Managing Risk from Farm to Fork
SFI International and Icon Global presented at the Securing Global Food Safety conference in Melbourne 26-27th September 2011 on the topic Issues in Traceability from Farm to Fork Linking Incident Management to your Risk Plans.
Following on from presentations in Shanghai and London this year Peter Gillson Director of SFI International has delivered key note papers to industry leaders on the need to change the way we look at managing risk from the farm to the fork by implementing better tracking and traceability systems in your business. Key focus area include the expectations on business from within and external to the business and how is business today addressing the increased need to manage.
One of the key components is valuing your stakeholders along the product lifecycle and delivering better tracking and traceability at key delivery points.
To achieve measurable outcomes you need to look at your systems approach and include direct links to your incident management systems so that product hierarchies are mapped against external issues and measured against internal validated risk plans. We look at how you can add value by embracing consumer feedback as a measure for validation of plans by linking their issues directly to your CCPs and risk plans. There have been many reasons driving thee need to changes the methodology to drive better practice.
Government Agencies are increasing the inspection process of manufacturing facilities. The increased focus is due to increased demands by today’s consumer groups, federal agencies and global manufacturing standards.
Product and Food safety measures are constantly under the microscope due largely to the increased manufacturing numbers, speed to market pressures and competition to gain market share in the global world where opportunity presents itself and our desire to get consistency across the market place.
Over time we have witnessed more food safety law changes and in 2010 witnessed some major reform around the world. In January 2011 Australian Consumer Law introduced mandatory reporting of issues related to illness – and penalties for business for non-compliance and in we also witnesses the signing of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act that authorizes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to increase inspections of many domestic food facilities, enhance detection of food borne illness outbreaks, and order recalls of tainted food product. The law requires most food companies to write and implement new safety protocols to mitigate potential hazards. Also, imported food products face increased scrutiny under the law, including denial of entry into the United States under certain circumstances. The law also contains a food safety whistle-blower provision designed to encourage employee reporting of food safety concerns and protect the whistle-blower from retaliation by the whistle-blower’s employer. It is the most significant update of American food safety laws since the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938 and one that has been sought by many over an extended period.
As we have seen – brands can disappear and business can be shut down on the back of a recall or food safety issue. Physical contamination of food is the underlying reason for more than 40% of food recalls in Australia. Food contamination has a devastating effect on consumer’s health and on businesses due to the financial consequence and the cost and effort involved in restoring the company image and consumer confidence and rebuilding brand loyalty.
A recent 12 month review of the Australian product safety recall system by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) revealed that there were 779 recalls in Australia, with some involving many thousands of products. No one country or company is removed from Risk or the responsibility that comes with food safety/Product safety.
Collectively we can lessen the risk by implementing better monitoring and tracking systems through the total lifecycle of product from the Farm to the Consumer.
We all know that there is now far more focus on compliance and transparency with all stakeholders for business.
●There are more community members looking to business to take the lead in this area
●Business is struggling to understand how to reduce the complexity of the model
●To help us understand we have worked closely with some of our global partners and listened to customer sentiment and the voice of the
customer and taken this into account in the development of Food and Product safety Risk plans
●A recent survey of some 15,000 households that we conducted told us that consumers did not trust business and that the one thing they
wanted was for business to listen to them and be open and honest and then they would be more likely to re purchase or become an
advocate for the company
●When HACCP was introduced it was not real time. We had time on our side, communication was not as it is today and we could arrange
meetings to decide directions
●NOW we are dealing with real time issues that are communicated via virtual means faster than we can get together. You don’t have time
on your side
●Today's consumers are technology aware. They are demanding and they know their rights. They are not afraid to voice their opinion and
if you get it wrong they can destroy your brand by using today’s technology and social media outlets to spread the word
●So Risk Plans need to be real time displaying what happened, when it happened and you need integration between your CRM Incident
Management system and your Risk Plans
To do this we need a holistic approach that engages all and does not departmentalise the approach, it must be simple, conclusive and deliver consistency to business and importantly transparent to your consumers.
Everyone in the world is exposed to Risk of some nature. Some recognize it, and act on it, better than others, some fumble their way through what they believe to be well crafted plans that have been put together based on historic traditional reasons rather than the needs of business today.
Types of risk can vary from business to business but there are some risks most businesses have in common. As well as listing the risks, you must understand the consequences that come from poor processes.
●Financial, Health and Safety, Operational, Political, Environment, Social media, Economic and Strategic risks are part of our plans today
They impact our business in various ways and drive changes in customer expectations and the need to constantly update to meet that change. One such risk which we have not addressed in the past is Social Media risk plans. There is a need to build this into your model. Be seen to embrace social media and don’t look to control it.
Make no mistake today’s consumers are savvy, demanding and out for retribution if you are not seen to be meeting their expectations they will ‘spread the word’ as we are less tolerant and we want it "NOW".
The ACCC in Australia uses social media methods to broadcast the release of recall reports and the sending of tweets through a new food safety twitter account and notifications are now being directly emailed to hundreds of industry associations and stakeholders – This means you can no longer hide on the domestic or international markets, your brand is exposed to millions in a matter of minutes. In addition now GS1 have also released GS1 Recallnet for speedy communication via an online portal that enables companies to create, approve and issue recall and withdrawal notifications to their customers and government agencies efficiently and securely and is designed to remove unsafe products from the market swiftly.
In many instances consumers are the first point of contact for an issue. By collecting their information in a sophisticated system that links directly to your internal processes you will be able to better manage that risk with stronger validated plans.
SFI International has designed and built in CCP alerts from the Risk Management systems ISES (developed by Icon Global) linked to GS1 product codes, and risk plans that map against acceptable levels of risk and report to business possible threats and systemic issues.
We work with many of the largest Consumer goods companies on the implementation of thresholds and alerts related to issues and the associated actions and workflows to better manage the process from farm to fork. In the 20 years we have been implementing incident management it is only recently that business has come to us and said we need to align our workflows for issues with our validated and approved risk plan or CCP’s in the business.
What we are doing is building our risk plans and having these directly linked to consumer issues so that we can pop a dashboard report for mapped against the plan. This same model is used to deliver reports that will validate the plan or drive change processes around risk.
Your business is better equipped to conduct an audit and you are able to demonstrate corporate responsibility by delivering full tracking and traceability over the lifecycle of the product – from farm to fork (your supplier and consumer).
Peter Gillson is the Relationship Director for SFI International, a company he co-founded in 1992 to provide incident management systems to the corporate sector. Peter’s primary role has been to develop global relationships with senior management to improve internal delivery methods by linking risk plans to incident management systems and managing processes through strong workflow tools.
Peter speaks regularly at international conferences on integrating systems to the consumer/supplier for better outcomes. Papers delivered include:
●Going Global with Consumer Feedback - Switzerland 2003
●Implementing CRM to Gain, Maintain and Retain Customers - London 2005
●Oracle Food Quality Conference - Hong Kong 2005
●The real cost and benefits of Customer Relations, defining ROI – Brisbane 2006
●Consumer Emotions and Insights Conference - Sydney 2008
●Consumer emotions, sentiment and advocacy ‘NOW ‘ - Sydney 2009
●Series of CEO breakfasts on Consumer Advocacy - 2009
●Going from a Cost centre to a Profit Centre - Sydney 2010
Published Research :
●Return on Investment in Consumer Department - ROI 2006
●National Consumer Emotions, Sentiment and Advocacy Now 2009
Peter also works closely with Government and currently sits on advisory boards that deliver business updates on current laws and changes with corporate compliance to drive more compliant tracking and traceability.
