View Food Safety Audits as Tools for Continuous Improvement

Many auditors share an audit plan before the audit is conducted to help the auditee prepare for the focus areas and audit timelines defined by the auditor. If the auditor is a state or federal or foreign regulator, their audit standards (i.e., audit plans) are known. If the auditor is the buyer or vendor, they will have their own proprietary audit standards that are made known to the auditee. If it is a third-party auditor, standards may be made known to the auditee, but these standards also can vary—not widely, but they do vary.

There are true standards such as those set by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that address food safety, quality, and environmental concerns. There are industry standards, such as the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), formed by a consortium of major market chains to codify food safety, quality, and ethical practices. Other schemes benchmarked against GFSI have emerged, such as the British Retail Consortium (BRC), International Food Standard (IFS), Safe Quality Food (SQF), Dutch HACCP, and FSSC 22000. Many food processors are most familiar with the standards, requirements, or expectations created by a number of private or company auditing services, such as AIB International, ASI LLC, Steritech, Merieux NutriSciences, Primus Auditing Ops, McDonalds, and NSF International.

Thus, the processor is faced with many auditing services operating under many and different audit standards. Fortunately, most of the elements in any audit system are the same, or at least very similar to one another, starting with what are known, in the U.S. and other countries, as the Good Manufacturing Practice or GMP (21 CFR 117 Subpart B previously found in 21 CFR 110). GMPs comprise the basic food safety laws and cover eight key sanitation areas (i.e., safety of the water; condition and cleanliness of food contact surfaces; prevention of cross-contamination; handwashing/sanitizing and toilet facilities; protection from adulteration; labeling, storage, and use of toxic chemicals; employee health conditions; and exclusion of pests). Everyone involved in the handling of food must comply with the GMPs.

The other common audit elements are also related to the GMPs and include allergen controls, good laboratory practices, food defense and intentional adulteration, shipping and receiving, purchasing and vendor approval, document control, recall and traceability, weight control, specifications (of ingredients, finished products, packaging, equipment, and controls), written assurances, consumer complaint program, corrective and preventive actions, calibration, and education and training. Quality systems are also included by several third-party auditors. Thus, there are guidelines to meet audit standards, and many of these guidelines are known.

It is short sighted and a waste of resources to view these preparatory activities as being only for a short-term purpose, i.e., solely for the upcoming audit. These activities should be managed as tools for continuous improvement of food safety, quality, sanitation, and security that align all operations, facilities, and personnel for a long-term strengthening of your food safety culture. Relying on the strength of your food safety systems instead of aiming for high audit scores or obtaining an audit certificate is a truer indication of success. It must be noted that a food processor that obtained a lower audit score than another may still be selling its product. Additionally, within the past two decades, there have been several high-profile cases in which food processors given very high audit scores eventually went out of business due to breaches in food safety that resulted in recalls.

Some processors pass audits, and other processors fail audits. What remains critical to the integrity of a food business is to identify the root cause of deficiencies and prevent them from recurring.