Alchemy Systems, the world’s largest food industry training company,released the results of the fifth annual Global Food Safety Training Survey in the “Building Strong Food Safety Cultures with Effective Training Programs” report.

The survey is sponsored by Alchemy Systems, Campden BRI, Safe Quality Food Institute, British Retail Consortium, Grocery Manufacturer’s Association Science & Education Foundation, NSF Latin America, SGS, and TSI. The survey solicits data on food safety training programs worldwide. Food safety professionals working at 1,400 companies across 20 food industry sectors responded to the survey.

Survey responses indicate that companies are highly committed to building strong food safety cultures and are investing to continually improve their programs. Specifically,

• 74 percent believe they have a clear vision for improving food safety;
• 55 percent responded that their company is a leader in food safety; and
• 83 percent believe they are able to provide the food safety training needed to drive behaviors.

“The survey shows a strong management commitment to food safety, but there are execution gaps that still need attention,” said Raj Shah, chief strategy officer of Alchemy Systems. “For example, 67 percent of respondents indicated that they still have employees not consistently following their food safety procedures.”

The top three food safety training challenges identified by the survey respondents are:

• Scheduling the time for training employees;
• Verifying the effectiveness of training, and
• Organizing refresher training.

It takes just one unfortunate food incident to cause irreparable damage to people, profits, and brands. Leading companies are tackling these safety training challenges with best practices including shorter training sessions, automating learning records, and providing tablets and training tools to supervisors so they can train and coach employees directly on the facility floor.

“The survey is a great tool for companies to benchmark compared to their peers, and continuously improve their own food safety training programs,” said Laura Nelson, vice president of food safety at Alchemy Systems.

Download the report for additional details.