What was the starting point?
A technically sound plant whose culture rested on a handful of people. This case study is composite: it combines situations met during our assignments and does not describe any real client.
The site is an industrial bakery in the Casablanca region: sandwich bread, brioche and frozen unbaked viennoiserie, for Moroccan supermarket chains and, more recently, for a European retailer. It already holds its sanitary authorisation from ONSSA (Office National de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits Alimentaires, Morocco’s national food safety office) and has a HACCP plan. It works three shifts, with baking at night, and brings in agency workers during peaks, including Ramadan, when working hours and demand change. Several allergens are handled on site: gluten, eggs, milk, sesame and, on one line, nuts, all listed in Annex I of Moroccan Decree no. 2-12-389 on food labelling.
The retailer requires IFS Food Version 8 certification before the end of the year. The gap analysis, carried out nine months before the audit, finds six culture-related gaps:
- a corporate policy that mentions neither food safety culture nor culture objectives, although IFS Food requirement 1.1.1 requires both;
- a management review that says nothing about culture (1.3.1);
- instructions and training materials in French only;
- agency workers trained “on the job” during their first hour at the workstation, whereas IFS requires training before they start work (3.3.2);
- no way to report a problem without going through one’s supervisor;
- a culture seen as “the quality department’s business”, absent from production meetings.
How did the site measure its culture?
By combining four sources, across every shift, at two points in the year. The method follows our article on how to measure food safety culture.
The survey. Twenty-four statements spread over the five GFSI dimensions, in Arabic and French, read aloud in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) for operators who read little. Data collection was entrusted to someone outside the line of management, in small groups, during working time. The agency workers present answered like permanent staff.
The two periods. A first measurement in a normal period, a second during Ramadan, when working hours shift and demand rises. The GFSI cites seasonal peaks as a time when work pressure pushes people to cut corners; the site wanted to know whether its culture held up at that moment.
Interviews and observations. Around twenty short interviews, from senior management to agency workers, and observations at night, at product changeovers and at the entrance to the production area.
The indicators. Hygiene deviations by shift, complaints about foreign bodies, verifications of changeover cleans, near misses reported.
Read by cross-checking the sources, the results brought out four findings:
- supervisors rated the culture markedly better than operators described it;
- at night, when the oven fell behind schedule, the changeover clean after sesame products was sometimes cut short;
- agency workers did not know whom to report a problem to;
- no near miss had ever been reported, which did not mean none occurred.
Which objectives and plan did management choose?
Four objectives, one per element of IFS Food Version 8 requirement 1.1.1: communication about policies and responsibilities, training, employee feedback, performance measurement. Each has an owner, a target, an indicator and a deadline.
Element of 1.1.1 | Objective | Actions | Indicator | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Communication | Every operator can explain the main hazard at their workstation | Illustrated job sheets in Arabic and French, five-minute reminder at the briefing, weekly walk by the director, including one at night each month | Workstation knowledge test | Six months |
Training | No agency worker at a workstation without induction | Two-hour induction before the first shift, named buddy, oral test | Induction register, test results | Immediate |
Employee feedback | A reporting channel outside the hierarchy, known to all | Dedicated phone number and sealed box, response displayed within seven days, monthly recognition of useful reports | Number of reports, response time | Three months |
Performance measurement | No changeover clean cut short | Cleaning time blocked in the schedule, sign-off by the night team leader, tracking by shift | Verifications of cleans and allergens | Three months |
Management then checked that the plan covered the five elements of IFS Food 8 Doctrine version 5: demonstrable commitment from management and all personnel (commitment explained at induction, walks), leadership (the director’s decisions), awareness of food hygiene (job sheets), open communication including on deviations (reporting channel), and sufficient resources (budget line, scheduled hours, named plan lead).
How did management drive the plan?
By presenting it in person and building it into existing meetings. The director presented the plan to the team leaders, then to all three shifts, together with the results of the measurement. Culture became a standing item of the monthly production meeting. The results of the four indicators are displayed every quarter, in both languages. The management review, planned within the 12-month period required by IFS (1.3.1), covered the culture objectives, the gaps and the resources.
Time was spread as follows over the first cycle: senior management for the presentation, the walks and the review; team leaders for briefings and the induction of agency workers; operators for the measurement and the reminders; a plan lead shared between quality and human resources to run it. The detailed items to budget are in our article on food safety culture programme cost.
One detail counted for more than expected. The first near-miss report came from an agency worker, about a badly closed tub of sesame seeds near the sesame-free line. The director mentioned it at a meeting. Further reports then came in from every shift.
What did the IFS auditor check on culture?
The documents the standard designates, then whether they hold true on the shop floor. Requirements 1.1.1 and 1.3.1 of the official IFS Food Version 8 text call for compulsory information in the report summary; the on-site evaluation includes interviews with the working personnel; KO requirement No. 1 (1.2.1) concerns employees’ awareness of their responsibilities and the mechanisms that monitor the effectiveness of their operation.
In this case study, the auditor read the policy, the culture objectives and the management review minutes. They asked the director what had changed since the measurement. They asked the night team leader what he does when the oven falls behind and a changeover clean is still to be done. They asked two agency workers how to report a problem. Those three interviews were exactly the ones the plan had prepared for. For the other requirements of the audit, see our method to prepare for an IFS Food audit.
What lessons for a cannery or another site?
They apply to a sardine cannery in full season as much as to a fruit and vegetable packhouse. Measure during your peak: Ramadan for a bakery, the fishing season for a cannery, the harvest for a packhouse. Start with non-permanent staff: they are the ones who learn the real culture fastest. Go and see the night shift. Choose few objectives, and keep them.
If the customer asks for BRCGS rather than IFS, the same plan works almost as it stands. According to its self-assessment checklist, BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 adds the required behaviours to the plan’s activities (1.1.2), a review at least annually, a confidential reporting system whose mechanism is communicated to staff (1.1.6) and a member of senior management available during the audit to discuss the plan (1.1.11). The case of a BRCGS-certified fish cannery shows this foundation in another setting.
Your first culture plan, in ten points: