Food Safety Culture Can Help Feed Our Growing Population

Article Published June 22, 2023
Article Source: Food Safety Culture Can Help Feed Our Growing Population - Quality Assurance & Food Safety (qualityassurancemag.com)

An organization-wide culture of enhanced food safety can help build resilient food businesses and support the needs of the growing global population.

Editor’s Note: This story was written by Neil Coole, director of food, retail and FMCG supply chain at British Standards Institute (BSI).

The global population is soaring. According to the US Census Bureau, the projected world population on January 1, 2023, was 7,942,645,086, an increase of 0.94% from New Year’s Day 2022. As of May 2023, the Bureau’s population clock surpassed January’s prediction by .36%.

With more mouths to feed, the food industry has the opportunity to adapt to meet the needs of the expanded population and benefit our growing society. Adaptation could mean speeding, scaling and evolving production, with everyone, including food producers, manufacturers, retailers and ingredient suppliers, working to meet demand while also continuing to provide safe and high-quality food products.

However, maintaining that standard level of food safety can be challenging given factors including rapid globalization, changing consumer requirements, sustainability challenges, food fraud, regulations and complex global supply chains. But the potential impacts are sizable; according to the World Health Organization, consuming contaminated food results in an estimated 600 million people falling ill every year, leading to 420,000 deaths.

Becoming more resilient by not only evaluating and evolving products and processes but also by prioritizing people offers a potential roadmap for food sector organizations to overcome these obstacles.

SILOED TEAMS CREATE RISK. Corporations that operate in siloed teams with little to no collaboration or communication may struggle to identify and mitigate gaps within our food supply’s life cycle. Typically, the assumption surrounding most staff in the food business is a shared commitment to maintain food safety.

However, food safety is not always implemented as a mutual overarching goal within the industry, as evidenced by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s recent reports on economically motivated adulteration or food fraud. Due to industry pressures, speed and cost efficiency are top priorities, often at the cost of risking consumer health and safety. This has the potential to impact working conditions, the ingredients and foods harvested and the resulting food products that reach the consumer.

In addition, within today’s climate, there is considerable external pressure from the modern consumer to be more transparent within all industries, especially food. In 2022, Nielsen reported that roughly two-thirds of consumers (64%) would switch from a brand they usually buy to another brand that provides more in-depth product information. Increasingly, consumers are keen to know where ingredients are sourced from, how they are handled and overall food safety.

Making transparency a collective value shared both internally and externally has the potential to drive change; leaders and staff can bring benefits by operating along an ethical standard for engaging with consumers and internal peers to allow for two-way communication and transparency. As our population continues to grow, transparency will only continue to be a key factor in food supply as new generations joining the market further support ethically sourced and sustainable food products.

CREATE A CULTURE OF PRIORITIZING PEOPLE. The food industry could become more resilient and ultimately be well-placed to feed the world if greater prioritization of its people is implemented.

As BSI’s new global guidance on developing and sustaining a mature food safety culture (PAS 320) sets out, people and human error, to greater degrees than technology and equipment, are the common denominators in food safety incidents, quality failures and recalls. However, people are also fundamental in solving these problems when they arise and are key to avoiding reoccurrence.

In this way, we can see how all organizations within the food, beverage and retail spaces can benefit from fostering a culture where people are prioritized and all employees champion food safety, take responsibility for reporting issues and are empowered to create change.

In addition, there are also benefits to adopting a corporation-wide commitment to a culture of shared vision, mission, values and policy, which is also described in the framework.

Management commitment has the potential to build the foundation for a food safety-focused culture. Progress can be accelerated if there is a shift in mindset so that food safety is a food supply chain responsibility regardless of the organization’s size or specific sub-industry.

Furthermore, prioritizing people in the industry can not only support improved food safety but bring additional potential benefits, including investment return, business performance improvement, reduction of the costs associated with poor quality and enhanced efficiency.

A PEOPLE-FIRST BUSINESS CREATES RESILIENCY. To create tangible change, we can recognize where teams are segmented and where there may be friction. A key component to improving food safety involves understanding that risks are found in teams that do not collaborate and share the same mission and values.

An agreed upon, organization-wide culture of enhanced food safety, where it is seen as an investment in people and enacted and accepted throughout the organization, can help build resilient food businesses and support the needs of the growing global population.