products is a critical first step to designing sustainable risk-based systems in the future. Culture is discussed frequently both in business and the food safety community, but rarely do we intentionally collaborate to design systems to cultivate it. This is especially true when building culture requires connecting a diverse community representing different stakeholders and geographies. Any culture-building effort, including one for food safety, takes strategic design and constant support. These efforts will often take more time and be more difficult than the food safety measures themselves. But, as with all great innovations and efforts, the first step is to truly identify the challenge at hand and to socialize the immediate need across all stakeholders. The unlock for the food industry on real risk-based management starts with these two related and distinct questions: 1. What actions can we take to curate the culture of our broad food safety community to understand the need and adapt behavior to authorize risk identification and management throughout the supply chain? 2. What monitoring systems can we build to effectively evaluate risks within the industry so preventive and proactive actions are taken to remove pathogens from the food system, ultimately reducing risk to consumers?
With a collective commitment across all stakeholders to truly transition to risk-based management, we offer the opportunity to flip strategies, collaborations and mitigations. We can begin to design the monitoring systems we need to optimize both food safety and business outcomes within and across food segments. A sustainable system of food production is within our grasp, but we must recognize it will not come to us without our collective efforts to build a bridge between two disparate food safety systems – one of hazard management to one of risk management. The bridge between where we are at, and where we need to go, relies on the collaborative belief that we can change the food safety paradigm. A truly sustainable food safety system is attainable, but we need to choose to constantly cultivate it.
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25 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2025
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