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Building a Culture of Food Safety
33 Plays4 years ago
What does it mean to create a culture of food safety? Micah Hutchison, a Produce Safety Technician, and Mariel Borgman, an MSU Extension Educator, sit down and discuss the things, ideas, and activities all employees should share to promote a good food safety culture on the farm.
Additional Resources
Glitterbug Handwashing Activity
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast & Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Agri-Food Safety Produce Bites Podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule. Hi, my name is Mariel Borgman. I'm a community food systems educator with Michigan State University Extension. And I think my favorite thing about my job is getting to meet a lot of different people that work across the food supply chain.
00:00:30
Speaker
to meet farmers, I get to meet distributors, people that buy local foods, and then also people that like to eat and enjoy local foods. So that's a really a really unique aspect of my job that I really enjoy. Hi, I am Micah Hutchison and I am the Produce Safety Technician located with the Genesee Conservation District.
00:00:52
Speaker
And like you, Mario, I think my favorite thing about my job is all of the different people I get to meet. My favorite thing to do really is to interact with people and listen to what they say and meet them and kind of like create that connection. And this job definitely gets me, not just out in my community, but in the six surrounding counties. So I get to meet lots of different people.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, I also love eating food and so that it's also a bonus that goes along with working in this field. Yes, I love that too. I love like market visits because so many markets have like food trucks or food pop-up stands that I get, I feel like I get introduced to so many new foods, which is my favorite thing.
What is Culture?
00:01:39
Speaker
So I feel like food is a big part of culture actually. So that's kind of a fun transition into a discussion maybe about what is a culture anyway. So if we had to define culture for our listeners, what do you think we would tell them? I think that it's kind of like what we do collectively to create the environment we live in, where we work, where we play. It's like this mentally built environment. What do you think culture is?
00:02:07
Speaker
I think about kind of shared values. And I think that kind of ties into this, this environment that we create for ourselves. You know, there's obviously people have their own individual values, but there's some kind of baseline things that we generally all as a group of people hold. It's kind of a funny term. It's hard to think about because it's kind of a squishy thing. But yeah, yeah, I know, like, it
00:02:36
Speaker
Like for American culture, I think definitely it's kind of shared values comes to mind or the kind of shared idea of individuality and the pursuit of happiness, that kind of, that idea that we're all entitled to kind of the same rights and the same ability to make the best life for ourselves and our family that we can.
00:03:01
Speaker
Interesting. Cause I feel like even within a culture, like the American culture, there's a lot of smaller, maybe like you could call them micro cultures within different neighborhoods or different cities, even within different ethnic groups, within, you know, any kind of geographic or social group that you may have, there's differences. But I think that can even kind of be drilled down into the workplace.
Creating a Food Safety Culture on Farms
00:03:27
Speaker
which is what we'll be talking about today with creating a culture of food safety on a farm. For sure. So what does it mean to you to create a culture of food safety? So I guess if we stick to kind of that
00:03:42
Speaker
definition of shared values. That's what really, it speaks to me as everyone on the farm kind of valuing safe produce and acting in a way that supports those values. What do you think about? Oh, I agree. I think it's kind of everyone working together to ensure that practices are being met. Like everyone has the same goal to provide the best, safest produce possible.
00:04:11
Speaker
and like working together towards that goal. Yeah. And I think it too, it's like, it's not something that has to be necessarily thought about. It's really ingrained into everyday behaviors. So it's just a part of what you do for your job. It's not like, Oh, I'm going to do the produce safety thing now. It's just, you know, part of everything you do. For sure. Like it's not like, Oh, I'm told to wash my hands. It's kind of like that.
00:04:38
Speaker
A thoughtless action of my hands may be dirty. I need to wash them now. Exactly. What other things would a farm have that would promote that food safety culture or show examples of that?
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, well, there's a lot of different things that farm owners and supervisors can do to make sure that they're supporting a good food safety culture, like making sure that bathrooms have soap and paper towels and a place to throw they throw away those paper towels that they have.
00:05:09
Speaker
the cleaning supplies and sanitation supplies for a packing area in a safe area and labeled and ready to go. So I think that there's a lot of things that management can do to kind of set up their employees for success in building a food safety culture. Can you think of any other examples?
