Media Analysis

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Enhancing Food Safety Culture to Reduce Rates of
Foodborne Illness
Dr. Ben Chapman Food safety extension
specialist Dept of 4-H Youth Dev and FCS North
Carolina State University benjamin_chapman_at_ncsu.ed
u
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Food safety culture

• The aggregation of the prevailing, relatively
  constant, learned, shared attitudes, values and
  beliefs contributing to the hygiene behaviors
  used within a particular food handling
  environment
• Griffith (2010)

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Food safety culture

• It is a set of shared attitudes, values and
  beliefs around food safety
• Production/sources
• Handling/storage
• Preparation
• You can have a good food safety culture or a bad
  one

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Impact of actions
Travis Cudney 2010 Champion Child Blind since age
2 Complications from a pathogenic E. coli
infection
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Food safety culture

• Maintaining a food safety culture means
• Operators and staff know the risks associated
  with the products or meals they produce
• Know why managing the risks is important
• Can effectively manage those risks
• Demonstrable

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Fat Duck norovirus, England, 2009

• Run by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal
• Voluntarily closed restaurant in Feb. 2009
• Originally said it wasnt food, but an airborne
  virus
• UK Health Protection Agency reported in Sept.
  2009, 529 patrons ill with norovirusin January
  and February 2009
• source was likely contaminated shellfish,
  including oysters that were served raw

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Fat Duck

• Delayed response to the incident
• Used inappropriate environmental cleaning
  productsStaff working when ill
• up to 16 of the restaurants food handlers were
  reportedly working with norovirus symptoms
  before it was voluntarily closed

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Food safety culture

• Yiannas (2009)
• Culture not program
• It is a choice
• Leaders own the program
• Talk about consequences
• Provide consequences

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Maple Leaf Foods, Canada 2008

• Listeria monocytogenes-contaminated deli meats
  caused 57 illnesses and 23 deaths
• contamination source was commercial meat slicers
  that had meat residue trapped deep inside the
  slicing mechanisms
• textbook risk communication,lousy risk
  management
• delay in warning the public

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Maple Leaf Listeria review

• Focus on food safety was insufficient among
  senior management at company and government
• Insufficient planning for a potential outbreak
• Those involved lacked a sense of urgency at the
  outset of the outbreak
• Weatherill (2009) specifically identified the
  need for cultures of food safety at food
  processing companies, calling for actions, not
  words

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Cultural factors influencing food safety
performance
Griffith, Livesey Clayton (2010)

• Leadership
• Food safety managementsystems and style
• Commitment to food safety
• Food safety environment
• Risk perception
• Communication

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Maple Leaf try harder

• Provide a chronological accounting of the
  outbreak
• Warning labels to packages of ready-to-eat meats
  for persons at high risk for listeriosis
• Testing results?

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Marketing food safety culture
Retail/ foodservice
Distribution
Consumers
Production
Customer feedback
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Things to concentrate on

• What are the barriers/roadblocks in your firm?
• Provide tools/resources
• Asking questions from vendors about their
  practices
• have a system to know what the right answers are.
• Share the food safety values are with all staff
• And when you get good at it (or if you already
  are), market it

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Food safety culture

• Relatively easy (or should be) to define poor
  food safety culture
• More difficult to enact a good one
• Griffith Yiannas Powell and Chapman
• More will come

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External and internal

• Demonstrate to their staff and customers that
• they are aware of current food safety issues
• learn from others mistakes
• food safety is important within the organization

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• Dr. Ben Chapman
• benjamin_chapman_at_ncsu.edu
• Follow me on twitter _at_benjaminchapman
• 919 809 3205
• www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com
• www.barfblog.com