Food safety culture - The new way of life

The simplest definition of culture that I have ever heard has to be that from those days of learning Social Studies as a subject in primary school. It was "culture is a people's way of life".

Culture is learned and passed down from one learned person to another not-so-learned person through a process known as acculturation. It is through acculturation that we learn and internalise values, beliefs and customs that eventually find their way into our daily habits and activities.

Now let's come over to food safety.

Food safety refers to handling, processing and preservation of food in order to prevent physical, chemical and biological hazards that cause foodborne illnesses.

Human beings (people) are involved in all aspects of the food value chain; from farming to harvesting, to processing and preservation, to distribution and retailing, to preparation and service to consumers. With human influence, comes the need for learning and acculturation for things to be done a certain way, the right way.

This means that food safety will only be achieved when food science and social science come together as one. You know, just like marriage. With social science comes the knowledge of human behaviour and how to interact, relate and influence people towards adopting a certain way of life.

You can have all the scientific knowledge about food safety in the world, but if you can't get people to drop their old habits and adopt a scientifically proven way to ensure that the food they and others eat does not cause them harm, then you still have some more learning to do.

According to Food Safety Systems Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000),

food safety culture refers to shared values, beliefs and norms that affect mindset and behaviour toward food safety in, across and throughout an organisation.

The recently released version 6 of FSSC 22000 has a food safety and quality culture cultivation requirement for all food chain categories which has communication, trainings, employee feedback and engagement as some elements.

As far as food safety culture is concerned, you should never assume that people know the "right thing" when no communication or training has been done. From the big food companies to the small and medium-sized businesses on the street, no one is above or beneath communication and training. Communication and training are powerful tools that can bring about food safety acculturation and the mindset shift needed to ensure that the food chain delivers safe and quality food to all consumers.

This months newsletter is a call to action to make food safety culture our new way of life and pass down the knowledge to others.

Stay safe out there, until next time.

Written and edited by Chidinma Ochulor for ??????'?? ???????? ????????! ????????????????????.

__________

Chidinma is a Food Scientist and Technologist, Food Safety and Quality Professional and certified by IRCA/CQI as a food safety management systems auditor.