00:05:28
Speaker
What comes to mind for me is kind of those signage reminders that kind of express to not just workers for like visual reminders of maybe things that aren't culture yet, but are becoming culture as well as visitors. So if anyone visits the farm, they'll see reminders of like the food safety culture. So.
00:05:48
Speaker
hand washing signs, bathroom cleaning logs that are filled out and stocking logs that are filled out. So I know it's a tool, but I think that those are also things that I would see that would indicate to me that there is a culture there. Yeah, I think those little reminders really can make a big difference in making that behavior more of a habit than something folks have to think about as they're getting kind of constant reminders as they go through other day.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And I like seeing those things like filled out so people are using them. To me, that's like a good indicator. It's more than just something that they do. It's something that they believe in. And like you mentioned before, something that is ingrained. So it's not just something that employees are thinking about. It's something that they do without thinking. Yes.
Practical Methods for Food Safety
00:06:43
Speaker
One thing I saw on a farm I visited a few years ago that I really liked was on the
00:06:48
Speaker
the box where they keep their harvest knives, they had just a blank sticker that someone wrote on with a Sharpie marker that said, I think it was lettuce harvest knives or something. And it said, lettuce harvest knives sanitize before returning to this container. And I was like, wow, what a really easy way to remind employees to do something that is just like right where they need it. If they're about to put a dirty knife in there, they see that little sticker and oh, I need to go sanitize this knife.
00:07:18
Speaker
I thought that was so cool. I love that. I mean, I think we've all experienced that being really busy and like not skipping a step, if that makes sense. At least for me, that would be a great reminder of if I'm hurrying and putting a knife down. And then I see that I would definitely remember that I have to sanitize that knife. Have you seen anything else on farms that you liked?
00:07:41
Speaker
Another really fun one is kind of color coding where things go or having different bins for clean versus dirty. But a couple of times I've been to kind of use the red color for dirty and the green color for clean. So there's like a section of the pack house that has like red tape around a certain area where everything in there is dirty. And then there's a green taped off section where everything that's been cleaned.
00:08:06
Speaker
or sanitized goes. So that's another really easy distinction that doesn't even require language. It's just a color. So that's a really great solution too. If you have employees who don't speak English, you can incorporate color coding, graphics, visuals, things like that. It can be really helpful. Have you seen any ideas?
00:08:27
Speaker
I've definitely seen farms use color coding. I've seen like brooms and tools that are used for like cleaning the bathroom or maybe working with manure, having red handles, so it's kind of like a no danger red stop. Don't use this like in the pack house.
00:08:48
Speaker
And I liked that. I also really like it when people have like a sense of humor about some of the more sensitive subjects. So I've seen some bathroom signs that are pretty funny that encourage, you know, people to use the bathroom in the bathroom or kind of making jokes about washing your hands. So it's more fun.
00:09:09
Speaker
I love that. Because let's face it, food safety can be kind of a boring subject. So I think the more that we can have fun with it the better. I agree. And the more we can joke about poop, so we can talk about kind of the dangers that come with that. I think that
00:09:28
Speaker
It makes it easier to kind of like approach the subject with workers and at work. I don't know about you, but the first couple of times I had to say poop in a professional level, it just kind of felt very uncomfortable.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think it took me like a year to actually just call it poop instead of like feces or excrement or those more fancy academic terms. But then I'm like, no one, no one said that. We'll just call it poop. But I think other trainers talking about poop.
00:10:00
Speaker
helped me to be able to get comfortable saying it in a professional setting too. So you're a part of that, Micah. You're a part of that for me too. When I got this job, I'm like, wait, I have to say poop in front of growers? Lots of that? So for me, that culture of making poop funny and addressing how it is funny kind of has made, I think,
00:10:27
Speaker
it more approachable when I'm working with farms. Does this lead into kind of like the ideas that employees at a farm would promote a good food safety culture? Yeah, I think so. I think, well, the don't pick poopy produce saying is what we get throw around a lot.
00:10:48
Speaker
And I think it used to be on some candies that we handed out at trade shows and things like that. So that definitely is one of these phrases. Yes. I feel like it would be a great thing if you could kind of, whether it were transportation vehicles that workers are taking to the field or walking or wherever you first meet, I would love to see big signs that say, don't pick poopy produce before any harvest team goes out.
