It seems like issues with the safety of our food supply are getting to be more frequent these days, or at least they’re hitting the mainstream press more often. Back in the “old” days, such issues generally had to do with higher risk products or processes, and now they are striking in categories near and dear to my heart and my waistline --- nuts and cookies! 
At first blush, it might seem that the food supply chain is out of control. Part of the reason that there are more incidents to report may well be that there are more controls built in, and issues are more readily identified and reported. In our ideal world, we wish that there would be nothing to report because everything is safe and nutritious. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case, and we must design systems to protect customers, clients, and ourselves. 

We rely on our supply chain partners to do a lot of the lifting for us. As we look to qualify suppliers, we mandate that they have systems in place to protect our clients and consumers. (You’ll read more about this in the second part of this food safety series.) We also require them to pass third party food safety audits and to have adequate recall policies and procedures. These measures help us to manage risk both in lowering the potential to have a problem and to improve our ability to respond quickly should one occur. It is critical that once a food safety risk becomes known, we have the ability to isolate the products involved, to notify our unit managers and to remove the products from our operations. 

For this to happen effectively, several things need to be in place. First, our operators must be using approved suppliers. To facilitate this, we monitor and manage vendor compliance at a unit level basis. The second critical success factor is transparency in the supply chain, whereby all trading partners can rapidly and efficiently identify products. The synchronization of data across the supply chain is fundamental to this, and the adoption of industry standards is critical. In the interim, we have our CaRMA initiative underway, which provides for data synchronization, allowing us to rapidly determine where affected products have been purchased. 

While this topic maybe a little dry for many of you, our people in Supply Management are very passionate about ensuring that we have the means to manage food safety in every link of our supply chain. We rely on the training and vigilance of our operators, who ensure that food is properly stored, handled, prepared and held – guaranteeing a healthy and satisfying food experience for all of our customers – making every day a better day!