The Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) recently published a new guide on food safety best practices for the directors of companies involved with the production, processing, sale, and supply of food in the UK. The guide stressed the importance of mitigating food safety risks from the top down, because food safety failures can negatively impact businesses. The guide covered the importance of food safety governance, directors’ legal responsibilities regarding food safety, and directors’ role in assuring food safety success. It also discussed what tools directors can use to monitor and ensure food safety performance and the essentials of a good food safety system.
In the guide, IFST framed food safety as both a critical business risk and opportunity. Food safety failures can cause lasting damage to companies, and how a company responds to such failures can significantly enhance or harm its reputation. Excellence in food safety, on the other hand, can increase shareholder value and available business opportunities. The guide went on to define unsafe food, outline the impact of unsafe food, and highlight why product recalls are not 100 percent effective in mitigating the damage caused by unsafe food.