Communicating the Value of Food Safety to Senior Leadership

07 Mar 2025

In this blog we outline tips to help you build a culture of food safety which can be a challenge beyond the Quality Department.

Food safety culture is now a fundamental requirement across all GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) standards such as BRCGS, FSSC 22000 and IFS, emphasizing leadership commitment, employee awareness, and continuous improvement to ensure a strong food safety mindset at all levels of an organization

People often say that ‘Integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is looking’.  As Technical and Quality professionals within a food business, we need our senior management to follow our rules and act with this integrity.  Yet often very senior management roles are taken by those from a non-food safety background.

Early in my career my employer at the time sent me to undertake a supplier approval audit at an overseas factory. I arrived the night before the audit, and even though production had ended for the day it was suggested that we had a brief meeting at the factory to discuss the plans for the audit.  The management team were keen for me to meet the owner, and they asked him to join us. He lived in a house at the rear of the site. I glanced through the window in the meeting room into the high care production facility and spotted a man and his dog strolling through the facility. Neither were wearing any PPE but that was the least of my concerns. The blatant disregard to food safety procedures from the man in overall control of the business cascaded to those working below him and resulted in them not being approved.

So how do we guide and support our Senior Management team to be the backbone of our food safety culture?

1. Who are you reporting to? – I’ve seen many different organisational structures over the years. My personal preference is for the food safety ‘expert’ e.g. Technical Manager to report directly into the Managing Director or General Manager of the site. This demonstrates how important the business views Food Safety & Quality with a direct link to the top. However, with the right personnel reporting into Operations/Production can work, with the food safety team used as a valued team coach guiding the production team. With the wrong personnel this can lead to frustration if the Food Safety & Quality team feel unheard. Whichever structure is in place at your business, its essential that you feel able to escalate food safety issues if they occur.
2. Where are you on the Agenda? – The location of Food Safety and Quality issues on a management team agenda speaks volumes about how important it is viewed. It should be second only to Health & Safety. If its not near the top (or at the top), then speak to the person who sets the agenda and ask for it to be moved. Do not underestimate how a simple change such as this can impact mindset.
3. What training has your Management team had? – At the very least, all Senior Management team members should hold a Level 2 Food Safety certificate if they are visiting the production facility.  Ideally, a Level 3 Food Safety qualification should be considered.  Visit Food Safety Training | Intertek SAI Global Assurance Learning for more information on some of our excellent training courses available.
4. What language do you use to communicate? Do some research on your senior team and find out their background. Then modify your conversation into their language to make the message clear and easy to understand. For example; for Food Safety professionals we understand that HACCP is the basis of a food safety management system where we undertake an analysis of food safety risks and put in place controls, some critical, to manage those risks. For a Senior team members with an accountancy background, you could rephrase it to – HACCP is a system we use to control the risks of making bad, unsaleable product which costs us money in terms of lost material, rework, labour and potentially fines / loss of business if the bad product left site.  Changing the language into one they understand (financial impact) then makes this topic important and relevant to them.
5. We have a serious issue; how do I get their support? Sometimes we have to go to Senior Management to get their support to take serious action, for example to recall a product. It’s important to be clear about the issue, the risks and steps which need to happen. You are the expert and therefore you need to guide the senior team to the correct decisions. We could say that “Escherichia coli is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus Escherichia that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms. Tests have found this in 2 of our products and we need to decide what to do next.”  By the time you have reached the end of that sentence your senior leader has already lost interest and is scrolling on their phone. Or we could say “E coli is a nasty pathogenic bacterium (one that makes people very ill, some even die from it). We’ve found it in 2 products and so it’s important that we take steps 1, 2 & 3 now to ensure we protect our customers from this risk.” By using this language, you’ve highlighted the seriousness and told them what needs to happen next.  Keep it short, simple and factual and give them your professional view on what needs to happen next.

If you need support in getting your Senior Management team on board with food safety, then feel free to get in touch. As Technical Consultant at Intertek SAI Global I can help support, coach and guide businesses through every aspect of Food Safety and Quality Management Systems.

MORE INFORMATION

• Food safety audits & certification
• Training courses
• A Culture of Food Safety: A position paper from the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)