Do You Need a Food Safety Audit?

Food safety is not just a regulatory requirement, it's an ethical responsibility for every produce grower and seller. Protecting consumer health and mitigating potential harm is paramount to fulfill your responsibility as a food provider, but also to safeguard your reputation in the industry.

Sticking to food safety protocols is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for market access, with many vendors requiring independent food safety audits. 

Going beyond compliance, a food safety audit can strengthen your brand image, foster trust with consumers and partners, and ultimately can protect your business from costly recalls and negative publicity.

Investing in food safety is about building a foundation for sustainable success. In this post, we will discuss the positive aspects of food safety audits and how to plan for one!

What is a Food Safety Audit?

A food safety audit is an evaluation of your food safety management processes. It focuses on things like storage, preparation, sanitation, employee hygiene and details of facility design.

The audit generates a report that can be used to earn a certification and can be shared with partners or vendors to demonstrate your commitment to food safety. For certification, the audit is completed against a series of benchmarks.

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) sets these benchmarks for a variety of food safety schemes. GFSI audits look at three areas:

• Do you say what you do? Do you have solid policies and procedures?
• Do you do what you say?  Do you actually follow your policies?
• Do you track what you do? How good are your records?
  
  

Why Do You Need an Audit?

There are two basic reasons why all produce suppliers should do a food safety audit:

1. To avoid the PR disaster of being in the center of an outbreak of food-borne disease. Avoiding starting an outbreak is the right thing to do, but it also allows you to avoid potential scandals.
2. Many vendors, such as Walmart, require an audit and certification to sell to them or for them to directly import your produce. Walmart, for example, requires a GFSI audit, conducted once a year. Access to these customers can significantly increase your revenue.

An audit also helps you learn how to do better and train your employees in procedures that will keep your end customers and your employees safer.

How to Plan for an Audit

You need to plan for an audit by making sure your policies and procedures are comprehensive and clearly written. Make sure you cover everything from what pesticides you use to when employees are required to wash their hands.

Taking a class on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) is the best way to gain the knowledge you need to deal with an incident. But your policies need to cover both what to do when there's a problem and what you do every single day to prevent one from happening.

Make sure anyone who might interact with the auditor is up-to-date on their food safety knowledge. Train employees in your protocols and make sure they are notified of any changes.

Audits for certification are conducted by third parties. Before your third-party audit, do an internal audit to make sure everyone is up to scratch and policies are being followed. Schedule your internal audit for two or three months before the certification audit so you have plenty of time to fix problems that might come up. Continue to do regular internal audits, as well as spot checks.

This will help make sure you pass the audit first time. These audits can't get you shut down if they uncover a major problem, but you won't get the certification and will have to fix the issue then apply, and pay, again.

How Plastic Corrugated Boxes Can Help

Plastic corrugated boxes help with the safe storage and transportation of produce. By using these boxes, you avoid wax residue developing on your produce.

They are also water resistant, recyclable, and SQF certified to be completely food safe. Your auditor will be impressed!

To find out more, or to order your plastic corrugated boxes, contact Industry Plastic today.