SafetyChain Blog

At its core, manufacturing success is all about quality. Consistently adhering to quality standards ultimately delights your customers and takes you far beyond the benefits of brand loyalty. Determining the cost of quality (COQ) is a complex but essential endeavor; there’s the cost of poor quality to consider and the cost of good quality or preventing issues from happening in the first place. In plants producing hundreds of separate items, tracking the many variables that influence quality can feel like a massive undertaking. And of course, it’s not just tracking this information that facilitates change; the goal is to derive meaningful insights from the data to inform future decisions.

In Food and Beverage and CPG, it’s not just your company’s internal performance that matters. Every link in the supply chain plays a role in quality, which is why it’s critical to ensure your suppliers are performing to your expectations. A strong supplier approval program should be comprehensive enough to not only minimize risks, but also satisfy compliance regulations such as FSMA’s requirement for Foreign Supplier Verification Programs.

As you work to strengthen your supplier assessment procedure and other elements of your approval program, here are a few steps to consider incorporating into your processes.

Many leaders in process manufacturing plants know there’s a wealth of benefits to be had by going paperless. Yet, transforming processes which have been in place for years—or even decades—is a daunting prospect. Oftentimes, there’s a considerable gap between where facilities are now and where they want to be. Filling that gap is the end goal, since going paperless will allow you to leverage your plant’s data to drive measurable performance improvements and boost profitability. But where do you begin?

Here, we’ll dive into what it looks like to go digital, including the processes and technology it takes to get there.

The Food & Beverage industry proved its resilience in 2020, perhaps more than any other time in history. Here at SafetyChain, we watched as companies overcame enormous pressures to keep shelves stocked and employees healthy in the midst of ever-evolving CDC updates and guidelines. While safety and agility have always been critical to success in the industry, COVID-19 called for quick thinking when supply chains were disrupted, as well as an even stronger commitment to safety - both of our food and employees.

In July of 2020, the FDA released “The New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint” with the goal of creating a safer, more transparent food system. This new approach to food safety comes on the heels of the COVID-19 crisis and at the cusp of what the FDA calls “a food revolution,” as production methods are evolving and manufacturers are embracing digitalization. It calls for a heavier reliance on technologies to modernize, enforce traceability, and drive efficiency across the industry. The push also encourages food and beverage companies to not only leverage digital solutions, but to weave them into their culture as a means of keeping the American food supply safe.

For many food and beverage companies, paper documentation, binders, and filing cabinets cause frustration and waste valuable time. Chelan Fruit, the largest fruit packing co-op in the US, felt the challenges of using a paper-based system firsthand and sought a more efficient way of doing things. Here, discover how their company successfully transitioned its entire food safety program to a paperless system using SafetyChain.

Achieving audit-readiness and regulatory compliance are two of the most complex challenges the food industry faces. For Sokol and Company, a food products supplier with a vast product line, keeping up with new FSMA regulations and preparing for audits was daunting, and introduced a need for a new food safety management solution.

When it comes to choosing quality assurance software, it’s important to know that no two software solutions are the same. We’ve assembled a list of top questions asked by seasoned IT professionals from some of the leading food companies in North America. To make it easy to identify the best FSQA software solution or plant management platform for your food, beverage, or CPG facility, be sure to ask the following when comparing solutions:

The role that technology leaders hold in F&B operations is changing. Here’s why, and what it means for IT and the future of food companies.

Trend: IT Is Now Innovating Operations

IT’s role in food manufacturing companies has always been critical, but not always directly connected to operational strategy. Even though IT leaders and managers are highly-valued and skilled problem-solvers, their roles in the past have often been tied to business infrastructure. But now, the emergence of technology in food safety, compliance, and operations is changing that. A new, innovative trend is connecting IT and FSQA leaders as they work together to completely transform their operations with technology.