There are many ways companies attempt to demonstrate their commitment to consumer safety. Sometimes it’s a trendy tagline, conceived in a Madison Avenue ad agency. Other times, it’s a quality commitment statement, polished by committee after committee until it sounds vaguely like the Preamble to the Constitution.

But let’s get real—we all know when someone is feeding us a line. There’s no way to manufacture authenticity, and the only way to show you’re truly committed to food safety management is to put it into practice by working to create a total food safety culture in your company.

That’s because building food safety and quality into the very essence of your business is what ultimately drives people to trust your brand. Anyone can come up with a great quality commitment statement or trendy tagline. But what you see, hear and feel when you’re in a food and beverage facility—that’s what really reveals a company’s true colors.

It’s easy to say these things, but cultural Change Management is a tall order. How do you go about building the right food safety culture, and how do you know it will stick?

Let’s look at 3 key elements to get you started.

1. Commitment

A strong food safety culture starts with getting buy-in from the whole team. To start, know that it’s leadership’s responsibility to set the tone, establishing the ground rules and communicating the core elements of your food safety culture.

If your top executives talk safety and quality culture, and they drive that message down the chain, you’re more likely to see commitment at every level. Without leaders insisting that safety is an essential component of the culture, any message you try to convey on creating a food safety culture will come across as fake.  

It’s important to note, however, that getting buy-in across the board doesn’t just come from a top-down approach. You should also get your team involved where you can. Even if the employees can’t write the formal policy, you can still ask each team to outline their own subset of core values and goals with regards to food safety. When you involve your team in defining your mission, you’ll find that employees truly internalize the purpose and goals, helping build your food safety culture from the ground up.

2. Resources

Next, you’ll need to make sure your team has the right resources to deliver on your food safety and quality commitment. That means:

• Setting up Employee Training programs that ensure all team members know how to perform their role safely and with high quality results
• Creating closed-loop Corrective Action processes that provide an automated procedure for handling issues, whether the request is internal or arises from a Customer Complaint.
• Change Management tools that allow you to execute change quickly and with minimal waste, cost and headaches.

These are just a few of the key tools you’ll need, though there are others you’ll want to look for as well. These include basic functions like Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) and Document Control, as well as advanced Risk Assessment tools to quantify risk and make better decisions. The important thing is to leverage your FSMS to the fullest so you can automate the process and get the best out of your people and your software.

3. Partnership

Finally, it’s critical to recognize the importance of collaborating with others, including other industry professionals, regulatory agencies, consumers and academic experts. Expanding your knowledge base beyond the walls of your facility gives you a broader view of quality, safety and risk, allowing you to make better decisions all around.

Ultimately, food safety isn’t something to look at as a competitive advantage. It’s something we should all being working toward together, helping make the world a safer place to live.