How Technology Is Pushing The Food Safety Culture

Food safety culture must be integrated throughout the food supply chain, from farmer to consumer, as a foundational building block for all other programs.

Food safety culture is one of the most common issues in the food industry and with good reason. Any food safety system must have a robust culture of food safety. It speaks about a food organization's attitudes, beliefs, practices, and values connected to food safety, whether it's a farm, processor, distributor, manufacturer, restaurant, or retail site. In a nutshell, these standards direct the organization's members in their daily roles and obligations.

 For example, in practice, "what employees and stakeholders do while no one else is looking" might be defined as a food safety culture. While this is undoubtedly true, it encompasses all fields of leadership commitments, facility and organizational design, rewards, behavior, and employee empowerment.

How is technology starting the food safety culture?

A company's commitment to technology deployment and acceptance is committed to growth and improvement. For example, during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, large investments were made in non-traditional retail formats like direct-to-consumer and alternate distribution.

As a result, organizations had no choice but to establish new business models to stay afloat during this volatile period. Likewise, food safety specialists must continue learning about and adapting to the latest industry developments, including utilizing and upgrading technology to help overcome previously insurmountable challenges.

Numerous companies haven't invested in technological solutions to strengthen their food safety culture in a long time. For example, paper forms and paperwork are still common in the food business.

Because of a lack of technology tools, there is a duplication of labor, an inability to get meaningful knowledge, and a higher chance of documentation errors and avoidable risk. On the other hand, organizations that have been busy with technology have discovered that their teams can automate time-consuming and manual activities, reduce risk, gain more insight into macro-trends, and prevent problems rather than respond to them. As companies prepare for a future food supply chain, technology that provides actionable insights like these will be critical.