Creating a food safety culture is vital to food safety in food manufacturing. It ensures that employees are well-trained and that your manufacturing processes are creating food items that are safe for consumers. But, how can companies successfully foster a food safety culture?
In this guide, we’ll explore what a food safety culture is, and how your team can create it through food safety training. We’ll also discuss implementing safety practices using automated food equipment, which can prepare your team for safety inspections. Food safety safeguards your customers, employees, and business, so dedicating time and effort to maintaining good manufacturing processes is of the utmost importance.
What is a “Food Safety Culture?”
Before we explore how food manufacturers are creating a food safety culture, we must understand what food safety is. Food safety ensures that your products are safe for consumers and that your manufacturing processes are safe for your employees. Employing and enforcing food safety prevents foreign object and pathogen contamination. It also helps employees avoid injuries during the manufacturing process.
In short, a food safety culture is a manufacturer’s dedication to enforcing food safety practices throughout the frozen meal production process. Creating a food safety culture includes making a food safety training program, maintaining food safety practices, and employing technology that helps the team achieve food safety. A food safety culture also inspires labels to continually improve manufacturing processes to maintain food safety.
However, creating a food safety culture can start with implementing a food safety training program. This safety training program should cover a range of topics– let’s take a look at what it should include.
Food Safety Training
Food safety training is a federal requirement primarily to prevent foodborne illnesses. Various government alliances have developed food safety programs that companies can implement. Safety topics include identifying hazards, developing corrective actions, and meeting regulatory requirements. Here’s what your food safety training program can include:
Employee Hygiene
Covering employee hygiene is a great foundation for any training program. Reviewing good hygiene with employees can prevent the spread of foodborne illnesses, which are often caused by unwashed hands handling food. Stressing the importance of washing hands and wearing the right personal protective equipment (PPE) can keep your food products safe from both pathogen contamination and foreign body contamination.
Machine Operation
When your frozen food label uses automated machinery, it’s critical to ensure that your employees are well-trained in how to operate the machinery. This training can boost employee confidence and productivity while decreasing the risk of accidents and downtime.
Machine Maintenance and Cleaning
Machine maintenance and cleaning should also be part of your food safety training program. Training your employees in the proper maintenance and cleaning of your automated machinery not only fosters good manufacturing processes but also a solid food safety culture. Maintenance training can increase food safety, employee confidence, and team productivity. Ensuring that your employees can maintain the machines is a key part in safety and success. Of course, the easier the machines are to maintain, the faster employees can learn and the less downtime there is.
However, creating a food safety culture doesn’t stop at developing a food safety training program. It involves putting those practices in place and employing technology that can make achieving food safety easier. Let’s look at food safety, food production lines, and safety inspections, and how automated equipment can streamline safety efforts.
Automation: Food Production Lines, and Safety Inspections
Safety inspections are a critical part of food manufacturing. It ensures that food production lines are maintaining safe operations and creating safe products for consumers. Safety inspections are federally required and include routine, targeted, follow-up, and for-cause inspections. While safety inspections might seem overwhelming, employing the right tech can save time and effort when preparing for them. In fact, the right automated equipment can facilitate safety regulations and help your team adhere to guidelines. Automation prepares food production lines for safety inspections by streamlining operations and improving food safety.
Streamlines Operations
Automated machinery, especially Quantum equipment, streamlines operations. Quantum equipment requires minimum staffing and increases productivity while keeping the food assembly process simple. During safety inspections, the inspector will tour the plant and can ask to see the manufacturing process. These streamlined processes are easy to demonstrate to inspectors, showing your company’s dedication to precision and consistency.
Improves Food Safety
Inspectors can also ask to see the sanitation schedule. Relying on machinery that’s easy to clean and maintain will further show your company’s commitment to food safety, impressing them. When your automated food equipment is easy to clean and maintain, your team is more likely to adhere to maintenance schedules, preparing the team for successful inspections. Quantum equipment is washdown compatible and doesn’t require major downtime to sanitize.
These features are key aspects of Quantum equipment. Let’s next explore some of the types of automated machinery we have available.
Automated Food Equipment at Quantum
At Quantum, our goal is to increase productivity for our clients’ food production lines without sacrificing food safety and quality. We design industry-leading automated food equipment for frozen pizza, bakery, and prepared meals. Here is just some of the machinery that has transformed productivity and food safety for our clients:
- Sauce applicators
- Cheese/Topping Applicators
- Meat/Pepperoni Slicers
- Dry/Granular Ingredient Applicators
- Cardboard Circle Placers
- Conveyor Systems
We’ve designed each one of our engineered solutions with the demands of food manufacturing in mind. Our automated food equipment reduces operational costs and conserves ingredients and resources, all while assisting your team in creating a food safety culture.
Improve Food Safety With Quantum Technical Services
Our experts have designed our equipment to improve production line food safety and to make creating a food safety culture easy. By simplifying operations and maintenance, better food safety is an inherent feature of Quantum equipment. Contact our team of experts to learn how our equipment can improve the food safety of your production process and help your team pass safety inspections.