FSMA Fridays: Food Safety & Quality Operations Survey Results (Part Four Of Four)

Check out the entire webcast or read part one, part two, and part three of this series

In part three  of FSMA Fridays: Food Safety & Quality Operations Survey Results, SafetyChain Software’s VP of Marketing, Jill Bender was joined by The Acheson Group’s (TAG) founder and CEO Dr. David Acheson to discuss the results of a recent SafetyChain/TAG survey for food safety and quality operations professionals. Here, in the fourth and final segment, the duo continues the conversation.

Jill: Moving on to audit preparedness; that is obviously everything you do is always subject to being audited in many different ways. A number of audits, FSQ authorizations experience, you may give me yours, whether it's regulatory or non-regulatory, such as customer and internal seems to be growing even though I know the promise of at least GFSI was less audits in the future. And that hasn't quite hit pace yet. When asked about preparedness, I was delighted, and a little surprised, to see 60 percent indicated that they're fully prepared. But, the definitions of prepared are subjective. But I find this interesting nonetheless. What do you think, David?

David: Obviously, there's a very-high percentage who are prepared for scheduled audits. While, I would hope you are. It's like, "Hey, we're coming. We are giving you 10-days, two-week’s notice.” So that's not a shocker and it's also not a shocker to say companies are struggling a whole lot more with being prepared for an unannounced audit. Keep in mind that that's generally how the FDA operates is that they're not giving you a head's up. They will just show up. And so we've got 50 percent who feel, yeah, I'm sort of okay. And 14 percent who are, no, I'm not ready for an unannounced audit. But, that's the regulatory audit where this isn't the GFSI audit, this is the regulatory audit. And we've got less than half that feel really good about their programs being current and the records being audit ready.