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How to Build a Modern and Comprehensive Food Safety Program

A winning food safety strategy incorporates HACCP and FSMA guidelines, strong leadership, and end-to-end oversight of a processing operation.

0223 Food Safety

To develop a world-class food safety program, it's important to be knowledgeable and organized. You should also have a continual flow of both data and verbal communications. It should be obvious that without using all these skills, the program will probably be incomplete and, at worst, ineffective.

So the challenge is to define what constitutes a food safety program and then use those skills to develop the plans to create one. As an instructor of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) and Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), my students often question the difference between a food safety program and a food safety system. A correct understanding of these terms lays a pathway forward to success. In food safety terms, a “program” can be the overall strategy to produce safe and wholesome food, whereas a “system” consists of the components, tactics, and tools to make the program work. 

How to get started on your food safety program

A good place to start is to develop a program that incorporates the current regulatory requirements. For most products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these regulations are outlined in the FSMA rules. For products regulated under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), HACCP rules apply. These food safety requirements must be developed satisfying the minimal rules. In practice, many consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies go well beyond these minimal requirements in their programs. Unfortunately, some CPGs might mistakenly believe their food safety program starts at the loading dock and ends at the shipping bay. 

The FDA generally looks at food safety from “farm to fork,” so it is appropriate to develop a total program using that same lens. CPGs should consider where all their ingredients and packaging materials come from (even where their local water comes from), who their consumers are, and every step of production within the supply chain. 

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