Developing Food Safety Goals for the New Year

Article By Jill Hoffman
Article Source: Developing Food Safety Goals for the New Year - Quality Assurance & Food Safety (qualityassurancemag.com)

Jill Hoffman, senior director, B&G Foods,, thinks it’s time to begin thinking about goals, not only for ourselves but for our teams when it comes to food safety and quality.

As we jump into another new year, it’s time to begin thinking about goals, not only for ourselves but for our teams when it comes to food safety and quality.

In my world, the food manufacturing sector, I’ve seen the usual suspects headline goals year after year: complaint reductions, hold reductions, etc. These are important, very tangible and critical to ensure products continue to meet expectations. But I wanted to share some additional areas where we should be developing goals for our functions, plants and teams.

RISK REDUCTION GOALS. Many times, our goals are driven by business objectives, but when we think deeper about our role in an organization, we can hopefully agree that we largely support risk reduction.

Quality and food safety professionals work in the space of risk management and risk reduction for the organization they represent. Laying out goals to support reducing risks is likely going to be on your list of deliverables somewhere. These activities can be as simple as improving specific programs that support food safety and quality. Risks are always evolving and changing, which is why we need to ensure our existing programs are continuing to serve their purposes. In many cases, programs become stale over the years and need refreshing to include more current or best practices. In some cases, you may find your organization needs to develop a program to manage certain risks that weren’t present before, and this too can be a goal.

In case you have forgotten (and likely you haven’t), we are just coming out of a pandemic that has occupied our daily lives over the last two-plus years. The pandemic flipped organizations on their heads for a while. During this time, focus was shifted to managing pandemic activities, and it’s possible that programs and decisions fell victim to either neglect or exceptions due to a variety of reasons: supply chain challenges, labor shortages and now massive inflation. It’s a good idea to parse out some activities and goals that ensure your programs haven’t drifted too far from where they should be.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT GOALS. Driving to improve our processes and ways of working should be a component of our goals. Continuous improvement comes in many forms. Think about what is needed to take your quality and food safety programs to the next level. Do you have limitations due to a lack of tools? Lack of process? Lack of competency in a specific area?

Let’s challenge ourselves this year and think about how we can set goals that are relevant and meaningful to improving quality and food safety.

In my experience in this space, I’ve developed goals for the team that enable us to work more effectively. An example of this might be to onboard software that will streamline your quality programs or information. This could come in the form of implementing a quality management software system or a supplier management system with enablers that can help you see gaps in your programs more readily.

Another area to consider is to set a goal to leverage your data more effectively to drive improvement and data-based decision-making. We collect an endless amount of data for food safety and quality reasons that is barely being leveraged in most organizations. Think of how you can set a goal to begin using it more effectively.

SELF-DEVELOPMENT GOALS. This one is so important if we want to grow as professionals and as people. Think about what you truly want to achieve for yourself, and determine a path to get there.

Throughout my career, I’ve observed people challenge themselves in different ways. Some want to learn a technical area they are not strong on. An example of this is learning more in-depth knowledge about sanitation practices for your facility and building a working knowledge and skill set that can help your facility or company. Achieving the status of “subject matter expert” in a technical area is something to aspire to and pays dividends throughout your career.

Sometimes, self-development goals are not technical, but rather activities that will push us past our comfort zones. I know someone who set networking goals to overcome their extreme introversion and get to know other people in food safety.

Whatever goals you choose to pursue, let’s challenge ourselves this year and think about how we can set goals that are relevant and meaningful to improving quality and food safety.