The Best Risk Communication

Every food manufacturing company should have a risk communication plan that can be accessed quickly in the event a product sickens or kills customers. Every crisis management training course will provide good examples of risk communication – companies that addressed the problem in an open, honest manner.

Maple Leaf Foods, a Canadian meat processor whose Toronto plant was implicated in a listeriosis outbreak in August, will likely be studied as an example of good crisis communication in public relations classes. The company issued a voluntary recall when a test from its plant came back positive for listeria monocytogenes, and released the results of its findings when two slicing machines tested positive for the pathogen after being disassembled. Cleaning regimens were strictly followed, but the pathogen was hiding deep within the machines – of which there were 14 within that one plant.

Deconstructing the events of an outbreak can be an effective tool to learn new ways to address future situations, but hindsight often overlooks the human factor. The outbreak that resulted from Maple Leaf’s meat products sickened at least 42 and killed 15. No matter how effective the risk communication is, a company will always be haunted by those deaths.

That’s why the most effective risk communication program is the one you never need to use. If a processor were to take a holistic approach to crisis management, the entire supply chain and processing procedures would be the cornerstone. In today’s environment, an HAACP program goes without saying, as does regular testing. But fresh-cut processors need laboratory personnel and employees that will challenge test results – swabbing nooks and crannies where pathogens could build up and making sure machinery is sanitized inside and out.

The produce industry has initiated programs that go back to the field, because food safety begins on the farm. Reducing the amount of pathogen that comes into a clean room is a good goal, but the processing facility has the potential to spread a pathogen among lots and other produce items if not controlled. A risk communication program that highlights a company’s food safety measures is moot in the face of an outbreak – clearly those measures weren’t sufficient, even if they measure up to the machinery manufacturers’ recommendations and an internal HAACP program.

A risk communication or crisis management plan is something a processor never wants to pull off the shelf. Within the processing facility, relying on past audits and doing things the way they’ve always been done isn’t enough. Foster an environment where employees look for food safety shortcomings and get rid of them, and you may never have to face the sicknesses or deaths of your customers.



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