Ready, Set, Fail?

This past week I dug through the mountain of technical journals that had become a physical hazard in my office. To my delight, I found an article in the February 2010 issue oi Food Protection Trends worth sharing. The article is entitled "Background Factors Affecting the Implementation of Food Safety Management Systems," and is authored by Brita Ball, Anne Wilcock and May Aung from the University of Guelph's Departments of Food Science and Marketing and Consumer Studies. I believe that the paper provides some interesting insights into why HACCP and food safety management systems (FSMS) programs can fail. 7. Production variables - Production variables can affect how employees embrace a FSMS. These include: product characteristics (the harder a product is to make, the lower the focus on FSMS); process characteristics (the easier the production processes and the more automation, the better); equipment (better equipment is generally more efficient and sanitary); and facilities (well-designed plants have less difficulty implementing FSMS).