Supermarket Perimeter - July 2019 - 54

FOOD SAFETY

approach when evaluating a food
safety management system. That
includes factors such as program
design, compliance, documentation, training, and an integrated
action plan tool. In addition,
direct observations by the auditor
of the implementation of the
food safety system is an important aspect of an effective audit.
The biggest change in food
safety audits has been the collaboration amongst retailers and
manufacturers to develop food
safety standards, Watts says. In
addition, audits have become
more risk-based focused on
the various food safety hazards,
he says.
PSSI, Watts says, has a standalone food safety department
staffed with practitioners who
have the experience, knowledge,
and certiﬁcations to support each
sector within the food and beverage industry.
"Ultimately, it's our commitment to be a leader in food safety
combined with our capabilities
to protect our partner's brand

while safeguarding consumer
products" that sets the company
apart, he says.
Looking speciﬁcally at commissaries, central kitchens and
other third-party facilities that
supply value-added and other
foods to grocery stores, Watts
says that while the environment
is different from a typical supplier
environment, the goals and even
methods of achieving them are
often the same.
"Although these types of
facilities can include a multitude
of complex processes with dual
regulatory oversight, generally
speaking, the food safety audits
conducted within these facilities follow the same food safety
standards."

We
want to be
objective
and not have
that conﬂict
of interest.
You don't
want to be
grading your
own work."

An objective view

Tyler Williams, ASI

The clear advantage of employing a third-party auditor, Williams
says, is having a third set of eyes
that doesn't have a dog in the
ﬁght. To make sure its audits are
even more objective, ASI rotates
the auditor of a given company

every three years to prevent personal relationships from impeding the audit.
"We want to be objective and
not have that conﬂict of interest,"
he says.

PSSI has a stand-alone food safety department staffed with industry experts.
54 - JULY 2019

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The ultimate goal of a food
safety audit, though, regardless
of whether it's a commissary or
a traditional supplier that's being
audited, is the same, Williams
says: having preventative measures in place (or establishing
them, if they're not in place)
to eliminate risks and to strive
toward a goal of continuous
improvement.
ASI has three divisions: one
each for auditing, consulting,
training. Sometimes the same
person might wear two of those
three hats for the same client, but
the result would be an unaccredited audit, and Williams does not
recommend it.
"You don't want to be grading
your own work," he says.
The food safety auditing
business has changed a lot -
for the better - in recent years,
Williams says.
"Ten to 15 years ago, audits
were really just inspections," he
says. "They didn't look at a lot
of documentation. They made
sure things were clean, saw that
employees were doing what
they needed to be doing on a
given day."
The problem was, while a
company might be doing everything right on that given day,
what about all the other days.
Without looking at the documentation, it was impossible to know.
"Now there's a lot more record
keeping," he says. "We look at the
food safety management system
as whole, not just the site."
The importance of what food
safety inspectors do can't be
overstated, Williams says. "With
new employees, one of the ﬁrst
things we highlight is that in
food safety outbreaks, certiﬁcation bodies have been named
in lawsuits. Luckily we haven't
been. And we don't want that on
our conscience. That's our core
passion."
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Supermarket Perimeter - July 2019

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