Food

Safety

Culture
Excellence
Module

brcgs.com
Food Safety
Culture Excellence Module

Content

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FOOD SAFETY
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FOOD SAFETY
CULTURE EXCELLENCE CULTURE MODULE
- WHAT IS IT? – EXPLANATION
Setting new standards The new set of metrics will
for the food industry help to measure the return
on investment of training

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BENEFITS FOR YOUR
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HOW IT WORKS
ORGANIZATION Preparation, assesment,
Quantify culture in an accurate, reporting and improvement.
meaningful and easy-to-
understand way.

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FAQS
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CONTACT US
Frequently asked questions We’d love to hear from you by
and the answers. email, phone or social media.

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 Food Safety
Culture Excellence Module

Food Safety
Culture Excellence
- What is it?
Many organisations are beginning to realise
that despite investment in food safety
training, system implementation and auditing,
something is still missing. This ‘something’ is the
assessment of their food safety culture, which
until now has been very difficult to measure.

Behaviour-based systems for measuring food safety

complement the normal risk-based, system and process
checks, as they offer insight into what employees really
think and understand about food safety.

Working with Taylor Shannon International (TSI), an

industry leader in the field of food safety, management,
education and organisational culture, BRCGS have
developed BRCGS Food Safety Culture Excellence
(FSCE), an assessment of food safety culture, converting
what is often a broad or blurry concept into a measurable
score and analysis which, if repeated annually, provides a
baseline with which to compare the success of ongoing
investments and changes.

BRCGS’ Food Safety Culture Excellence is setting

new standards for the food industry. The assessment
is a unique solution for the measurement, analysis
and improvement of organisational culture.

“BRCGS’ Food Safety

Culture Excellence
is setting new
standards for the
food industry.
” 3
Food Safety
Culture Excellence Module

Food Safety
Culture Module
– Explanation
The FSCE assessment reveals a
new set of metrics and will help to
measure the return on investment
of training and other employee
development initiatives.

It’s used by food clients of all types,

including manufacturing, retail and
food service, around the world to PEOPLE PROCESS
understand and improve their food Empowerment Control
safety and quality culture. Reward Coordination
Teamwork Consistency
Training Systems
The BRCGS Food Safety Culture Communication Premises
Excellence assessment is based
on the following structure:

PURPOSE PROACTIVITY
Vision Awareness
Values Foresight
Strategy Innovation
Targets Learning
Metrics Investment

“The Food Safety Culture

Excellence assessment is available
to purchase from the BRCGS
bookshop in 51 languages.

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”
 Food Safety
Culture Excellence Module

Benefits for
your organization
Culture is perceived as an imprecise concept
and very difficult to identify. Because of this, KEY BENEFITS:
assessing cultural strengths and weaknesses
is hard to achieve. The Food Safety Culture Module offers many
benefits for manufacturers, specifiers and the
The FSCE assessment meets this challenge: it quantifies wider industry:
culture in an accurate, meaningful and easy-to-understand
way. Highlighting an organisations strengths and
• Determines strengths and weaknesses in food
weaknesses enables targeted, focused improvements
that were not possible before. safety capability

• Provides real insight into staff opinion, attitude,

and behaviour

• Provides multi-site businesses with a

benchmarking tool to compare sites to each other

• Reveals the ‘unseen’ culture that goes beyond

the day of audit

• Complements the existing audit programme with

a behaviour-based approach

• Strengthens your reputation through a proactive

approach to food safety culture

• Offers significant return for a low cost and

hassle-free module

• Measures the impact of training, systems,

and other initiatives

• Evaluates return on investment of budget and

identifies the most important targets for resource
allocation

• Develops supply chain awareness and

supports site-specifier partnerships built
on increased confidence

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Food Safety
Culture Excellence Module

How it works

1 PREPARATION
The assessment process starts with the registration of one or more sites. Once registered, the site contact(s)
will receive a confirmation email including details of how to launch the assessment, including communications
posters, implementation guidelines and response targets. They also receive the link to their assessment. Then
the site is ready to go!

2 ASSESSMENT
Across the company, employees can complete the survey anonymously on computers, tablets or mobile phones. After
selecting their preferred language, it takes around 15-20 minutes to complete. The site contact receives weekly progress
updates so can see when they reach their minimum response targets; they can then request for the survey to be closed
when they are happy with their uptake. Then the data is processed and the report is published.

3 REPORTING
The assessment generates a lot of
valuable data; this data is distilled
into a PDF report which is uploaded
to the BRCGS Directory after the
assessment is complete. The report
contains an overall score, plus scoring
for 4 Categories and 20 Dimensions.
It also provides benchmarking against
industry and product category
averages, as well as details of low and
high scoring questions, and perceived
barriers and positives of food safety
culture. Sites can quickly identify
areas of strength and opportunities
for improvement.

