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The theme of World Food Safety Day 2022 is “safer food, better health.” Worldwide organizations explain why and how the global community should prioritize ensuring the safety of food.

Food safety is an active and ever-evolving process that is ripe for ongoing improvement. There are three main tools for building and transforming a company's food safety program: fundamentals, prevention, and culture. In recent years, Kerry has focused heavily on building a solid foundation—the "fundamentals." Effective communication is critical throughout the entire process and becomes the fourth building block.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Stop Foodborne Illness joined forces to present a webinar, titled, “Building a Coalition of Food Safety Culture Champions Across Your Organization.”

The culture of a facility in food safety or customer relations is impacted by how customer communications are managed. Customer complaint trending and response are part of a company or facility's risk management strategy. The objective of any management system is to try to protect the company from adverse actions. Understanding and responding to customer complaints is one strategy.

The authors and collaborating food safety experts have delineated several unique features in Australia around food safety and quality: intimate collaborations across sectors and functions, "walk the talk," and skills and capacity building.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, vendor certification has been top of mind for the food industry given the increased requirements and oversight of third-party audits and FDA regulations to better accommodate public health. This article will give a baseline understanding of the regulatory requirements between U.S. federal bodies (FDA, USDA) in comparison to widely known GFSI standards (BRC, SQF, FSSC 22200). Additionally, it will provide insight into key control areas for mitigating risk and adapting business in accordance with the growing emphasis on the importance of food safety culture.

This article explores how having respect for people and fully engaging employees can transform a company's culture of food safety.

The authors and collaborating food safety experts have identified four predominant features around food safety culture in European cultures. These features include mixed attitudes toward the adoption of new ideas as food safety management changes, active engagement in food safety and quality, consensual decision-making, and a prevailing dependence on internal drive (as opposed to regulatory dictation) in fostering food safety culture.

This Regional Culture article series will examine the differences and features that prevail and render each global region unique with regard to food safety culture. Ultimately, the goal is to foster understanding and enable better communicate and management of food safety culture.  

Food companies need to embrace a change in their culture to one of collaboration with their internal colleagues and their equipment and infrastructure supply chain. Public health can only be maintained with safe food, and a culture of hygienic design helps deliver it in a responsible way.