Food Safety Leaders - Leading your Team with Confidence

Hello fellow Food Biters and Happy Spring Day to you!

Last week we posted our first blog on food safety teams.  This was part one of a four-part series focussing on making your food safety team the “dream team”.  Over the next few weeks, we will be unpacking the responsibilities of the team and looking at how they can positively affect the food safety culture in an organisation.  Today’s blog focuses on the role of the food safety team leader.

Remember that the role assigned to this individual is that of a leader and NOT a manager.

“Leadership is not a title; it is action and example.” – Unknown.  And these are exactly the kind of individuals who make the best food safety team leaders!  More simply stated, a food safety team leader is not someone who is only technically competent but rather someone who has a combination of technical and leadership skills and who can inspire others to do the right thing – even when nobody is watching.

Food safety team members will look to their leader for knowledge and expertise about products and processes relevant to the organisation as well as guidance on other food safety management system requirements.  Ideally a food safety team leader has demonstrated competence in the following fields:

• Food safety hazards associated with the organisation’s products and processes
• Specific knowledge of HACCP
• In-depth understanding of Food Safety Management System Requirements.

The Food Safety Team Leader is also responsible for co-ordinating team activities and should have strong administrative skills as well as the ability to communicate effectively.  In effect, the team leader is also the link between top management and the rest of the food safety team and plays a vital role in promoting the concept of an ideal food safety culture.  The number one objective for a food safety professional should be to create a food safety culture and not, as in traditional food safety management, to focus on implementation of a system.

Food Safety Team Leaders also need to be able to navigate the stormy work environment associated with office politics, the constant feuds between production, quality and engineering departments and must be man (or woman) enough to stand up to top management when important food safety decisions need to be made.

Here at Progress Excellence we are all about equipping Food Safety Team Leaders with all the knowledge and skills you need to be the best Food Safety Team Leader you can be:

• 2-day Food Safety Team Training (Based on FSSC requirements)
• 2-day HACCP Training (Based on Codex HACCP and BRCGS requirements)
• 4-day FSSC Implementation Workshop
• 3-day BRCGS Implementation Workshop

Contact us at info@progress-excellence.co.za or visit our website for more information.  Our online webchat consultants are also ready to answer any of your training questions.

Next week’s Food Bites menu:

• Food safety team meetings
• Reviewing data generated by the food safety management system

Until next week – take care! Stay safe!

From the Food Bites Team.