Transforming culture and elevating excellence: The McDonald’s Salad Plant Story

The McDonald’s Salad Plant has been in operation for eight years. It produces shredded lettuce and onions for McDonald’s restaurants based in Tbilisi, Georgia, with 14 employees working over two shifts. As a supplier to McDonald’s, maintaining the highest standards is paramount. To ensure they consistently meet the rigorous requirements of their audit process, they embarked on a journey to strengthen their food safety culture, using the BRCGS Food Safety Culture Excellence (FSCE) module.

Setting the stage for success

The plant’s motivation to embark on a culture improvement journey stemmed from a curiosity to explore areas of strength and weakness in their operations. Tatia Petriashvili, Lettuce Factory Quality Manager, explains “It has been eight years since the plant started and although we remain a small organisation of just 14 employees, we felt it was important to assess our current position to plan a clear path forward. We wanted a comprehensive analysis around our strengths and weaknesses.”

This was the first time the plant had conducted any type of cultural analysis, and the McDonalds global team suggested the BRCGS FSCE module as a way to meet the culture requirements of their audit process requirements.

For best success, any culture improvement journey needs engagement from staff at all levels in the business and the plant took the right approach from the outset: “We conducted training about the FSCE module. We explained the process, its advantages and assured staff that the survey they would be completing was completely anonymous. The senior management was at the forefront of this”. Keeping all stakeholders and employees informed will help to boost engagement with the process and as Tatia found, the process went “smoothly without any misunderstandings or complications”.

Discovery, results and action planning

The plant was pleased to see that the FSCE survey did not reveal any significant issues: “We discovered that employees are happy and grateful for their work. They understand their roles, know what to do in various situations and consistently maintain high standards, regardless of whether they are being supervised.” Even though the findings were largely positive, the lower ranking attributes in the FSCE survey highlighted where “some new employees needed a better understanding of the company’s purpose”. This was an area for improvement and an action plan was created: “To address this, we conducted additional training sessions and implemented a new evaluation system to ensure everyone fully grasps the topic”.

The journey continues…

Overall, the plant’s first experience with the FSCE module was extremely positive. They believe “the results can significantly strengthen the company” and it is already driving positive culture change in the plant. Employees and management understand this isn’t a one-time solution and culture change does not happen overnight. This is just the start of their journey but is something they intend to continue with and would highly recommend it to other companies. When asked about top tips for other sites considering the FSCE module, Tatia commented: “Even if you think your site is running perfectly, the survey might reveal unexpected areas for improvement that you hadn’t considered”.