Have you ever heard the idiom, ‘To err is human’? Being human means we all make mistakes, and we are expected to learn from them. But some human errors made in regard to food safety practices could cost severe consequences for consumer health and food companies. 

Hence, relying too much on humans might lead to human errors, which can sometimes culminate in a scenario beyond repair. Some examples of human error that can happen in a food processing setting would be the imprecise reading of instructions, wrong tool usage, performing a process or activity incorrectly or not at the designated time, or lack of a proper food safety culture. 

These human errors can be categorized as intentional and unintentional, or accidental. Just as the name suggests, intentional human errors are ones committed with an intention for a profitable cause, whereas unintentional human errors have no particular motivation or pre-planning and can occur due to multiple reasons. Both types of mistakes can ultimately have legal and regulatory repercussions.

The accurate approach to tackling food safety issues caused due to human error is building a foolproof food safety and quality system where a human mistake can be identified or eliminated before any adverse outcome, and the problem can be secured. This is where due diligence has a role to play. 

Significance of Due Diligence for Proper Monitoring and Verification 

Due diligence in food safety simply means demonstrating proof that the food business has undertaken all the necessary protocols to prevent food safety violations by implementing proper food safety practices for every component of the food production chain. 

According to Food Safety Act 1990, an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, food safety due diligence defense concerns people charged who can prove to have taken all reasonable precautions to avoid the commission of the offense by themselves or by a person under their control. This helps food enterprises set up their business in good order and decreases the chances of things going wrong.

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) is a powerful tool when it comes to showing due diligence in a food company. This is because the records of your HACCP depict the competence of your food safety system and hygiene practices, along with exhibiting that the food you produce is safe to consume. HACCP system contributes to identifying all probable hazards that can enter the food supply chain and ways to mitigate the hazards in order to produce safe foods. Appropriate execution of HACCP involves monitoring, verification, and validation of the processes as well. 

Monitoring is an integral part of a food safety system to evaluate whether established process control points and preventive control points are regulated through real-time observations and measurements. The efficiency of an operational food safety system can be examined through the verification process, which is often associated with a specific time stamp and ensures the system is administered correctly. Validation proves the working of the monitoring activities and the conducted verification procedures, usually referring to a time range. This includes reanalyses and verification audits to bring improvements to the food safety system continuously. 

Challenges in Food Industries in Ensuring Proper Monitoring, Verification, and Validation activities

Food industries face several challenges in establishing optimized monitoring, verification, and validation processes to help eliminate food safety issues caused by human error. 

• Lack of Know-How: With the evolution of science and technology, the world of food safety is also evolving. Knowing the foundation of food safety requirements and staying updated with food safety hazards and their controls would put the business ahead with risks.

• Employee Awareness: A food safety program can be called working only when the employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities in achieving food safety. Food safety culture demonstrates employees’ engagement in mitigating food safety risks.

• Employee Turnover: High employee turnover, which is very common in food industries, poses one of the biggest risks to training and awareness of food safety expectations.

• Employee Profile: Majority of the food industry workers come from a non-technological background where implementation of new tech-based applications poses significant challenges.

• Resistance to Change: This has been identified as one of the biggest bottlenecks in improving the current practices for better food safety.

• Seasonal workers: Seasonal workers are one of the biggest challenges in the commodity industries, where retaining trained employees has always been the biggest hurdle.

• Nature of Industry: As compared to similar industry categories like Drugs and Natural Health Products, the food industry’s margins remain to be less competitive, which does not allow much room for the business owners to better equip themselves with the food safety system.

• Lack of Tools: Not having the right tools and platform to do the food safety job could cause food safety incidents.

• Cultural and Standard of Living Barriers: Food safety becomes difficult to practice when certain best practices in good manufacturing practices are not followed at home due to cultural or standard of living barriers.

• Management Commitment: Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is enforcing food businesses to demonstrate Food Safety Culture and Management commitment due to the fact management must lead by example with food safety. 

• Technological Barriers: Having the right technology platform designed from a food safety focused point of view, keeping in mind the majority of the food processors’ profiles.

Overcoming these challenges is a must to illustrate that the food enterprises are in compliance with the established food safety standards and are doing what they are supposed to do as per due diligence, that is, say what you do and do as you say.