Audits, Training Mark Chains' Food Safety Efforts

MICHAEL GARRY

WASHINGTON — When it comes to ensuring that its stores are following proper hygienic and food safety practices, Safeway relies on three separate assessments — and none are conducted by Safeway employees.

“We want validation of what we're doing through independent sources,” said Mahipal Kunduru, group director, consumer protection for the Pleasanton, Calif.-based retailer, who explained Safeway's in-store hygiene program earlier this month in a session here at the Global Food Safety Conference, sponsored by The Consumer Goods Forum, Paris. He was joined in the session by Gillian Kelleher, vice president, food safety and quality assurance, Wegmans Food Markets, and Jill Hollingsworth, group vice president, food safety, Food Marketing Institute.

Both Kunduru and Kelleher emphasized the rigor and scrutiny their companies apply to vetting the food safety credentials of their stores.

The three independent assessors used by Safeway include its cleaning chemical suppliers, who check sanitation practices; National Everclean Services, Agoura Hills, Calif., which conducts quarterly food safety compliance checks of food preparation departments; and health department inspectors.

Chemical suppliers, who are in stores monthly, also educate employees about proper sanitation procedures. “They engage employees about the role they play in food safety and sanitation,” said Kunduru. Safeway collects data on all of its inspections to drive improvements and diminish its reliance on inspections, he said.

National Everclean's food safety compliance audits are done quarterly at Safeway's 1,730 stores in the U.S. and Canada. The unannounced audits focus on food preparation departments, checking everything from hand-washing compliance and the cleanliness of floors, walls and ceilings to cooking and chilling practices and pest control. The audits also include employee training as well as an exit interview. Audit information is uploaded to a website and translated into “dashboard results” indicating how a store compares with other groups of stores.

If National Everclean identifies a food safety issue, it notifies the store by email within 24 hours. The store manager is then responsible for coming up with an online “corrective action plan,” which needs the approval of a district manager. A field merchandiser verifies that the plan was implemented and effective. “If that doesn't work, the cycle starts again,” said Kunduru. “There are checks and balances in the system.”

The aim of the audit program, which mirrors health department inspections and includes Safeway requirements, is to “have fewer critical violations and repeat violations,” he said. The data collected in the program allows Safeway to focus on the “bottom-quartile” stores, and the departments in those stores causing the poor assessment. “We look at whether it's employee practices or the procedure itself causing the problem and then make improvements,” he said.

In regard to health department inspections, Kunduru said Safeway is working on implementing a “health department regulatory database system.” Stores will fax health department inspection data to this central database, “providing us with information in a timely manner,” he said. The data will enable the chain to look at food safety issues with a “strategic perspective” over the long term.

Wegmans, Rochester, N.Y., does food safety HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) assessments in its stores and issues “report cards” three times per year, said Kelleher in her presentation.

TRAINING NEW HIRES

In addition to using outside inspectors, Safeway has its own food safety training programs, including a one-hour orientation for all new hires in perishable departments (except floral) and a food safety certification program for store managers, department managers, merchandisers, assistant managers and managers of in-store Starbucks franchises. “We want to make employees aware of what is expected and why it is important,” said Kunduru.

The training is designed to be simple and straightforward. For example, Safeway works with Ecolab, St. Paul, Minn., a provider of cleaning products and services, to color-code sanitation chemicals so employees know which chemicals to use.

Wegmans' Kelleher said the chain provides an hour-long Web-based modular training session to employees before starting them in a prepared-food department. Wegmans also uses the Food Marketing Institute's SuperSafeMark food safety training program for managers as well as a two-day HACCP workshop.

Wegmans includes personal hygiene standards — for hand-washing, for example — in a handbook that is also available on its intranet. The chain allows no “bare-hand contact” with ready-to-eat food, said Kelleher.

In designing and selecting foodservice equipment and in process development, Kunduru's consumer protection department partners with other Safeway departments, such as marketing, merchandising and store operations. “We need employees to be able to implement [procedures] in an easy manner so they won't fail,” he said.

Recent equipment changes at Safeway include the deployment last year of the Sterilox system for crisping produce and preventing cross-contamination, and the replacement of thumb guards in deli-slicing equipment as a hedge against potential cross-contamination risks raised by an incident in the Pacific Northwest.

Wegmans, too, is incorporating food safety in equipment design and purchases to make it safer and more user-friendly. In addition, challenged by its chief executive officer, Danny Wegman, Wegmans began to “build food safety into our store design up front in blueprints,” such as minimizing the risk of cross-contamination in back rooms, said Kelleher.

Wegmans receives a great deal of feedback from customers about food safety issues such as store hygiene and appearance and employee practices, said Kelleher, adding, “We have a prompt reaction to complaints and suggestions.” Wegmans also seeks to educate shoppers about food handling and recalls at the point of sale and online.