The ability to measure and track your organization’s food safety culture is transitioning from nice-to-have to must-have. GFSI scheme owners (SQF, BRCGS, etc.) are now incorporating food safety culture measurements as part of audit requirements. And government regulatory agencies are not far behind.

Intertek Alchemy has developed an array of solutions to help our clients sustain a mature food safety culture throughout their organization — and meet audit requirements.

New Alchemy Coach Observation

We are excited to have launched a new Coach observation, “Culture: Food Safety,” on April 15, 2021. The new observation will help you define food safety culture within your organization, and establish a baseline of your existing culture. The tool will provide actionable information and data to measure ongoing progress.

“Culture: Food Safety” will be found in Coach under the “Culture” category. This observation delivers a comprehensive approach to food safety culture by providing evaluations in four distinct sections:

• Company,
• Management,
• Supervisor,
• Employee.

Contact your account manager if you have any questions.

Food Safety Culture Consulting Assessments

The Alchemy FSQA consulting team delivers on-site Food Safety Culture Assessments that provide great detail for organizations seeking to kickstart their culture measurement programs. The can work independently from the new Coach observation for clients without Coach, or in conjunction with it. The Alchemy consultant will:

• Measure and evaluate your company’s baseline culture,
• Develop and implement an action plan,
• Establish goals, metrics, and internal communication plan,
• Design replicable data collection process for audit reporting.

Contact Consulting@IntertekAlchemy.com for more information.

Food Safety Culture Training

The Alchemy FSQA consulting team has also developed an 8-hour instructor-led training course, “Food Safety Culture Training and Implementation.” An Alchemy consultant can deliver the training on-site or virtually. The 8-hour course is broken down into seven modules, and is intended for QA and operations managers as well as mid-level and frontline supervisors. This course is intended to be interactive with open discussion about understanding food safety culture, assessing baseline levels, and improving culture over time.

Note, our consulting team also provides instructor-led training on a range of topics that can help sustain a mature food safety culture, including Root Cause Analysis, Corrective/Protective Actions, and Internal Auditor Training.

Contact Consulting@IntertekAlchemy.com for more information.

Additional Resources

Intertek Alchemy has also authored a complimentary white paper to help organizations understand food safety culture and provide steps to implement and advance culture throughout an organization. The authors, Laura Dunn Nelson (Intertek Alchemy VP of Food Safety) and Jeff Chilton (Intertek Alchemy VP of Consulting), are among the world’s leading authorities on food safety culture.

You can download the white paper, “Building a Mature Food Safety Culture: A Guide to Meeting GFSI Culture Standards,” here.

Intertek Alchemy has made the development and adoption of food safety culture a driving part of our company mission sine our founding in 2005. Our leaders and subject matter experts have authored hundreds of published articles, webinars, and conference presentations on the topic, and sit on numerous boards and steering committees devoted to Food Safety Culture, including contributing to the GFSI position paper defining Food Safety Culture.

It is these same subject matter experts, along with our award-winning course development teams, that create the 100+ food safety training courses in Intertek Alchemy’s training library.