Food Safety Auditing: What are the Actual Gains?

As a food safety professional, audits are a part of an everyday task. When I first started back in the industry some twenty years ago, it seemed like we had all these audits that we participated in from the Food Safety and Quality department. Then once the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) came onto the scene, those of in the food safety realm believed that all these audits would be replaced by a GFSI audit such as BRC or SQF.

The landscape of these types of audits was to be completely different than any type of audit that had been undertaken before. GFSI felt like the way to make this a successful endeavor was to make it all encompassing by making it more than just about food safety or quality. To be successful at this type of audit, it takes involvement and/ or buy in from multi-departmental team as well as senior management commitment.

The goal or focus is that the audit is a snapshot of the entire process, how it considers food safety and quality aspects of the business. Whereas most of us in the food safety and quality world remember the days when FSQA department was the sole ownership of the audit burden. This way of looking at it now allows other departments to have experience of audit involvement as well as accountability.

“Some of the best practices I have experienced are those when cross-functional involvement of team members within the production areas are asked to audit a procedure that they may not necessarily be involved with, such as a maintenance team member looking at continuous temperature monitoring in a ready-to-eat facility.”

The standards take these a few steps further and have internal auditing requirements. Successful internal auditing programs allow for establishment teams to review them with lots of information for continuous improvement opportunities. Some of the best practices I have experienced are those when cross-functional involvement of team members within the production areas are asked to audit a procedure that they may not necessarily be involved with, such as a maintenance team member looking at continuous temperature monitoring in a ready-to-eat facility.

This type of opportunity allows for questioning to be conducted in a manner that a team member would explain the why and how of the process for verification of team members knowledge retainment. Internal audits also allow for the team to handle opportunities as they arise before becoming a serious food safety concern. It is key to have developed internal audit system that records conformities and non-conformities to report to the overall team so that corrective actions and preventative measures may be implemented to resolve the non-conformities in a timely manner. By following this process, establishments can always remain audit ready.

Getting back to the focus of what are the actual gains of all the changes occurring for audits. The number of recalls has not gone down since the implementation of GFSI audits. If I ask most of my colleagues would say that the number of supplier or co-packer audits have skyrocketed and were not eliminated by the GFSI audits as we once believed. Rather than accepting the GFSI certificate and final report, customers continue to perform condensed versions of GFSI audits hiring teams of audits to be sent out to establishments.

Senior facility management needs to take a hard look that the minimal gains of these audits and push for a better way forward for the next phase of food safety; otherwise, stagnant progress could lead to further complacence.