The importance of greenhouse food safety practises

WHY IS FOOD SAFETY SO IMPORTANT?

"We believe that our overall success depends on our ability to supply food to our customers that meets or exceeds the highest standards for product quality and safety. Now more than ever, people are acutely aware of the foods they eat, where those foods come from, and the journey that food takes before winding up on their tables. We are committed to ensuring this journey is as safe as possible so our customers can place their full trust in their favorite Nature Fresh Farms products to fuel their families!"

With that said, they also believe it is the responsibility of their entire team to support the development and implementation of food safety systems, standards, and practices within their company. When the team rallies behind this common goal - to provide their customers with the safest produce possible - they can continuously achieve new levels of food safety excellence.

Let's take a closer look at how they use food safety practices and procedures to protect our produce!

FOOD SAFETY AT NATURE FRESH FARMS

The food safety procedures are designed to protect their products against risks related to biological, chemical, or physical contamination. Each potential risk is addressed with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which are reviewed yearly, or when changes in the process occur.

Every day, each of the Supervisors completes pre-operational and post-operational food safety checks to ensure we are complying with all food safety rules and regulations. The team also receives food safety training on an ongoing basis, so everyone stays informed and up to date on changes or improvements to food safety protocols.

NAture fresh farms COMPLIANCE TEAM

When it comes to food safety, the Compliance team at Nature Fresh Farms plays an important role - it is their responsibility to perform internal audits, verify food safety checks, validate the sanitation procedures, and review food safety documents and forms.

Internal Audits

While they bring external auditors into their facilities at least 4 times a year to review food safety compliance, it is up to the internal Compliance team to make sure they are always adhering to food safety practices - especially when no one is watching!

When performing internal audits, the Compliance team checks to make sure all SOPs are being followed at every location, and that food safety standards are being upheld by all team members.

Operational Checks & Sanitation

They have great confidence in their team members as food safety stewards, but it is always important to double-check their actions to mitigate risks. This is why the Compliance team verifies that pre-operational and post-operational checks are being completed each day by their Supervisors. 

Validating their sanitation practices is also an incredibly important responsibility of the Compliance team. They clean our facilities rigorously, but they use ATP tests to discover in seconds how effectively they have been cleaning their surface areas. They also perform micro-checks once a month where we send swabs of their surface areas to be tested in a lab setting to further validate their sanitation efforts.

Click here to read the complete article on Nature Fresh Farms' blog.

Photo Courtesy of Nature Fresh Farms

Source: Nature Fresh Farms