BUSINESS ASSURANCE

FOOD SAFETY
CULTURE PROGRAM

SAFER, SMARTER, GREENER

CONTENT

Overview..................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Our approach to Food Safety Culture............................................................................. 6

About ISRSTM.......................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Food Standards Agency’s Food Safety Culture Diagnostic Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Safety Culture Assessments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Assessment teams with complementary skills .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
What does an assessment report look like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

A multi-faceted approach to Food Safety Culture..................................... 13

Phase 1, Self-Assessment... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Phase 2, Self-assessment review by DNV GL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Phase 3, Full Assessment .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Phase 4, Moving Up the Maturity Continuum .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Phase 5, Proactive engagement of your staff in Food Safety Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Phase 6, Re-assessment and Continual Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

About DNV GL................................................................................................................................................. 19

OVERVIEW

Food Safety Culture can be defined as the food safety attitudes,

values and beliefs shared by a group of people. It is the product
of employee attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that determine the
commitment to and robustness of an organization’s food safety
management. In effect, an organization’s food safety culture
reflects “how we make safe food around here”.

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 Total Values and mission
management consistency and
commitment adaptability

FOOD SAFETY
Hazard CULTURE
and risk
awareness
Biological, Training,
chemical and learning and
physical hazards behaviour change

People
Employee
Communication Trust and
commitment Empowerment
and teamwork relationships
and engagement

Figure 1. Food Safety Culture pyramid

After reviewing many Food Safety Culture models,
including Griffith (2010), Jespersen (2010), Yiannas
(2010), GFSI (2018) and others, Cornell University’s
Professor Roberto Gravani has defined Food Safety
Culture as illustrated in figure 1.
The concept of safety culture, beyond food safety and
in relation to occupational health and safety, has been
researched extensively in the academic field to establish
its relationship with safety. It has been demonstrated
that companies that invest time and resources in
developing a stronger safety culture, beginning with
safety culture assessments and acting upon the results,
can achieve the following:
¾¾ Reduce incident and accident levels;
¾¾ Help reassure stakeholders and the workforce that
health and safety is a priority;
¾¾ Improve employee awareness
and involvement in safety;
¾¾ Increase confidence that existing safety
initiatives are the correct areas to focus;
¾¾ Allow management to focus safety initiatives
on the right locations/departments;
¾¾ Enable a better understanding (tracking) of
whether safety initiatives have been successful;
¾¾ Support a return on investment for safety
initiatives and safety budgets.
We in DNV GL believe that the same benefits are
applicable to food safety for preventing the risk of
outbreaks, recalls and issues faced by food and
beverage manufacturers worldwide.

