Farmer-to-Farmer:

Food Safety &

Quality Program

Sheri Kahnke, M.S.

Mary Moeller, Ed.D.

June 2022
Day 2 Agenda
• WELCOME BACK!!

• Review of Day 1
• Necessary Competencies

• KPIs

• True Colors

• Food Safety Culture – a Deeper Dive

Competencies – How were
these chosen?
• Group process -
• Pair/Share strategy first
• Main points gathered and recorded
• Themes identified and reported
• All voices could be heard!
• Why is this critical or important to creating a FOOD
SAFETY CULTURE?
• Demonstrates Respect – People-Skill
• Reciprocal learning opportunity – many ideas!
• Creates communication channels
• Creates relationships
 • Must be measurable – can be counted or
quantified
• Applied consistently -
• Benchmarking is critical -
• Benchmarking progress can also be very
motivational.
KPIs • Consider how you can communicate your
progress to others.
• How could this be done? YOUR EXAMPLES??
• Make this an opportunity to build culture and
pride.

• Who are the critical stakeholders who need this

information?
Training TIP: benchmarking is something
teachers/training need to do all the time.

• How can I build upon your knowledge base unless I know what YOU know?
• When you talk to a close colleague about something, you have a good idea of
what that person understands about a situation. You know that you don’t have to
start from the beginning every time.
• Not so in training – it’s challenging for trainers to know where to start.

• Food Safety Culture is the same.

• We will continuously benchmark and communicate those metrics as a best
practice.
 Yet --
In a larger group of workers that you
don’t know, it will be important to give
some sort of a pre-test or pre-
assessment, so you know where to
begin with training.

Do not assume that they understand

even basic terms because it’s easy for
people to nod their heads "yes" if you
ask, “do you know what this means?”

People do not like to feel ignorant!

(None of us do!!)
 Bloom's taxonomy – Levels of learning,
thinking and working
How Bloom’s taxonomy can be applied –
• Bloom’s can be used as a benchmark describing the different levels of
knowledge attainment or learning.
.
• Workers in various roles of an organization need to know different things
and be able to do different things at different levels of complexity.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjOa6l4GFJA
• Overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy

• https://www.utica.edu/academic/Assessment/new/Blooms%20Taxonomy%20-%20Best.pdf
• Choose from many verbs to precisely describe the roles of workers & the assessment criteria.
Bloom's Taxonomy – Google this for valuable insights!
True Colors
Food Safety
Culture
Reference: GFSI Food Safety
Culture
 Food Safety Culture Defined

Global Food Safety Initiative:

“shared values, beliefs and norms that affect mind-set
and behavior toward food safety in, across and
throughout an organisation.”

• Shared values, beliefs and norms

• Organizational learning process
Food Safety Culture – What it is NOT
• Not a Formal System - "food safety culture plan"
• Not “One Size Fits All”
• Creating a documented Food Safety Culture and evaluating a Food Safety Culture is
unique --
• What factors impact the approach?
• Size
• Location
• Workforce/Demographics
• Union
• Family Owned/Private/Cooperative/Government
• Origin or religion or experience of team members
• Income levels, educational levels, work ethics
Best practices on Food Safety Culture
• Gap analysis, trend analysis, train, repeat analysis, set target for non-
conformists; motivate employees?? Please add how you motivate
here; encourage employees to report non-comforming practices.
• Benchmark whole company, categorizing employees depending on
their practice; awareness level to change culture; train & induction;
continuous improvement. Overall strategy of the country and
company internally linked to productivity of company; include KPIs of
employees; add motivational programs; select audit team; train
trainers team; establish PMO (project management office); manage
activities of organization; evaluation of process
• LoL – management team includes/invites different employees to
attend, open invitations to sit and participate; all welcome to raise
awareness; example of inclusiveness that all need to be recognized
for everyday activities
• Inspection or extension side – good example of a bad practice:
sometimes no commitment from management to promote food
culture
• Companies starting their activities need to hire experienced
employees who know how to mentor, train others in food safety and
to be good models. Importance of mentorship – can be positive or
negative influence!
• Worker's culture (origins) might not be best; monitoring and
completing internal audit for those workers; train carefully to make
sure they understand the process; deliver importance of their
positions!
At start of Food Safety Process in a company, is it a costly start-
up in terms of $, time, etc.?
• Start Small & Build
• Choose 1 or 2 items you control and can impact
• Have a clearly defined indicator (KPI)
• Measure routinely and consistently
• Share results
• Celebrate small wins
• Make corrections
• Prioritize projects carefully
• Most important part of proving you have a FSP plan is that you understand
the critical points, have identified your gaps, and you are actively working
to make changes.
Egyptian perspectives on how to begin FS planning
• NFS offers $ to implement plans and activities; upgrade infrastructure;
training managers & supervisors (defray costs here); amounts
undetermined at this point.
• Ramp up awareness and level of understanding in that every employee
understands the importance of their roles in producing safe, quality food
for the global food chain.
• An intentional process to invest in.
• Important and a smaller investment could impact a lot with train the
trainer model; focus on workers, hygienic practices
• Start asking managers: do they know that FS is important to CEO and be
able to answer EACH DAY – what are you doing to make a positive
difference in food safety?
• Be patient and persistent! Changing cultures takes years and years of
practice! Perhaps even by stressing the importance to people.
Global Food Safety – many resources on this
group and its work online!
• https://mygfsi.com/
Food Safety Culture Dimensions
• Values and Mission
• Leadership and direction setting from the top
employees
• Aligns with strategic objectives
• Well understood across the location
• Sets the tone
• Leadership is CRITICAL
 • People
• All involved stakeholders
• Clearly defined individual
responsibilities
• Customized training and knowledge
Food Safety delivery system
Culture • Role, Competency, Background
Dimensions • Driving force for food safety culture
implementation

