I have been working with a client that brought on a new management team that didn’t have a lot of experience with food manufacturing. They were in turn-around mode and needed to figure out the return on investment (ROI) for each part of their operation. I was asked how they could calculate the ROI for their Food Safety and Quality teams and programs (FS&Q). It is a good question, one that isn’t asked enough by senior management. We can track yields and loss at each step in our operation, but what value, if any, has your FS&Q team added?
I have noticed over the years that senior managers don’t usually measure the ROI of their food safety and quality teams and programs. I have been given several reasons, including: We must do it, it’s a cost of doing business; our customers want us to have this or that system so we just do it; the government makes us; and on and on it goes. A typical response when I ask a FS&Q professional what value they bring to their company is, “A lot.” When I ask them to quantify their answer, I usually get either a blank stare or comments about how many checks are performed.