Risky Business

Everything we do carries an element of risk.  Driving to work can be catastrophic if you are not fully aware of your surroundings.  I was reading a food safety magazine and there were 3 articles back-to-back discussing risk.

The first defined “World-Class Food Safety in Foodservice”. Essentially when food safety evolves into an integral part of the corporate DNA, you have reached the platinum standard. The reputation of the company becomes the value driver and safety maintains that reputation. Fair enough.

The second article spoke to supply chain indemnity agreements. That seems to be the realm of companies who do not have their own culture fully developed, so they pass the responsibility on the others in the chain. It is all about who is at fault and saying “not me” even if it was you. This mentality is 100% corporate CYA rather than proactive and preventative.

The third article was titled “How Much Sanitation is Enough?” Here they took a look at the “standards” of clean and tried to determine what the risk is at the various levels. How different is 99.9% from 99.999% germ free. Bottom line is to establish the risk level and the sanitation level that meets it and the clean to that standard every time, every day.

So, we face risks continually but if properly identified and managed we can all but eliminate them. Like driving to work in a tank.