Food Safety Culture Programme Cost: Time, Resources, Funding

Which items make up the cost of a culture programme?

Eight items, of which internal time is almost always the heaviest. The table works as a budget outline; the amounts depend on your site and can only be set after a gap analysis.

The second-to-last line often comes as a surprise. The GFSI counts the work environment among the components of culture: an operator told to wash their hands at a broken handwash station mostly learns that the rule does not matter. IFS Food Version 8 also requires the work environment, staff facilities and hygienic conditions to be reviewed at least once within a 12-month period (1.3.3).

What drives the effort?

Six factors, which the gap analysis measures before any estimate:

• Headcount and number of sites. Every team has to be measured, trained and followed up.
• Shift work. Three shifts mean three briefings, three observations, three feedback sessions. The night shift cannot be measured from the day shift’s results.
• Languages. A survey in Arabic and French, read aloud in Darija (Moroccan Arabic), sometimes in Amazigh (Berber): each language adds translation, checking and survey time.
• Non-permanent staff. A cannery in full season, a citrus packhouse at harvest or a bakery during Ramadan renew part of their teams. Induction and training are repeated with every new intake.
• Number of standards. A site certified to BRCGS and IFS does not need two plans, but one cross-reference table kept up to date.
• Starting level. A site that already monitors its objectives every quarter, holds its monthly meetings and has a reporting channel starts with a good part of the work done.

How much time should you allow?

A first full cycle fits into a year, because the standards are organised that way. BRCGS requires the plan to be reviewed and updated at least annually (1.1.2); IFS Food Version 8 plans the management review, culture included, within a 12-month period, not exceeding 15 months (1.3.1). The durations below come from our practice: they give an order of magnitude, not a commitment.

Before a first audit, the plan must have been running long enough to leave traces: actions completed, indicators tracked, at least one quarterly report on objectives (BRCGS 1.1.3), a management review that discusses it. A plan signed the day before the audit costs little, but proves nothing.

Changing the culture itself takes longer than one cycle. The GFSI points out that a culture has developed over time and is learned, which makes it hard to change: budget for a multi-year programme, not a one-off operation.

“Sufficient resources”: what should you budget and prove?

Named, dated and tracked means. The requirement is now written into all the main texts:

• FSSC 22000 Version 7 asks senior management to provide sufficient resources to maintain a positive culture (2.5.8 a), and the auditor must confirm this in the report;
• version 2024 of the GFSI requirements expects the same commitment from senior management (FSM 2);
• IFS Food 8 Doctrine version 5 lists the availability of sufficient resources among the elements of culture, and IFS Food requires sufficient and appropriate resources (1.2.2);
• BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 requires the human and financial resources needed (1.1.7) and includes resource requirements in the management review (1.1.4).

No text sets an amount. The evidence expected is concrete: a budget line for the programme, measurement and training hours written into the production schedule, a named plan lead with protected time, and actions completed on time. A plan whose actions all slip from one quarter to the next shows exactly the opposite.

How do you fund the training and avoid paying twice?

By funding what can be funded, and by building the programme into what already exists.

Training. The programme’s training actions, for supervisors as for operators, may fall under the special training contracts (contrats spéciaux de formation, CSF) according to the rules and ceilings of the OFPPT (Office de la formation professionnelle et de la promotion du travail, Morocco’s vocational training office). The certification audit does not. Only the OFPPT decides the reimbursement: see our page on CSF and OFPPT funding, with a simulation and no promised amount.

Integration. The programme costs less when it uses existing meetings: the meetings, at least monthly, required by BRCGS (1.1.5), the quarterly report on objectives (1.1.3), the management review, start-of-shift briefings. A separate culture committee that only meets for the audit costs time and proves nothing.

One plan. A site that answers to BRCGS, IFS and FSSC 22000 keeps a single plan and a cross-reference table, as explained in our food safety culture guide. The same indicators serve all three.

Before approving the budget, check that:

• The time of senior management, supervisors and operators is costed in hours, shift by shift.
  
• The measurement is planned during a peak in activity and covers the night shift and non-permanent staff.
  
• Translation and read-aloud survey costs are included.
  
• The planned training is identified and any CSF funding has been simulated.
  
• An envelope is set aside for work environment improvements.
  
• The plan lead is named, with a deputy and protected time.
  
• The programme uses existing meetings and indicators.
  
• The budget line appears in the management review minutes.
  

The measurement method is detailed in our article on how to measure food safety culture, and the way time is spread over a first cycle is illustrated by our food safety culture plan case study of an industrial bakery.