As June spirals towards its end, so too does our World Food Safety Day promotion. For the 3rd consecutive year, we are offering our Online Basic Food Safety Training at the give-away investment of R100 per person.

ProCert Southern Africa hosted a FREE Webinar themed “What to Expect from your Unannounced Audit”. This being the first of a series of “Lunch Hour Sessions”, it was encouraging to see so many participants signed up. I suppose this is also an indication of the level of insecurity that most of us experience when it comes to unannounced audits.

This month we are talking about a topic that is as important to us as it to you – root cause analysis and corrective action. In fact, the theme for this month was triggered by numerous discussions about repeat external audit non-conformances, repeat internal non-conformances as well as thousands of missed opportunities to improve.

This month we are celebrating our 17th birthday. Of course, no birthday would be complete without cake so we have decided to run a special birthday promotion on our social media platforms where you (and possibly some of your friends) could be the lucky owner of a Mugg & Bean voucher to go and enjoy coffee and cake on us! Keep an eye out for our social media posts…

With the year in full swing, we thought it would be nothing less than right to place the spotlight on food safety teams.

Hopefully you have had the privilege of relaxing and recharging for a few days over the festive season. If not, it means that you are one of those lucky people who get to go on holiday when everyone comes back to work. Either way, best wishes for the New Year, from our team to yours.

In this, our 64th blog (also the last for 2021), we reflect on the year that was... It has been a tragically sad year for many of us, but it has also been a year of tremendous growth and opportunity.

Is your current food safety and quality management system adding value? It may be worth our while to define the meaning of “value” in this context.

Today we take a look at how we can use our existing management systems to deliver not only results but also a level of continual improvement. Whether it be food safety, quality, environmental or health and safety, most recognised standards provide a platform that promotes continual improvement.

A culture of accountability creates an environment where fingers are not pointed when things wrong. The focus is problem solving and learning from mistakes. Without a sense of accountability instilled into the mind and behaviour of every employee, a positive food safety culture is only a distant dream.

As the year shuttles to an end, we thought it would be a good time to share our insights on the different training requirements in the various food safety standards. This is just the perfect time of the year to schedule some last-minute training or, even better, set up a training plan for 2022.

There's a lot of science behind the concept of food safety. Sometimes it even feels as if we try to make it as complicated as possible by using fancy words that only a select few people understand. We have a million acronyms and are close to having our own unique language.

The principles for Formula 1 pitstops can be useful for handling production changeovers and fixing machine breakdowns. When these tasks are well executed, we have good efficiencies, and this boosts staff morale. It is no secret that a motivated work force is a productive work force with high regard for food safety. It is also a fact that when morale is high, people are less likely to cut corners when it comes to executing tasks in a way that upholds food safety. You will never see an F1 pitstop team taking shortcuts

In recent weeks our team has spent a lot of time discussing food safety culture and the concept of organisational culture in general. We have debated and dissected culture surveys, action plans, training programmes and various other awareness strategies. What we have realised is that an annual survey and training is not going to bring about a miraculous change at all.

Since we are working with a team of super-motivated facilitators, most of whom are also qualified food safety lead auditors, we constantly find ourselves surprised by the same issues that keep popping up during FSMS certification audits. Over the past few months, the concept of verification has seemed to be a “theme” of sorts. This week we’ve decided to focus on a tiny, yet very significant aspect of the FSMS; verification of effective implementation of corrective actions…

In today’s Blog we look at a few common mistakes which are made when dealing with non-conformances and corrective actions. The idea is that some level of awareness of these typical traps we fall into will allow you to drive a system that really adds value and makes a difference on the bottom line.

In today’s Blog we look at a few common mistakes which are made when dealing with non-conformances and corrective actions. The idea is that some level of awareness of these typical traps we fall into will allow you to drive a system that really adds value and makes a difference on the bottom line.

It’s so easy to become despondent with everything that’s going on in our country right now. Sometimes it’s better to avoid the news and social media for a few days – it’s refreshing to be unburdened about things you probably cannot do anything about.

Happy belated Women’s Day! It’s super-exciting to be part of the food industry in South Africa where we are surrounded by some inspiring women. In fact, it’s one of the countries where we’ve seen more women take on leadership roles compared to other countries!

Today we are going to unpack some sticky terms such as GFSI certification and accreditation and at the same time look at how you can verify the validity of your own food safety certification as well as that of your suppliers.