Creating and sustaining a company-wide mentality of continuous improvement is bigger than having a single program or posting a mission statement in the conference rooms. Successful brands have adopted a mindset that truly becomes ingrained in the company culture.
“That’s the major linchpin,” says Anthony Saitta, Food Safety Specialist with Commercial Food Sanitation (CFS), an Intralox company. “Preserving the highest food safety standards must be seen as a priority at every level of the organization.”
In these types of cultures, the food safety message is openly communicated throughout the facilities. Not only is that piece of the company’s vision on display everywhere; so are measurables such as swab counts, the number of pounds held during a given period, or completion rates of preventive maintenance. Such use of data is another indicator of how serious teams are about food safety and continuous improvement.
Everyone at the plant is accountable for food safety. “Cari Rasmussen, Food Safety Specialist, Commercial Food Sanitation“
Future-readiness is also a part of that mindset. When upcoming regulatory changes are announced, proactive cultures think about what they can do to prepare, rather than react because some unfortunate event has occurred. “Everyone at the plant is accountable for food safety,” says Cari Rasmussen, Food Safety Specialist with CFS. “And this starts with recognizing the proactive roles that each team at the facility can take. The idea that food safety is siloed to quality and sanitation is flawed.”