Culture

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When workforce capability receives limited attention, it raises broader questions about leadership commitment to protecting both employees and consumers. Building a strong food safety culture requires more than policies and audits; it requires sustained investment in the people responsible for providing safe food every day.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Fresca Foods’ Vice President of Operations, Miguel Ramirez, and former Fresca Foods FSQ Manager Madisen Hodgson, M.S. about cultivating a strong and effective food safety culture, including practical tips for measuring outcomes, driving continuous improvement, engaging frontline employees and leadership, and more.

Staying in compliance with food laws and avoiding food safety incidents requires more than ticking compliance boxes—it demands a strategic investment in people. 

This article shares best practices for using existing organizational momentum to drive food safety culture improvement and keep SQF scores high. It also suggests ways to cast a wide net to gather ideas for continual improvement that will reduce risk and better protect public health. 

Following the adoption of EU regulations in 2021 that set food safety culture requirements for food business operators, a European Commission survey conducted in 2025 showed that countries’ progress and approach toward culture official controls are varied, with significant difficulties reported.

In the second of this two-part episode series recorded live from the show floor of the 2026 Food Safety Summit, we interviewed Summit speakers from the regulatory, nonprofit, and industry spheres about topics discussed during their respective sessions, ingredient and labeling policy, FSMA, food safety culture, and more.

In the first of this two-part episode series recorded live from the show floor of the 2026 Food Safety Summit, we interviewed Summit speakers from the regulatory and industry spheres about topics discussed during their respective sessions, including retail/foodservice sanitation and culture, digital HACCP, cross-sector data-sharing, and more.

Realizing measurable improvement in food safety performance rests largely on the culture of your company. Dedicated investment in optimizing your organization's food safety culture—from the boardroom to the warehouse, and throughout your entire supply chain—offers significant returns in the form of regulatory compliance, mitigated recall risk, enhanced consumer trust, and a more skilled and invested workforce. 

This article previews upcoming sessions at the 2026 Food Safety Summit and ties in topical learnings from recent Food Safety Insights columns. 

The session “Breaking Silos, Breaking Bias—Real Collaboration in Food Safety,” taking place on May 13 during the upcoming Food Safety Summit, will candidly discuss why cross-sector collaboration often falls short and offer practical solutions for breaking down barriers.