00:11:15
Speaker
You know, I think that would be fun. Yeah. Maybe with a little cartoon too or something. For sure. I know that for me, my big thing is
00:11:29
Speaker
I talk about a lot, what I do is help keep poop off food. Do you think that that's another kind of idea that workers keep in their mind? And yeah, I mean, that's essentially what we're doing. For
Building Trust & Accountability
00:11:50
Speaker
sure. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of poop talk.
00:11:54
Speaker
And I think there could be a lot of lingo and phrases that involve that because that is one of the major things, you know, whether it's talking about good hygiene and sanitation around bathrooms, or talking about animals getting in the field. There's a lot of poop talk. So yeah, I mean, some other ideas or like, just things folks might talk about are, you know, things like,
00:12:21
Speaker
again related to poop, but how to look around and make sure a work area is safe before beginning work. And so a lot of times we think of that kind of in the context of safety for the workers, but also expanding that to include like the safety of the food. So how to
00:12:40
Speaker
you know, evaluate the area that you're harvesting to make sure there's no poop or there's no signs that animals have been in there messing with the produce, eating it, pooping on it. And then also taking a look to make sure that things like food contact surfaces have been cleaned and sanitized. So kind of getting that to be part of the culture, to check your surroundings and make sure that everything looks safe before starting work.
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Um, I also think that maybe it can be expand to not just like checking your surroundings and your surfaces, but like having a culture of accountability between workers. So yeah, the bathroom might be a five minute break away, but having like, you can't use the bathroom in the fields being part of that, um, idea that employees have and knowing that if you, there's no exceptions.
00:13:37
Speaker
can also help. Yeah. And I'm thinking too, like, how do you build a culture where there's accountability without folks, like, calling each other out and getting folks in trouble? Like, how do you build those relationships among staff so that they can have a conversation with their coworkers in a way that's respectful? And I guess the same for supervisors and such, so.
00:14:02
Speaker
that might be something that growers can think about is kind of how do you build that accountability culture amongst your staff and your supervisors too? Oh yeah, that's super important. I think good communication is a huge part of a food safety culture at work. And building an environment where maybe workers feel safe to ask those questions. Like you said, where we can hold people accountable, but not
00:14:31
Speaker
make them feel bad about not knowing something? Or we talked earlier about American culture. Do you think that for growers bringing on workers having kind of an explanation of like food safety culture in America that might be different in another or the United States that might be different in another region is a way to kind of bring food safety culture to a farm?
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Because we do have potentially different standards for the type of practices that we need to do on the farm, but even some hygiene practices vary from place to place. So that would be a really important thing, I think, especially if you're bringing on international workers. So what kinds of things would employees do? Like if we were to go to a farm and we were to observe employees, like what kinds of activities would we see if that farm had a good food safety culture?
00:15:26
Speaker
As simple as it sounds, I think one of the bigger indicators for me is seeing employees wash their hands. If their porta potty is in the field with hand washing stations, seeing that after leaving a porta potty going
00:15:45
Speaker
directly to the hand washing station and not doing like baptism by water where you're just putting your hands under, getting them a little wet, shaking them off, drying them on your pants and going back to work. Seeing employees taking the time, lathering their hands for that 20 seconds, rinsing them, drying them completely and then disposing of the paper towel in a trash can.
00:16:10
Speaker
would be a big indicator for me visually that there was kind of like a culture of food safety on the farm. What about you? Yeah, I was just thinking about what you just mentioned, that communication piece, like really kind of honing in on how folks are interacting with one another and whether it seems like there's a good sense of trust among supervisors and staff. Cause I think a lot of times a lot of these
00:16:40
Speaker
produce safety behaviors are very individual actions and they require people to have honesty and it gets tricky when it comes to things like if people are feeling ill and they're not going to be able to work for the day.
00:16:53
Speaker
they're not going to get paid necessarily unless their supervisor can find something else for them to do. So that sense of trust and good communication and honesty and just good relationships among workers and between workers and supervisors, I think looking for that, and that can be really subtle, but I think you can feel it. If a crew is tight knit and they have good communication, I think you can observe that even as a provider.
