:Crisis Management Plan, as its name, indicated is only being used when there is a crisis. Thus, it is not as commonly reviewed, as compared to when we are facing COVID-19. We can say coronavirus has taken a toll on the importance of food businesses to have crisis management and being able to run through crisis management procedures when you need them the most. A crisis management plan has two purposes:
Many food businesses are certified with food safety certification recognized by Global Food Safety Initiatives (GFSI), and crisis management is one of the critical elements of the food safety management system. How is COVID-19 falls into place for the crisis management? In this article, we compared the requirements for crisis management for four primary certification programs, FSSC 22000:2018 Version 5 (Clause 8.4 and 9.9), SQF Version 8.1(Clause 2.1.5), BRC Issue 8 (Clause 3.11) and IFS Food Version 6.1 (Clause 5.9). Table 1 summarizes the similarities and differences for crisis management requirements for the following scheme: FSSC 22000 Version 5, SQF Version 8.1, BRC Issue 8 and IFS Food Version 6.1. All the certification schemes focused on the situation that can harm or cause food safety risks to the consumer and associate requirements for recall and traceability programs to ensure all products that are affected can be recovered from the market. Table 1 Summary of the similarities and differences for crisis management requirements for the following scheme: FSSC 22000 Version 5, SQF Version 8.1, BRC Issue 8 and IFS Food Version 6.1. Our recommendations: Regardless of the certification scheme that you are following, it is important to be able to
Have you run a mock crisis on the current COVID-19? If not, this is a good time to train your crisis management team on crisis management and be sure that you know how to handle COVID-19 incidents such as employee reporting positive COVID-19 cases or employee has been in contact with individuals with positive COVID-19. Although there are no specific risks associated with the transmission of COVID-9 through food, the virus may still be transmitted through cross-contamination of contaminated surfaces. All of us have a role to play in maintaining food safety and community safety. A well-prepared company that knows what to do can do it fast and effectively, and hopefully, minimize safety risk and spread of COVID-19. Note: If you are a business owner, crisis management is what you needed the most during this crisis. Expand your crisis management scope beyond food safety -to learn how -join us on our next webinar. More details at https://felicialoo.com/covid-19-support/ Comments are closed.
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AuthorFelicia Loo, CFS is a Certified Food Scientist and qualified SQF Practitioner. She has worked with numerous food businesses to develop customized and improved food safety programs. She has worked with different food safety and regulatory schemes such as SQF, ISO 22000, Primus GFS, Organic, Kosher and Health Canada (Natural Health Product). Categories
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