Intertek Alchemy, the world’s largest food industry training company, has released the results of the sixth annual Global Food Safety Training Survey in the new report, “Overcoming Food Safety Training Challenges: Data Analysis & Insights from the Global Food Safety Training Survey.”

The survey compiled responses from 1,200 food safety training professionals representing nearly 5,000 food manufacturing facilities. The resulting report is an industry benchmarking tool for companies to assess their food safety training programs and to adopt actionable best practices identified in the report. 

“The survey is a wonderful resource that helps companies benchmark compared to their peers, and continuously improve their own food safety training programs,” said Laura Nelson, vice president of food safety at Intertek Alchemy. “Food safety and training leaders can use the findings to gain internal support for the resources their organization needs to meet the industry’s evolving training needs.”

Survey responses indicate that companies are largely embracing the evolution from delivering food safety training to developing a food safety culture. Specifically:

• 114 percent more companies are conducting a Food Safety Culture Audit
• 60 percent more companies are using culture level to measure the value of training to their business
• 74 percent of survey respondents say they understand what is meant by "food safety culture" and what it takes to build and sustain a strong one

But, of course, there’s always room for improvement:

• 67 percent of companies say they still have employees not following their food safety program on the floor
• Only 37 percent of companies utilize technology to manage food safety training, leading to a host of gaps and deficiencies
• 75 percent of companies do not document on-the-floor behavior evaluation

The full report is available for complimentary download at www.IntertekAlchemy.com/GFSTS.