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In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we discuss the Alliance to Stop Foodborne Illness Mentorship Program and its role in supporting professional growth in food safety, including lessons from the mentor-mentee experience, the value of perspectives outside one's own organization, and how mentorship can strengthen leadership, communication, and collaboration across the profession.

Donations will support the organization’s work to drive food safety improvements through regulatory advocacy, culture change, and consumer support, as well as to share the impactful stories of its constituent advocates who have been impacted by foodborne illnesses.

The event will explore whether organizational investment in food safety culture has made a tangible impact on outcomes. FDA has also posted video recordings of past Food Safety Culture webinars and whitepapers summarizing each webinar.

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

When accountability consistently outweighs authority, strain accumulates quietly until it surfaces in turnover, fatigue, or failure. When they align, decision integrity stabilizes. And stability, rather than strain, is what ultimately sustains safe food systems over time.

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.