, and tools—that supports all activities of audit management. To do so, AIBI implemented the automated quality management system using MetricStream’s comprehensive, web-based food quality and safety management solution deployed on MetricStream’s governance, risk, and compliance platform.

The volume and intricacy of the food safety audits AIBI conducts are immense. The AIB International Consolidated Standards for Inspection are customized to 11 facility types and are available in eight languages. AIBI’s team of 130-plus auditors conduct audits, inspections, and training at more than 10,000 manufacturing and distribution facilities in more than 120 countries. AIBI offers competent services in HACCP, proprietary supplier audits, quality systems, food protection, BRC, SQF2000, ISO 22000, and FSSC 22000, among others.