Reporting example

4 IMPROVEMENT
Once the site has received the report and reviewed their scores, they can identify next steps for driving
improvement. The PDF report provides general guidance on how to take steps to address cultural improvement.
Sites are also invited to join the Culture Excellence LinkedIn Group to view webinars and ask questions of the
Culture Excellence team. It is recommended to repeat the assessment yearly to track the improvements achieved.

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 Food Safety
Culture Excellence Module

How to apply
1 Purchase your Food Safety Culture Excellence
Assessment Module from the BRCGS Bookshop. 4 TSI communicates with the sites and provides
a site survey link and additional information.

2 Then complete the online application form for the

capture of key information and hit the send button. 5 Site completes the self-assessment.

3 BRCGS sets up your site on the TSI portal.

6 TSI uploads the Food Safety Culture Excellence
report to the private section of the BRCGS Directory

FAQS
WHO CAN TAKE THE MODULE? WILL THIS MODULE AFFECT MY FOOD SAFETY AUDIT GRADE?
This module is available to all food manufacturers, whether No, the results don’t impact the BRCGS audit grade received; they
or not they are certificated to a BRCGS standard. are designed to provide insight and help companies improve their
organisational culture.
WHAT ABOUT SITES CERTIFICATED TO ANOTHER
GFSI-APPROVED STANDARD? HOW WAS THE MODULE DEVELOPED?
The Food Safety Culture Module is available to food manufacturers The BRCGS Food Safety Culture Module was developed
certificated to any standard. in partnership with the TSI Culture Excellence team. It draws
on 20 years of academic research into organisational culture
WHAT IS INVOLVED? and psychological theory, combined with real-world research
The module requires a percentage of staff at all levels (management, in food safety management within the food industry.
supervisors/team leaders and operators) to complete an online
questionnaire, which takes around 15 - 20 minutes. The percentage HOW CAN FOOD SAFETY CULTURE SCORES
of staff is based on the number of employees at the site; enough staff BE IMPROVED?
to constitute a statistically valid sample will take part. These responses Once sites receive their results, how to act on the findings is their
are converted into a set of scores which is communicated via decision. Training is available from the BRCGS Academy, Campden
an Assessment Report. BRI, and the TSI Culture Excellence team, and can be tailored to the
site and based on their individual results so that they can take action
DOES THIS REQUIRE ANOTHER AUDIT? on key areas for improvement.
No, the Food Safety Culture Module does not require a dedicated
on-site audit. It can be carried out at any time. HOW CAN SITES GET MORE DETAILED INSIGHT INTO THEIR
FOOD SAFETY CULTURE SCORE?
HOW OFTEN SHOULD THE MODULE BE COMPLETED? If sites would like to receive more in-depth analysis of their score
It is recommended that the Module is completed once per year; and gain further guidance on improving their operational culture,
the report includes a comparison of the latest assessment versus they should contact BRCGS in order to discuss undertaking the full
the previous assessment. Culture Excellence programme (this can be implemented from the
start or an upgrade is available after completing the BRCGS Module).
HOW WILL SITES RECEIVE THE RESULTS OF THE ASSESSMENT? The full programme applies the same measurement criteria as the
An Assessment Report is provided with approximately 40 data points, BRC Food Safety Culture Module but offers additional benefit
including the site’s overall score, 4 Category scores, 20 Dimension from more extensive data reporting, personalised insight, targeted
scores, benchmarking against industry and peer group, as well as recommendations and dedicated support resources including
a basic explanation of what the scores mean and general guidance access to webinars and research papers, a Q&A facility and case
on strategies for improvement. studies for comparison.

WHO CAN SEE THE RESULTS? WHAT GFSI SCHEMES HAVE THIS TYPE OF MODULE?
The results are uploaded to the BRCGS Directory within 7 working This is an exclusive product from BRCGS. No other GFSI scheme
days of completion – they are private and can only be seen by the can offer this assessment, and BRCGS is the only GFSI-benchmarked
manufacturer. However, sites can choose to share their results with scheme enabling a culture excellence measurement of food safety.
retailers if they wish.

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 Food
Safety

in Partnership with

Campden BRI
food and drink innovation

Contact us
BRCGS
Floor 2
7 Harp Lane
London EC3R 6DP

T: +44 (0)20 3931 8150

E: enquiries@brcgs.com
Twitter: @BRCGS_Standards
Facebook: @BRCGS.Standards
brcgs.com/cultureexcellence