Training Solutions to Advance Food Safety Culture in a Global Supply Chain

By Brita Ball

People in the food business know that having food safety management systems in place doesn’t guarantee food safety. Inspections and audits may support confidence in the food supply, but they show a snapshot of the situation at a particular time. The best solution to reducing risk is to have a strong, positive food safety culture. One of the big drivers of culture (and the behaviour and work unit commitment that lead to it), is training, followed closely by management commitment to food safety.

The global supply chain creates training challenges for companies with multiple locations and multiple suppliers. Here are three problems and some solutions to help you advance food safety culture in your organization and supply chain.

The global supply chain creates training challenges for companies with multiple locations and multiple suppliers.

Cost and Time of Food Safety Training

Issue: Cost and time are two of the most common objections to developing powerful training initiatives. How can you handle them when they arise? Let’s look closer to the two core issues here:

Management Commitment to Food Safety –

Solution: Management needs to show a leadership role in food safety and leaders need to devote resources towards developing and implementing food safety management systems. Senior management correctly focuses on business at a strategic level, so communicate with management in the language of financial cost and risks of not training.