Can you guarantee Food Safety and Quality?
There are only a few things that we and any other being on the planet can call “primary needs” which are essential for our survival, and I’m sure you quickly guessed one of them: Food!
We not only have food as a primary need, but we also have it as a source of pleasure, something that brings people together in particular moments or that comfort us when we’re down and alone. In all moments of our lives, food is there. Therefore it is paramount that we talk about food safety and quality, and although we have improved a lot since we used to live in those nice caves (not sure you remember that time), there’s still a lot we can do, and as a tech-entrepreneur, it’s one of my jobs to bring solutions to make people’s lives better, so let’s dive in.
The good news is the food industry, responsible for making sure we don’t need to go hunting anymore, has established a set of guidelines and protocols to guarantee the food we buy at the supermarket or order at a restaurant will not be the cause of any health issues on the population. I believe in the good faith and hard work of the people working in the food industry, but like any other process out there, mistakes might happen, machines will stop, little animals can show up, and all sorts of unexpected events.
Although such events are unexpected, we should actually expect them. For that, we have the SQF program described below:
“The Safe Quality Food (SQF) Program is a rigorous and credible food safety and quality program that is recognized by retailers, brand owners, and food service providers worldwide. Recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), the SQF family of food safety and quality codes are designed to meet industry, customer, and regulatory requirements for all sectors of the food supply chain — from the farm all the way to the retail stores.” (1)
The SQF Audit
The idea behind the SQF Audit is to give the businesses in the food industry the chance to prove they comply with the SQF standards, and this is the way for the SQF certification. Be sure such accreditation will give you and your business many more opportunities, especially with the industry’s prominent names.
There are a few steps to get the certification (2):
- Learn about the SQF code
- Register Your Company in the SQF Assessment Database
- Designate an Employee as the SQF Practitioner
- Choose Your Type of Certification
- Obtain Proposals from SQF Licensed Certification Bodies
- Conduct a Pre-Assessment (Optional)
- Choose a Certification Body and Schedule an Audit
- Certification Body Conducts Initial Certification Audits
Optimize your process
Here is the bad news. While it’s great to have the SQF help us make sure we’re on the right track, it’s not just a handful of details and forms that you get done in a few minutes. Therefore you need tools to help you with the process.
Tools like WayV can help you take care of what matters without wasting time and money with piles of paper or inaccurate data. On average, only one employee responsible for filling out paper forms spends up to 48 days in a year with such a task, which is equivalent to $7K/year. A larger company will waste much more, as you may have guessed. Now, if you have compliance problems because of some inaccurate data or a lost piece of paper, that’s more money coming out of your pocket.
Add to that the fact that paper forms don’t allow for evidence collection (photos, videos), can’t be automated, so you can quickly react to some problem just found, and you can’t audit in any reliable way or easily create charts out of them in nearly real-time. These are just some of the cons of paper forms and even spreadsheets.
With WayV, you can automate your safety and quality process, have your HACCP forms on the web and your mobile phone, save time and money, have your people use their talents for something more productive and get a 10/10 in any audits you’re submitted. In the end, your clients will profit from this, your company and your employees will profit from this. What else can you ask for?
Bônus: with all the climate change plans the governments have been drafting and will take place in the next years, you’ll be well-positioned when it comes to the number of trees you saved by reducing the amount of paper you use daily. After all, we must make use of technology to create a better world.
To learn more about how WayV can help you profit more, please visit https://way-v.com or call us at 1 (866) 248–4576.