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OUR APPROACH TO
FOOD SAFETY CULTURE
We have developed a unique approach to assess the
Food Safety Culture within any type of organization.
This is an adaptation of DNV GL’s assessment protocols
in general and our occupational safety culture
assessment protocol, as well as best practices and
industry guidance documents, such as The Food Safety
Diagnostic Toolkit for Inspectors. The latter is published
by the Food Standards Agency, an independent UK
government department. Connecting our extensive
experience in the food and beverage industry helped to
customize our approach to create a unique, easily
deployable, measurable and actionable Food Safety
Culture assessment toolbox.
We are aware that other Food Safety Culture best
practice documents and papers are constantly being
published, such as the GFSI position paper on Food
Safety Culture. Evaluating what is available and
incorporating it into our own assessment protocols is
part of our work of continuously improving this area.
As needed, we can consider other specific protocols,
evaluate gaps and provide recommendations for
incorporating additional elements into a more
customized solution.
ABOUT ISRS
The International Safety Rating System (ISRSTM) is a
DNV GL proprietary method for assessing safety
management systems. Developed over many years, it
continues to evolve as it is updated with new
developments in health, safety, environmental and
security practices. It is currently in its eighth edition.
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ISRS is based on a structured protocol, comprising 15
management system processes which are further
divided into sub-processes. The protocol is built around
the concept of assessing the maturity of the processes
rather than based on checklists. It provides deep
insights into current performance and how performance
could be improved in the future.
The structure that ISRS brings permits conclusions to be
drawn across sites when performing multi-site
assessments and allows benchmarking with other
organizations. In addition, it brings consistency between
assessments.
DNV GL’s assessors have extensive experience in
delivering such assessments across a range of
industries worldwide, using a suite of tools and
techniques developed to address risks.  
THE FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY’S FOOD
SAFETY CULTURE DIAGNOSTIC TOOL
The Food Standards Agency’s Food Safety Culture
Diagnostic Tool was published in 2012. It is intended to
help food companies assess food safety management,
including the management culture, application of good
practices or pre-requisite programs, adopted hygiene
standards and approach taken to identify and control
food safety hazards. This includes control of process
activities (e.g. cooking, cooling, labelling/date code
application) and application of prerequisites (e.g. pest
control, cleaning, maintenance of the environment,
prevention of cross-contamination). The term food
 SAFETY
CULTURE
MODEL
+ UK FOOD
STANDARDS
REFERENCE
Figure 2. DNV GL´s approach to food safety
safety is used to embrace all aspects of safe and
hygienic processing of food and refers to practices,
standards and activities that are required to protect
consumers from harm.
The Food Safety Culture Diagnostic Tool can be used to
identify aspects of good or poor food and beverage
safety cultures in food businesses and as a framework
or device to influence business culture.
This will help assessors start to understand the
attitudinal drivers to food safety and hygiene behavior
and the type of advice that can be provided to help
influence attitudes and, ultimately, the culture within a
food business.
SAFETY CULTURE ASSESSMENTS
Our food safety culture assessment toolbox is divided
into seven main attributes against which an
organization’s food safety culture is assessed:
¾¾ Leadership
¾¾ Organizational knowledge and communication
¾¾ Encouragement
¾¾ Work environment and conditions
¾¾ Operational discipline
¾¾ Teamwork and mutual care
¾¾ Risk perception and identification
= FOOD SAFETY
CULTURE
ASSESSMENT
REPORT
ASSESSMENT TEAMS WITH COMPLEMENTARY SKILLS
A food safety expert
A professional with years of experience in food safety,
both from the industry (e.g. as a food safety manager in
an organization) as well as auditing (e.g. working for a
certification body or auditing firm).
A behavioral expert
A professional with a proven human-factor background
that provides a cultural and behavioral viewpoint and
who has conducted safety culture assessments in other
organizations.
The format of the assessment is different from a food
safety audit (such as GFSI). While interviews are still part
of the assessment, other techniques such as focus
groups and observations are used to narrow in on
behavioral aspects in addition to simply searching for
the hard evidence.
Findings from the assessment are organized in two
dimensions:
¾¾ Attributes
¾¾ Maturity levels
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The maturity levels used in the assessment are:
¾¾ Leaders
¾¾ Proactive compliers
¾¾ Dependent compliers
¾¾ Doubting compliers
¾¾ Calculative non-compliers
Each attribute is well-defined for each maturity level.
Figure 3, shows an example of the Leadership
attribute as it is defined in each of the maturity levels.
GLOBAL FOOD SAFETY INITIATIVE
GFSI also published a position paper for culture of
Food Safety, defining a model of five dimensions and
critical components (see fig. 8). The assessment can
be based on DNV GL approach, GFSI attributes or any
other model, considering other dimensions or
maturity level.
WHAT DOES AN ASSESSMENT
REPORT LOOK LIKE?
Based upon the output from the assessment
techniques (observations, interviews, focus groups,
etc.) each unit (be it a corporate office, a business unit
or a manufacturing plant) is given an assessment
report that includes an overall description, including a
description of the different groups assessed and
interviews conducted.
This is followed by a description of the positive
aspects found by the assessment team as well as
8
DNV GL’s assessors have
extensive experience in delivering
such assessments across a range
of industries worldwide, using
a suite of tools and techniques
developed to address risks.
opportunities for improvement identified for each of
the attributes. Figure 5 depicts an example for the
Leadership attribute.
The report includes an analysis of each attribute
against the various maturity levels expressed as a
grade developed by the assessment team. Each
grade range corresponds to a different maturity level.
A high-level comment about each attribute is
included to support the chosen maturity level.
An overall conclusion is written by the assessment
team, referring to the company in general and
applicable to all attributes. An average grade and
maturity level is assigned to each unit, which allows
for performance benchmarking, measurement of
progression, etc. (fig. 6).
 ATTRIBUTE - LEADERSHIP

Frequently encourage staff to apply food hygiene procedures, explain why

this is necessary and applaud good practice. Evident active interest in food
safety; leadership through good examples. Recognition of achievement i.e.
scores for compliance with standards.
Leaders
“I think it’s important to recognize staff for implementing
food safety best practice as well as to challenge them when
they do not.”