00:17:22
Speaker
Oh, I agree. I think it's really easy to tell when people work well together. That's a really good point you bring up about trust and communication. So how could the culture be built or what could be done that kind of would encourage employees to tell their supervisors when they're showing those signs of illness, when they shouldn't
Management's Role in Safety Practices
00:17:46
Speaker
be working with fresh produce or food contact services. How would you work with a farm to kind of encourage that? Or what do you suggest? Honestly, one of the biggest things is that management is also following these types of practices. So if a supervisor is not feeling well, they call in and they don't come to work for that day. And that just becomes the norm. I've worked in a couple places in food service.
00:18:16
Speaker
where the management was really good about communicating that I wasn't feeling well and I didn't come to work yesterday. And that just kind of sets that as a standard and a norm for people. So that's one example, but I just think anytime, whether it's hand washing or making sure people aren't cutting corners with cleaning and sanitizing, even though it does take a long time at the end
00:18:43
Speaker
of maybe a long day, there's a lot of work still yet to be done and not cutting corners. I think that goes a long way. I agree. I really like something you said about management setting the example and like calling in when they don't feel well. I think that kind of
00:19:03
Speaker
brings us back to a culture in a way I didn't see it. In all of my jobs, it has felt kind of like a badge of honor when you show up to work sick. And I don't know if that's a worker culture thing, but that's definitely something that, as you mentioned, needs to be changed. I'm definitely from the top up of calling into your sick, not showing up when you're showing signs of illness.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I have always worked at those types of environments too, except for some of those food service settings. But yeah, it's always, it is. It's funny that we feel like we have to kind of push through it. And really, it can be not only detrimental to your own personal performance that day, but it can really make people sick if you spread your germs.
00:19:48
Speaker
So it's just a good thing to maybe incorporate into our larger American culture too. So a lot of this food culture is set with worker training.
Importance of Continuous Training
00:20:04
Speaker
Why is it important that worker trainer is ongoing versus like once a year you sit down, you read a book, you see a video? Yeah, well I think about
00:20:12
Speaker
you know, things I learned a year ago, maybe by attending a training or a class that I took a year or two ago. And I don't remember that much of that. I mean, I remember a couple of things, but we really want people to be doing this on a day to day basis. And so encountering these ideas on a day to day basis can be really important for what we were talking about earlier, making sure that it becomes a habit. It's not something folks have to think about every day, but it's just part of what they do.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah. What are some ways that growers can approach that ongoing training or fitting training into a busy schedule? This is always the tough question because it never seems like there's enough time, especially when it's really busy mid-season. But I think the biggest thing is just you have to value it, you have to make time for it. But some ways that you might be able to cut down on unnecessary time would be
00:21:11
Speaker
to do a lot of that training in the field or in the pack house, in the workspace itself, instead of setting up a projector in a room somewhere, but actually do on the job training and just incorporate produce safety into the training that you're already doing to show people how you want things done on your farm. I agree. I really like the
00:21:36
Speaker
the hands-on training approach where it's not just watching a video or seeing a projector or listening to someone. I don't know about you, but I have a real tendency to space out and start thinking about things, maybe other things that I have to do for work that day or something at home or about something I read or a television show. I watched the night before. For me, when I am like
00:22:02
Speaker
engaged in training and have to participate. I think I learned more. Yeah, definitely. I've also seen some really cool new texting options for training where
00:22:16
Speaker
Farmers will text a small piece of their training document to their staff and then expect them to read it and then send back their initials. So to me that breaks up part of the training process. So if you have like a new harvest crew, they can definitely incorporate like
00:22:34
Speaker
Remember before you're harvesting today that you're doing a pre-harvest assessment and I need you to look for, you know, animal tracks, animal poop, signs of animal feeding, and then explain why. I think that's a new fun way to train. Yeah, I haven't heard about that. That's fantastic. I love that kind of thing that people can do on their own time because that does really make a difference if you're trying to fit a lot into one work day.
00:23:03
Speaker
you know, if they take a few minutes before they start work for the day, you know, there are ways to kind of do that in person as well. If you're having like a quick meeting with the crew, you know, just throwing in a couple of reminders, you know, make sure that you're taking a break to walk to the bathroom, make sure you're washing your hands afterwards, that kind of thing. And bringing in some of those jokes and humor, I think would help too, because it's always easier to listen to something and remember something if it was
00:23:31
Speaker
set in a more memorable way too, I think. I agree. I need to have maybe some improv classes for managers. That'd be fun. When you led a module for the PSA GRR training, you did something really effective that I liked.