*Training Tip – True Colors

We are all unique!
Ways to work with immigrant populations as workers:
• Use pictures and photos and posters to illustrate when workers’
reading skills are weak.
• Educate workers on specific culture awareness events outside the
plant, using buses, etc.
• Teach on tv screen about conformity points; share lessons from the
audits using visual aides.
• Story-telling: examples from the pyramid hierglyphics
• Highlighting standard operating procedures and the benefits from
using them – the WHY we need to do this!
• Local guide books to show how to do
• Field trips & visits to other processing facilities with good
safety practices.
• Games and playing as teaching practice! Learning should be
fun, engaging and active! Passionate people can be a positive
difference!
• Example US activity: holiday, end-of-the-year game at the
party. Challenged the workers to show how they were
implementing the best practices of hygiene and safety in a
competition. They were creative ideas from videos, etc. From
the 12 days of Christmas (from the song).
• Have Fun -- But everything in balance; everything in
moderation. Sprinkle in fun and entertainment for employee
engagement!
Food Safety Culture Dimensions
Adaptability

• People centered
• Open communication
• Challenges
• Near Misses
• Continuous Improvement
• Continued Success

*Training Tip – True Color Adaptability & People-Centered Traits

Food Safety Culture Dimension
Consistency Risk

• Critical to sustainable • Actual and potential

improvement hazards and risks across
• Accountability for all all functions and
employees locations
• Clear KPI metrics
 Individual Food Safety Culture Visualization
• Familiar Food Facility
• Manufacturing plant
• A place you inspect
• Restaurant

• Think about the specific attitudes & behaviors that are linked to Food Safety Culture at
that location
• Very brief – 1 or 2 words

• List specific descriptors and an explanation of why

• Very brief – 1 or 2 words

• Who is responsible for food safety culture at that location?

*Training Tip – Benchmarking! You have just done it – effortlessly! :)

 Group Activity
•Read 5 page GFSI Summary Doc
•Discuss in small groups
• Identify a significant point that you can
provide a specific example from your
experiences that illustrates the point
•What surprised you?
Reflections:
• Management commitment to be important. Without it we fail.
• Hazard and risk training - critical training plus the trained employees,
test their willingness and ability to stop the non-conforming situation
that they might see.
• Adaptability – important to have a plan to implement, for
emergencies especially.
• Some do not have a willingness to change; too proud of themselves
and resistant to change.
• Guidelines for each factor as very important with the ratings and
details and guideline questions as helpful. Perhaps find more
questions to cover other details.
Summary:
• Thank you all! We have so enjoyed our time here and for getting to
meet you.
• Thank you for sharing your information and expertise with us.
• We are hopeful for the future of Egyptian food culture.
Group Activity Using GFSI Food Safety
Culture Summary as a Resource
Choose Define Outline Define

Choose 1 employee Clearly define their Clearly outline Define clear

role from a food role in food safety training to meet the benchmarking
production facility: employee needs –
• Janitorial/Maintenance what do they need
• Laboratory to know?
• Purchasing
• Production Worker
• Supervisor Hint: Use Bloom’s Hint: Use Bloom’s
• Quality Control Taxonomy verb Taxonomy for verb
• General Manager choices. choices.