Leaders aim to provide a good example and encourage the food hygiene
behaviors desired from their staff as per the regulations. Leaders challenge
Proactive poor food hygiene practices which fail to comply with legislation.
compliers
“I wash my hands when entering the kitchen and I expect my
employees to do the same.”
MATURITY LEVEL

Leadership surrounding food hygiene is inconsistent and follows

instructions from the regulator. Lack of initiative and drive demonstrated by
the FBO. Little presence of/direction from the FBO in the workplace
Dependent regarding food safety, except following local authority inspections.
compliers

“The inspector told them [staff] to tie their hair up so I tell

them to do that now.”

Leaders fail to act as a role model for good safety behaviors and express
cynicism to staff, e.g. FBO /Managers not adhering to protective clothing
rules. Poor food hygiene practice remains unchallenged and feedback is
Doubting not provided about hygiene behaviors.
compliers

“I’m not going to wash my hands every time I go in and out

of the kitchen - what a waste of time.”

Management advocates non-compliance except where there is a risk of

enforcement. No attempt to provide suitable equipment/facilities to enable
Calculative staff to work correctly, e.g. hand wash facilities.
non-compliers
“It is not my problem - they can’t fine the boss if the kitchen
staff don’t wash their hands”

Figure 3. Leadership attributes

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 Company Name “Business Unit and/or Plant Name”
Address ADDRESS
Start Date June 28th, 2017 End Date June 29th, 2017
Assessment Team Assessor Name 1 and Assessor Name 2
Groups Assessed 1) Operators
2) Supervisors
3) Quality Technicians
4) Maintenance Technicians
5) Applicable Third-parties
Interviews 1) Plant Manager
2) Production Manager
3) Quality / Food Safety Manager
4) HR Manager

Figure 4. Assessment report

RESULTS
Positive Opportunities for Improvement

Leadership In general, leaders and
subordinates recognize, in
terms of Hygiene and overall
Food Safety, “much has been
done, but there’s a lot more to
be accomplished”. This facility
is certified in GFSI, and have
good KPIs for Food Safety,
however, all its Food Safety
indicators are reactive:
complaints made to the
Customer Service 1-800
number, non-conformities,
microbiological indicators, etc.
Organizational
Positive aspects identified
Knowledge and
by the assessment team
Communication
¾¾ Leadership claims to prioritize its efforts as such: Health and Safety,
Quality, Volume and Cost. However, personnel perceive the order to be:
Volume, Health and Safety, Cost and Quality.
¾¾ Overall lack of technical knowledge, training and awareness of leaders in
their roles as it relates to Food Safety.
¾¾ Feedback and personal relationship with employees were identified as
significant failure in leadership with regards to taking actions related to
Food Safety.
¾¾ The commitment from leadership as it relates to Food Safety varies:
employees feel management does not commit to Food Safety and its
requisites. Many employees commented that leaders may accept
production batches even when there are deviations from agreed hygiene
and cleanliness standards.
¾¾ In general, leadership imposes production volumes on employees and
does not generally discuss hygiene and Food Safety on a regular basis.
¾¾ Employees claim that budget for capital investment related to Food
Safety in the plant is insuficient for their needs.”
Opportunities for improvement identified by the assessment team

Positive aspects identified

Encouragement Opportunities for improvement identified by the assessment team
by the assessment team

Work Environment Positive aspects identified

Opportunities for improvement identified by the assessment team
and Conditions by the assessment team

Teamwork and Positive aspects identified

Opportunities for improvement identified by the assessment team
Mutual Care by the assessment team

Operational Positive aspects identified

Opportunities for improvement identified by the assessment team
Discipline by the assessment team

Risk Perception and Positive aspects identified

Opportunities for improvement identified by the assessment team
Identification by the assessment team

Figure 5. Leadership attributes.

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 Connecting our extensive experience in the
food & beverage industry helped customize the
approach to create a unique, easily deployable,
measurable and actionable food safety culture
assessment toolbox.

ATTRIBUTE VS MATURITY LEVEL ANALYSIS

Leadership Dependent compliers 50% Leadership is focused on solving problems related to
productivity and output, but also request employees to
pay attention at behavior related to hygiene, food safety
and overall compliance to internal procedures. They
believe good practices are important, but have shown
behavior indicating deviation may happen to meet
production demands.
Organizational Knowledge and Doubting compliers 21% High-level comments from assessment team on respective
Communication attribute
Encouragement Calculative non-compliers 10% High-level comments from assessment team on respective
attribute
Work Environment and Doubting compliers 21% High-level comments from assessment team on respective
Conditions attribute
Teamwork and Mutual Care Doubting compliers 30% High-level comments from assessment team on respective
attribute
Operational Discipline Dependent compliers 41% High-level comments from assessment team on respective
attribute
Risk Perception and Calculative non-compliers 10% High-level comments from assessment team on respective
Identification attribute