00:23:50
Speaker
and it was counting out 20 seconds and showing how long that really is that you have to be rubbing your hands together for effective hand washing. Do you have any other examples where fire managers or the person in charge of food safety could use an example and then a show me while training?
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, well, the other one that I've seen, which is really cool for hand washing, is using a product that shows up with a black light. So you could actually see where you've washed off that material on your hand. So there's a couple of different varieties out there. I think one is called Glow Germ and Glitterbug. And there might be a few other brand names. But basically, it's either a lotion or a powder that you rub onto your hands.
00:24:36
Speaker
And you can wash them using just water, soap and water, or nothing at all and kind of compare how much of that residue is left over and where it's kind of stuck around your nails and like the different creases in your hand.
00:24:52
Speaker
So that can be really effective for hand washing, but that same powder or lotion could also be applied to surfaces. So I've seen people put it on doorknobs or put it on their hand and then shake other people's hand as they enter the room. And then they'll shine the black light on people's phones or other things that they've touched throughout the day. So that is a really, really good one as well. Obviously you have to purchase that, but it doesn't cost too much and it's really, really effective.
00:25:20
Speaker
You said glitter bug. There's nothing more motivating for hand washing, at least as a parent, than trying to get glitter off of things. That would be incredible. Could a grower possibly use it not just on hands, but use these materials on something like the bottom of harvest bins so they could show how they can bring possibly pathogens or dirt into like a packing area?
00:25:47
Speaker
Absolutely. I've even seen it put on produce itself as a demonstration and kind of see how that produce goes through the whole post-harvest process to see what it touches. So very versatile. I think it's Glitter Buddy. Now that I think about it, Glitter Buddy, I don't know. If you Google that, you'll probably get something fun. We could probably post some links to the different ones with the podcast as well.
Recognition & Positive Reinforcement
00:26:13
Speaker
It seems like a lot of the farms I go to, the first meeting is very somber because they think that that food safety culture has to be very serious and very specific. And I think that incorporating more fun definitely makes it easier to kind of like look at the bigger problems and put people at ease. For sure. I've also heard of maybe some incentive programs that farms could do.
00:26:43
Speaker
You know, if they observe people that are doing a really outstanding job of following all of the food safety procedures and they're just, they're just rocking it, you know, having some sort of recognition system where there it's like some sort of award or, you know, you can nominate your coworker because you've seen them do something.
00:27:04
Speaker
and, uh, you know, have a drawing for a gas card or something at the end of the month. So there's a lot of fun ways that you could incentivize the kind of behavior that you want to see as well. Um, and so that could also be super fun. Plus people love getting, even if it's just, you know, a small amount of a gift card or you bring in donuts, you know, these things can go a long way, especially for kind of building that, um, that trust in those positive relationships as well as just a general culture of food safety. I agree.
00:27:34
Speaker
In a past life, I worked as a retail manager.
00:27:38
Speaker
And having positive incentives seemed to motivate our staff and get them engaged in what we did every day. It was small. I was always so shocked at the lengths our associates would go to for getting like a bag of dollar candy or like a $5 gift card to like the food court. And it just seemed to incentivize more than anything we put in place to like kind of get employees to avoid bad behavior.
00:28:08
Speaker
positive reinforcement went so far. I think people like to feel good. That's what it comes down to. Nobody wants to feel bad about what they do. They want to feel like they're making a difference and they're doing a good job at work. So I think that really kind of reinforces that.
00:28:28
Speaker
For sure. I was just always so shocked. It was like the smallest tokens went so far in helping us like reach our goals and work together. And you know, I would be really excited for a bag of gummy worms once a week from my boss that I think of it. Me too. Yeah. It's really the little things that make a big difference when it comes to just, you know, building positive relationships with your coworkers and
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah, injecting more fun into the day is just really, I think we could go a long way with that. I agree. And I think after 2020, we all need a little more fun. Absolutely.
Episode Conclusion
00:29:12
Speaker
Links or definitions to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at c-a-n-r dot m-s-u dot e-d-u slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening, and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.