Uniting the Worldwide Food Safety Community

By: Amanda Bond-Thorley, Senior Director, Education, FMI

The Safe Quality Food Institute (SQFI), a division of FMI – The Food Industry Association, today launched SQF Global, a unique virtual, interactive event spanning two hemispheres and uniting the worldwide food safety community. 

SQF Global is hosting a dynamic community of food producers, retailers, leaders, and service innovators from more than 15 countries and across a wide range of food safety operations and job functions, including compliance, quality, training, regulatory, audit, and technical areas. The program offers a forum that fosters continued enhancement of the safety and security of the global food supply chain. Specific topics include the impact of technology and innovation on global food safety; an update on FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety strategic blueprint, feeding the world safely, transparently, and sustainably; food safety culture; and increasing audit performance. The event features Collaboration Rooms where peers in the food industry can connect in roundtable discussions around the world. 

SQF also recently released its Edition 9.0 Code, designed to meet the latest GFSI-benchmarking requirements to address retailer and buyer needs. All the improvements and enhancements are built to deliver a better audit experience, creating enhanced value and confidence in the SQF certificate. The new codes are available at sqfi.com.

Leslie Sarasin, president and CEO of FMI , opened the event by saying: “The food industry plays a critical role in influencing food safety protocols, and expectations between food manufacturers and consumers.” 

Sarasin added, “The need to mitigate risk and maintain consumer trust is essential. Food retailers and their product suppliers must take every measure to protect their customers and their brands, including choosing the food safety certification required of their suppliers .” 

In her opening remarks, Sarasin shared that the U.S. FMI Grocery Shopper Trends 2020 research report shows consumers consistently trust their grocery store when it comes to food safety. This year, 91% of shoppers said they trust their grocery store to ensure the food they purchase is safe. Whether it's providing information about a product or food safety guidance, or preparation tips, retailers continue to be a reliable resource to their shoppers. Shoppers also want access to a broader selection of food, which brings numerous challenges, including ensuring that any new suppliers have a robust food safety program. 

Food safety remains a top priority for the food industry and our members are committed to the disciplined rigors of food safety in all areas of their operations, remaining vigilant that all products, new or old, meet food safety specifications. In the face of a rapidly changing world, GFSI benchmark certification programs like SQF can address the challenges throughout the supply chain. It's paramount that we engage with our trading partners to ensure all suppliers have robust food safety management systems in place. The SQF community provides critical global food production to hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and production focused workers at more than 10,000 sites in 40 countries and six continents. 

SQF Global launched today and will conclude on October 30, 2020. The program is offered in multiple languages and time zones to provide collaborative exchange for enhancing food safety and security across the globe.

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