Steps to Protect Your Brand
Protecting your Brand
Brand protection is an attainable goal that begins with a prevention oriented culture. This includes following a preventative approach mandated by the FDA and being involved in the process.
Potential Hazards
Next, what are the “hazards reasonably likely to occur” that impact your brand? What if your organization does everything right, and a competitor has to recall similar products to yours. Are you prepared for this situation?
Safety Hazards
Food safety problems are one of greatest threats to your brand. They can result in recalls that expose your brand to enormous negative press. Often, our fresh or minimally processed, ready to eat foods present hazards that are difficult to prevent.
When Consumers Get Sick
End users can magnify the risk. When end users fail to adhere to safe cooking and handling habits, it can result in illness of the consumer that can create a risk to your brand. Examples of this can include under-cooking meat, or failing to properly clean and prepare fresh produce.
Minimizing Your Risk
There are ways to minimize your risks through the implementation of a hazards analysis and preventive controls approach – which is required by the FDA. (You probably know what keeps you up at night, or should, that’s a perfect place to begin preventing it.)
Product Recalls
Product recalls, whether linked to a Reportable Food Registry notification or linked to an outbreak is a significant threat to your brand.
Logistical Identification
Ensuring steps are taken to have defined breaks in production to prepare for possible recalls. These include identifying lot codes, strict protocols for rework, and quickly identifying affected lots.
If You Need to Recall
Having a “prevention-oriented culture” at each level of your organization is the responsible approach. Being able to bracket your production and implement your recall plan quickly can help keep a rolling recall from damaging your brand.
Protecting your brand.
Retail food service organizations are at the front lines of Food Safety Vulnerabilities.
Protecting your Brand requires two important elements, the first is understanding what has been done to prevent hazards in your supply chain as well as within your establishment and the second is a plan to respond to an outbreak, should it occur.
Risk reduction steps and preventive controls put in place by your suppliers can be can be compromised by practices and policies at the retail and food service levels. Foodborne illness outbreak investigations linked to high profile retailer and food service providers provide important insights into what you can do to control your risks and hazards.
You are likely following your State and local requirements linked to the Food Code, but is that enough? Past outbreaks indicate it isn’t enough.
We offer cost effective analysis of your food safety plans policies including supplier verification, and FSVP relating to imported products. We can help you identify and minimize potential risks, review your current food safety plan, and help your team identify problems before they happen.
We have experience dealing with outbreaks from within the FDA, States and the CDC as well as extensive experience with the media.
We can help you prevent outbreaks and manage events if one occurs, especially in concert with your public relations firm.