Food Safety Culture

Over the past few years, food safety culture has become an essential component of effective food safety management. Multiple outbreaks and incidents at seemingly good sites led the food industry to realise that traditional audit and inspection is not enough, and that a cultural assessment is the missing piece in the jigsaw.

Our food safety culture assessment is the most extensively researched and widely used in the food industry. It provides a clear and detailed insight into the many dimensions of culture that impact on food safety standards, allowing companies to benchmark themselves against others, create tangible improvements, reduce their risks, and demonstrate where they excel.

To learn more about the assessment process and how it works, please click here.

To learn more about the importance of food safety culture and how our work is connected to some of the most prestigious food safety organisations, including Campden BRI, BRC and GFSI, please read on.

Campden BRI Culture Program

In 2015, our culture assessment was adopted by Campden BRI for their food industry members, including pre and post survey workshops, survey customisation and support services throughout the year. Clients can choose to focus on food safety or include quality and / or health and safety.

Established in 1919, Campden BRI is the world’s largest membership-based food research and technology organisation serving over 2,500 companies in 80 countries worldwide and covering the whole food supply chain.

BRCGS Food Safety Culture Module

In 2016, a smaller version of our culture assessment focused solely on food safety was adopted by BRCGS Global Standards as a Voluntary Module. It can be used by any food company (even those not certified to BRCGS standards) and is a fast, low-cost option to get an overview of food safety culture. 

BRCGS Global Standards is a market-leading global brand, whose standards are used by over 26,000 certificated suppliers in over 130 countries, with certification issued through a global network of accredited certification bodies.

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)

The GFSI Guidance Document is the world's most widely accepted benchmark document for food safety requirements. Once successfully benchmarked against GFSI's Benchmarking Requirements, food safety certification programmes achieve GFSI recognition, which lends a nameplate authority to these certifications and acts as a food safety passport throughout the global marketplace.

In the past few years food safety culture has become an important topic for GFSI, and they have created multiple working groups and a reference document dedicated to the topic. The Culture Excellence model was one of the key inputs into this document, and several members of our expert panel are members of GFSI culture working groups. In the coming years, the requirement for food safety culture awareness and improvement is likely to be incorporated into their requirements. This gives its measurement an even greater importance for companies who are certified to GFSI standards.

To learn more about how our work meets GFSI standards, or for any information about our food safety culture assessment, please contact us.