Food safety audits: Challenges, fatigue, and future strategy.

Our first Food Leadership Series Webinar with our partner Food Safety Magazine tackled the current state and future of food safety auditing. We had a great turnout – nearly 400 people across six continents, ranging from the United States to Zimbabwe! A great cross-section from the industry.

My sincere thanks to co-panelists Jack Jeffers, Vice President of Quality, Consumer Affairs & Dairy Stewardship, Dean Foods, Rosalind Zils, the Senior Director of Quality and Food Safety for 8th Avenue Foods and Provisions and to our Chair for the session, Barbara Van Renterghem, Editorial Director, Food Safety Magazine. During our webinar we asked a series of questions to our audience, with myself, Jack, and Rosalind giving our perspectives as well.

The results gave us some good insight into key issues the food industry is facing when it comes to audits and continual improvement.

A few takeaways:

• Most of the attendees have fewer than 20 audits a year.
• Most undertook SQF third-party audits over FSSC, BRCGS, and IFS.
• The biggest audit-related challenge for our respondents is meeting the need for resources.
• Nearly 20% feel that brand and reputation management are the biggest benefits they receive from third-party audits.

Among other key topics in our webinar were audit fatigue, how to use third-party audits in your day-to-day operations, and of course, what the future holds for food safety auditing, from the near term (GFSI auditing issues) to the long term (AI and remote monitoring).

You can now watch it on-demand for free right here.

There was so much good information in this webinar, we've put together a downloadable summary that's a quick and engaging read. You'll get:

• Key quotes from our panelists;
• All the results from our in-webinar polls;
• Direct answers to all the questions we took live, plus those we weren't able to answer.

Download it using our form below.

While you're at it, tick the box to stay up to date and we'll let you know when we schedule our next webinar (coming up in June) and we'll keep you updating on our analysis of developments in the food safety industry.