Food Safety Focus | I Love It When A Plan Comes Together!

News | 03-08-2023

Hello All Team Members!

I hope this message finds all of you and your families safe and well,

It feels good to be back and ready to take on some new challenges this week, so let’s talk about
something very important – a plan that comes together! Wait, what does a plan that comes
together have to do with food safety? I’m glad you asked.

There’s an old saying in food safety that goes – Say what you do; do what you say and prove it!
Basically, this means you start by making your plan. Write down your policies, procedures,
goals and commitments, so they can be clear and understood by everyone.

Next you do what you said you would in the plan that you wrote down. Sounds simple enough,
but this is where things can get a little tricky. It doesn’t do us any good to have a beautiful plan
in place and no one follows the plan, except maybe a handful of people, whether it’s food or
occupational safety. This is where we have to be honest with who we are and who we want to
be. We want to be who we are on paper but is this who we really are? On paper we don’t hide
our faults but in the real world it isn’t always easy to admit we had a recall or that calibrations
were missed.

Finally, we have to be able to prove we are doing everything we said we would. This is where
the records come in like trailer inspections, for example, that prove we are looking trailers over
to make sure they are in good shape as we are required to do and as we have written in the
plan of who we want to be.

For a plan to work it takes all of us doing our part to make it happen. As the A-Team would
often say – I love it when a plan comes together!

As always, thank you for all you do to provide safe food for our families each and every Day!

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Author: Trish Metts
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