Food handlers throughout the supply chain — from workers in the field to the supermarket deli — play an integral and vital role in the safety of the products they handle. After all, the policies and procedures that require so much time, money and effort to perfect, are only as good as the training and behavior of the employees following them.
Current and widely accepted food-safety training models are designed to work from a very basic assumption: that we are able to devise comprehensive and prescriptive rules for all food-safety practices that will be followed at all times, regardless of the situation. However, we all know from real life experience that this isn’t always the case.The industry has long recognized that proper food-safety training is a critical component to ensuring a safer global food supply. And yet, issues surrounding food-handler personal hygiene and cross-contamination continue to top the list of food-safety risk factors in processing plants.