What is Food Safety Culture?
Food Safety Culture can be defined as the food safety attitudes, values and beliefs shared by a group of people. It is the product of employee attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that determine the commitment to and robustness of an organization's food safety management. In effect, an organization's food safety culture reflects "how we make safe food around here".
Studying foodborne incidents, it is noticed that most are caused by failures of GMP’s (Good Manufacturing Practices) and rarely caused by food safety system failures. It shows the importance to understand people's behaviors and what are the antecedents that influence their actions and attitudes.
Food Safety Culture is not only a technical issue. It is also the implementation of a food safety system standard. It includes management commitment demonstrated through the organization's vision, values, people systems, consistency, accountability and adaptability. It also relates to hazards and risk awareness and the adopted learning and behavior reinforcement practices.
