Unquestionably, food  safety is a primary  focus for every food  manufacturer. 

Food safety  professionals put a  lot of effort into food  safety processes and  procedures, meeting  mandatory regulations,  exceeding food safety  standards, and passing  food safety audits. 

Food products are a  sensitive category. We  buy food out of primary  need, out of comfort  and satisfaction, and  out of curiosity. Food  affects our senses, but  it can also affect our  health. Consequently,  the food industry  must comply with  quality requirements  and maintain quality  standards. 

To minimize all  the costs and efforts  associated with tracking  and withdrawing a  non-compliant product  through the food chain,  lost customer sales  and brand trust among  consumers, established  food safety culture  through organization  minimize risks. 

Food safety culture  is prescribed in the  current regulation,  Codex Alimentarius,  food safety standards  (GFSI), and one among  many definitions is: 

“The foundation  for the successful  functioning of any  food hygiene system  is the establishment  and maintenance of a  positive food safety  culture that recognizes  the importance of  human behaviour in  ensuring safe and  suitable food.” 

Food safety culture  includes shared values,  beliefs and norms  that influence the  organization’s way of  thinking and behaving  towards food safety.  A thriving food safety  culture is one in  which each employee  understands their  specific responsibilities  regarding food safety.  It includes activities  such as the continuous  implementation of  employee education  related to food safety  and quality, checking  process compliance with the requirements of food safety standards, implementation of internal  factory inspections of production facilities and the environment,  management of foreign bodies in production facilities and risk analysis  related to food safety, such as food protection and food fraud. 

Organizational safety culture could also be defined as “how people  in the company behave when no one is looking”. 

Achieving these goals requires effective quality management,  which implies continuous improvement activities at every operational  level and functional area of the organization. Quality management combines the commitment, discipline  and increasing effort of everyone  involved in the production process  and the fundamental management and  control techniques, aiming to improve  all processes continuously. For this,  industries must be organizationally  structured, with established quality  policies and programs, measure  customer satisfaction, and use  appropriate tools and methodologies  for risk assessment. 

Over time, the role of food safety  experts has also changed. As the  industry grows, technology develops,  the demands and awareness of  consumers evolve, and so does the  understanding of quality management.  As a result, every company goes  through a certain level of maturity  regarding quality management. 

Food safety culture starts at the top and flows down. A management’s attitudes, actions, and decisions set the tone for everyone else in the food chain

Therefore, it is important to  highlight these stages of quality  maturity that start with quality  control. Product quality control is  limited and focused on corrective  inspection, that is, checking the  uniformity of the final product by  separating non-conforming products.  In addition, it aims to identify defects  and develop statistical tools for  sampling and control, usually by a  knowledgeable HACCP team. 

Quality control is essentially an  assessment of the final product before  it is released on the market, i.e., at the  end of the production chain. Hence,  it has limited potential for correcting  production defects or upgrading the  final product quality by focusing  on the inspection aspect of quality  management. 

The next step of maturity item  occurs with Quality Assurance. 

Quality assurance can be defined  as “the part of quality management  focused on systematic activities and  providing confidence that quality  requirements will be met”. 

Despite the close connection and  involvement in quality management,  quality control and quality assurance  have fundamentally different goals. 

Quality assurance aims to prevent  defects and nonconformities, while  quality control seeks to identify  weaknesses. 

Quality assurance relates to broader  control and prevention, ensuring  standardized processes and quality in  all product acquisition phases through  systematic management. 

This is a proactive approach  aimed at a process that would  eliminate product defects and includes  development and testing. 

Finally, quality management  is part of the strategic scope of the  organization, and this phase is called  Strategic Quality Management.

It represents a vision of marketoriented  management, with an eye on  opportunities ahead of the competition  and customer satisfaction. Inspection  control of raw materials and products,  laboratory control, hazard analysis and  determination of root cause analysis, and  audit of systems and suppliers remain  fundamental QM pillars. Maturity or  evolution has been achieved because  the entire organization is included in the  quality management vision. 

Through the support of the  management and ownership structure, a  culture of food safety includes: 

Flexibility - To anticipate and configure  system requirements in time to minimize  risks. 

Reporting - Employees are  encouraged to report safety-related  issues. The most crucial ingredient in  this culture is trust. 

Awareness - Like responsiveness,  everyone within the system knows what  to do as part of a more extensive system.

Education - Constant investment of  everyone involved in the processes,  significantly based on previous  mistakes. The enemy of every  organization is “business as usual”.  Even after a problem has been identified  and corrective action initiated, day-today  operations are not uncommon to  slowly return to the old routine. 

Honesty - People are more likely  to report problems if they know they  won’t be criticized in a prejudicial way  because of their role. 

Food safety culture starts at the  top and flows down. A management’s  attitudes, actions, and decisions set  the tone for everyone else in the food  chain. Clear and consistent messaging is  essential, but leading by example is even  more important. 

Responsible companies regularly  assess their culture and take measures to  improve it. Their organizational culture  goals are regularly updated to ensure  alignment with their company’s vision,  values, and strategy.