AVERAGE 26%
OVERALL CONCLUSION
Food Safety is not a foreign concept to the plant Currently, it’s flagged as the second highest priority in management KPIs, however:
it’s visible that there are inadequacies related to physical environment, equipment and overall staff practices compared to the vision
from management. In general, staff understands the importance of food safety and overall good manufacturing practices, and its
importance for the business, especially considering the brand image of the organization. However, the level of risk accepted by
deviation from the procedures to meet production volumes is not mapped (such as a SWOT analysis), therefore a full understanding of
decisions made and its potential Food Safety impact are not fully available to managers.

Doubting Questions the overall risk represented by lack of Food Safety, adherence to internal procedures
compliers and good manufacturing practices, and doesn’t fully understand how to control and mitigate such
risks. Is able to understand the requirements, but questions the risk. May present a cynical view to
employees of adherence, but in reality, is only willing to go as far as minimum regulatory
requirements. Typical statement: “We never had a single problem in all the time we’ve been
operating in this location”.

Figure 6. Attribute vs Maturity level analysis

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Figure 7. The multi-faceted approach comprises 6 distinct phases

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A MULTI-FACETED
APPROACH TO FOOD
SAFETY CULTURE

We propose a multi-faceted approach to assess, monitor and

continually improve on a journey towards Food Safety Culture. This
comes from the belief that their food safety culture, with the emphasis
on the word culture, is not something companies can change
overnight; it takes time, continuous efforts and diligence to build.

Companies could choose to take on parts of the The objectives are:

approach described in the next sections or embrace all
of it at once. While the latter is recommended, it is fully
possible to start with a step-wise journey.
SELF-ASSESSMENT
This consists of DNV GL’s online,
carefully designed questionnaire.
PHASE
This contains questions organized
1 within food safety culture
attributes.
This phase provides a company with a “finger on the
pulse” regarding the current state of its food safety
culture, simply by looking at the responses from
employees at various levels in the organization. It is
important to work closely with DNV GL to define a
sampling methodology that includes head office and
business units, as well as manufacturing plants.
¾¾ Provide a high-level overview of
the Food Safety Culture.
¾¾ Allow for a quick evaluation of the current maturity
level and create a baseline for future improvement
(in multiple languages, across organizational levels
and geographies).
¾¾ Allow staff to get an initial exposure to
the Food Safety Culture Assessment topic.
The self-assessment will give indications of a company’s
maturity levels; however, it has to be kept in mind that it
is based on people’s own perceptions of an
organization’s Food Safety Culture. Through the
compilation of all employees answers, DNV GL can
provide analytics comparing results between plants,
functions, attributes etc and ranking of most favorable
or unfavorable questions, as presented in the graphs of
figure 9, will drive assertive taken decision.

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 Figure 8. The five dimensions and critical components of Food Safety Culture (Source: A CULTURE OF FOOD SAFETY A POSITION PAPER
FROM THE GLOBAL FOOD SAFETY INITIATIVE (GFSI) V1.0 - 4/11/18)

SELF-ASSESSMENT
REVIEW BY DNV GL
In this phase, we will use our The charts and results can be visualized at multiple
PHASE
technical expertise to interpret levels, e.g. a plant manager can see his/her own
2 the self-assessment results. This results only, a regional manager can view an entire
includes analysing the data region, and the Global Food Safety Officer can have a
collected and demonstrating global view.
trends between organizational levels
(Head office, Business units, Manufacturing plants,
etc.) as well as between functions (HR, operations,
etc.) or even geographies.

The objectives are:

¾¾ Interpret and analyze the results gathered from the
self-assessment at multiple organizational levels.
¾¾ Help prioritize where to focus the next phase (full
assessment).
¾¾ Provide initial results which can be used to provide
status and progress.

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Figure 9. Graph 1: Example of performance by major topic by plant. Graph 2: Example of general performance by function by plant.

FULL ASSESSMENT
With the analysis from phase 2, a
program could be put in place to
PHASE
roll out phase 3. Together with the
3 company, we use a risk analysis
and prioritize the business units
and manufacturing plants to be We propose a multi-
visited for the full assessment.
faceted approach to
The objectives are: assess, monitor and
¾¾ To assess the food safety culture at the various
locations by means of observations, focus groups continually improve
and interviews. on a journey towards
¾¾ To gather systemic issues or deficiencies which
may give insights on how to bridge gaps and Food Safety Culture.
improve the positions in the maturity continuum.

