Food safety culture is a hot topic in the food industry. Its importance to safe food cannot be underestimated, and a strong food safety culture is often the vital missing link. Sometimes, we hear people say that they’re very confident in their companies because they have great systems in place. And while great systems are fantastic, and a necessary component of a strong and safe culture, they alone are not enough. A fantastic system that employees don’t buy into is going to give you very little bounce for the ounce.
And so it brings us back to culture and its importance.
Creating a strong food safety culture is a challenge for everyone. However, it goes without saying that some companies will have to put a lot more effort and thought into it than others. A small company employing 5 people who all understand the importance of safety will have less issues to think about than a giant multinational corporation.
A McDonald's approach
So how do some of these big multinationals do it? We asked Dr Bizhan Pourkomailian, Food Director from McDonald’s, to share his thoughts and experiences on the matter.
A company of McDonald’s size, has to both understand and cater to different generations and nationalities, which obviously presents many challenges. According to Dr Bizhan the ability to do so, stems from a corporate culture that is based on partnership, sharing, transparency and trust. And the reason it works at McDonald’s is because the emphasis is put on working well together, focusing on similarities instead of differences which allows the company to bridge the gaps of nationalities, race, religion, sex and so on. And for a company that employs 1,9 million people (the 4th largest employer in the world) in 119 countries this is no small task!
The entire Dr Bizhan’s webinar is available for our members on our LinkedIn group.