Over the last two decades, it has become increasingly recognised that the culture in an organisation is essential to the delivery of a safe, quality product. Central to this are the business values that serve to instil a way of working that aims for the best outcome - product safety for the consumer. Product safety culture, now embedded in systems based assurance across the food, packaging and consumer product sectors is similar to approaches adopted for many years for the management of health and safety with shared values, attitudes, and beliefs being a central theme.
This article will explore the evolution of product safety culture and its importance in the food and non-food sectors.
Historical perspective
Safety culture in the food context emerged in the late 2000’s initially as an additional risk factor in the investigation of underlying causes of foodborne disease outbreaks. Griffith, Livesey and Clayton defined it as “The aggregation of the prevailing, relatively constant, learned, shared attitudes, values and beliefs contributing to the hygiene behaviours used within a particular food handling environment”. In the years since this publication the concept of food safety culture has been embraced in legislation and product safety management standards throughout the world.
The Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene first included reference to a food safety culture in 2020 and listed the fundamental elements in cultivating a positive culture as:
- commitment of the management and all personnel to the production and handling of safe food
- leadership to set the right direction and to engage all personnel in food safety practices
- awareness of the importance of food hygiene by all personnel in the food business
- open and clear communication among all personnel in the food business, including communication of deviations and expectations
- the availability of sufficient resources to ensure the effective functioning of the food hygiene system.
European food legislation adopted the Codex recommendations in 2021, reflecting them in Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the hygiene of foodstuffs) and, in the USA, a food safety culture approach was implicit in the delivery of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and became one of the four elements of FDA’s strategy, defined it its New Era of Smarter Food Safety.
The British Standards Institution (BSI) issued a Publicly Available Standard (PAS 320:2023) in 2023 on Developing and Sustaining a Mature Food Safety Culture and a number of other organisations have published helpful texts on the topic including FoodDrinkEurope and CampdenBRI. The FDA published a systematic literature review in 2022 covering what food safety culture is, how it is developed and maintained and how food safety culture is assessed. In the UK, the Office of Product Safety and Standards provides information on product safety legislation, including the EU General Product Safety Regulations 2005.
Food safety culture is embedded as a requirement in the GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) benchmarking requirements for food safety certification programmes and is therefore incorporated in all GFSI-recognised voluntary third party assurance schemes including Issue 9 of the BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety. Safety culture is also increasingly being incorporated into certification schemes for other sectors such as BRCGS Global Standard Agents and Brokers and also in entry level standards for small food businesses such as BRCGS START. The concept will also be incorporated into the forthcoming issues of non-food certification schemes such as Issue 5 of BRCGS Consumer Products.
The latest development in food safety culture was the publication in 2026 by GFSI of an updated position paper on food safety culture. This paper builds on published developments in the field in recent years and proposes an updated framework for food safety culture.
What is product safety culture?
Culture is defined as a set of deeply rooted beliefs, behaviours, values and assumptions that are learned and shared by all personnel. It is a shared vision across a site to provide safe, legal and quality products that drives behaviours and decisions. This definition is not just for food but applies to any manufacturing environment, including packaging and consumer products. A good product safety culture in an organisation can improve processes, enhance productivity and has been shown to reduce recalls - thus saving money and brand reputation.
Developing a product safety culture within an organisation is not a simple matter. It has to involve people, values, ways of working and behaviours, but there are many useful resources to support its adoption and implementation. The BSI PAS on Developing and Sustaining a Mature Food Safety Culture proposes an approach starting with developing an understanding of safety culture in an organisational context.
To be successful, product safety culture needs to start at the top of an organisation with clear ownership and governance at the most senior level. It is also important to have an objective measurement of culture to be able to benchmark continuous improvement but perhaps more importantly to identify any areas of development needed.
An initial assessment of a site’s current culture feeds into the development of a strategic plan to achieve the desired product safety culture. Where improvements are identified, an action plan can provide a roadmap to achieving meaningful change. Effective product safety culture is only possible if everyone is aligned, so the strategy and action plan should involve all areas of the organisation. There also needs to be re-assessment to measure progress in the delivery of action plans within the business with a clear mindset of continuous improvement. BRCGS has an action plan template that can be downloaded from the website or Participate.
Training and support
A number of service providers offer support packages for food safety culture including BRCGS with their Food Safety Culture Excellence programme. The programme works for sectors beyond food and includes one of the most holistic and comprehensive assessments of culture on the market. BRCGS also has a Best Practice Guide to Product Safety Culture for food, consumer product and transportation industries together with targeted online training courses.
Other online tools are available to support businesses in understanding and implementing product safety culture. The FDA, in association with the Alliance to Stop Foodborne Illness, has produced a series of insightful webinars on food safety culture that began in 2021 and continue to this day. Other national regulators have also produced some extremely useful guides, posters and online training tools to support the adoption of effective safety culture (Food Safety Australia - New Zealand; Food Safety Authority of Ireland).
Product safety culture is widely recognised as fundamental to the delivery of safe products but many commentators would contend that culture can only be delivered with the right business culture in totality. Ultimately, the site’s culture drives all outcomes including health and safety, product safety, social compliance and sustainability and although the focus of this article has been on product and food safety culture, there is no doubt that these cannot be delivered without sound business culture.
I hope this article has given you an overview of the latest development in product safety culture and some additional areas to explore the topic further and help you in your journey of improving the safety of your products through the adoption and implementation of a strong culture of product safety.
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AuthorAlec Kyriakides Independent Food Safety Consultant
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