The outcomes are:

¾¾ Validation of the online self-assessment results.
¾¾ Detailed information (report) on the issues
that led to the results.
¾¾ DNV GL’s professional assessment of the food
safety culture at the various organizational levels
and geographies.

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 METHODOLOGY This is followed up through a combination of interviews and workshops, and the
observation of practices and processes.

Interviewees and workshop attendees are selected based on department/function

and rank. The intention is to validate the survey findings, investigate root causes of
the low perceptions and include a qualitative evaluation of food safety behaviours
that underlie the perception of food safety in the organization.

ASSESSOR TEAM ¾¾ One behavior and culture consultant

¾¾ One food safety expert consultant

DELIVERABLES ¾¾ Assessment report with a rating for dimensions and with comments related to
each attribute performance
¾¾ Description of evidence justifying the rating for each dimension.
¾¾ Conclusion of current food safety maturity

Figure 10. The scope of a full assessment

MOVING UP THE MATURITY 2. Other services needed to bring the plant/site,

CONTINUUM
With a full understanding of the
PHASE
current Food Safety Culture
4 Maturity Level, we can support you
in your journey to move up the
maturity continuum.
etc. to the next level, including:
¾¾ Training, coaching
¾¾ Advisory (review of local action plans
in various plants, guidance on developing
of communication plans, etc)
¾¾ Risk assessments

This can be done by providing:

1. Support to develop a food safety culture guidebook PROACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
and assistance on tactical ways to implement a food OF YOUR STAFF IN FOOD
safety culture. SAFETY CULTURE
PHASE
Transforming a company’s culture
¾¾ Mapping stakeholders: their profile, main skills and 5 is not an easy task. Cultural change
challenges related to food safety issues takes time, patience, diligence, and
¾¾ Aligning expectations constant reinforcement of a common
¾¾ Values and leadership message to all involved.
¾¾ Capabilities and learning
¾¾ Communication plan Often, cultural change happens as a combination of
¾¾ Definition of goals and measures top-down and bottom-up approaches. A company can
¾¾ Reinforcement and consequences develop extensive training programs and performance-
¾¾ Structure and follow an action plan, based on survey driven incentives, but have poor communication and
and assessment results thus fail to achieve results.
¾¾ Continuous improvement plan

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We will provide unique insights into your company’s
Food Safety Culture by doing assessments in various
locations. One plant may be doing amazing things,
but its knowledge can become siloed in that one
location and never shared with others. Internal best
practices, when well-communicated, are proven to be
one of the best catalysts for innovation. We propose a
process whereby insights, best practices and results
collected as a result of the assessments are curated,
organized and fed back in a way that can be shared,
such as:
¾¾ Newsletters
¾¾ Internal social media tools (such as Yammer, Jive,
Chatter, etc)
RE-ASSESSMENT AND
CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT
Food Safety Culture does not
PHASE change in one year. The
6 greatest benefit of the Food
Safety Culture Assessment
Toolbox is that it allows you to
evaluate, find the problems, fix
them, re-evaluate and continually improve from what
has been done in the past.
When several locations are assessed, we propose that
knowledge-exchange sessions are to be arranged
once a cycle of assessments has been completed.
What went well? What could be improved? What
plants need to be visited again? Which plants did so
well that they could be exempt from an assessment
next year? These are some of the questions which will
be brought up during such discussions.
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ABOUT DNV GL
DNV GL is a global quality assurance and risk
management company. Driven by our purpose of
safeguarding life, property and the environment,
we enable our customers to advance the safety
and sustainability of their business. We provide
classification, technical assurance, software and
independent expert advisory services to the maritime,
oil & gas, power and renewables industries. We
also provide certification, supply chain and data
management services to customers across a wide
range of industries.
With origins stretching back to 1864 and operations in
more than 100 countries, our experts are dedicated to
helping customers make the world safer, smarter and
greener.
As one of the world’s leading certification bodies,
we help businesses manage risk and assure the
performance of their organizations, products, people,
facilities and supply chains through certification,
verification, assessment and training services across a
wide range of industries.
In the food and beverage industry, we help customers
worldwide to achieve excellence in food safety and
quality, environmental management, supply chain
management and product sustainability. We combine
technical, digital and industry expertise to empower
companies’ decisions and actions. Partnering with our
customers, we build sustainable business performance
and create stakeholder trust.
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SAFER, SMARTER, GREENER

DNV GL AS
assurance.dnvgl.com
business.assurance@dnvgl.com

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