I struggle to clear this for myself.:confused: I heard somebody making this statement: "Quality is negotiable, food safety not."

I would be glad to have your comments on this statement.

I struggle to clear this for myself.:confused: I heard somebody making this statement: "Quality is negotiable, food safety not."

I would be glad to have your comments on this statement.
Quick comment. Food can taste horrible (Quality), but it can't poison people to kill them or make them sick.

Easy to figure safety factors:

ingredients
cleanliness of equipment/handling to prevent contamination
consistent packaging and storage to prevent spoilage

I struggle to clear this for myself.:confused: I heard somebody making this statement: "Quality is negotiable, food safety not."

I would be glad to have your comments on this statement.Well... It is not illegal to throw quality overboard. Thus, a business does not have to go for quality. Then again, it does not have to stay in business either...

When it comes to Food Safety, however: Lot's of legal requirements, right?

/Claes

I struggle to clear this for myself.:confused: I heard somebody making this statement: "Quality is negotiable, food safety not."

I would be glad to have your comments on this statement.

It depends on how "quality" is defined in a given context. If "quality" includes safety and regulatory concerns, then of course the sentence is nonsense. On the other hand, if "quality" is defined as attributes other than those related to safety and regulatory concerns, then it's probably accurate. For example, "quality" in this context might refer to packaging or color (as a cosmetic attribute), and those things are indeed usually negotiable, while whether the product might kill someone who ingests it is not.

Indeed. If our company has a Quality Management System, the Food safety aspect has to form part of it. It is not suppose to be considered as a separate system / programme.

Lets consider what food safety might include? It is not only HACCP - of which I think CCP's are negotiable.
Foreign objects can range from hair, insects, chemicals etc. - you are welcome to negotiate with me whether hair in a product will kill someone.
It includes Allergens - yes, might kill someone.


I think food safety can be negotiable.:cfingers:
What it seems is that some confusion exists that a food safety programme is separate from quality and is the ultimate programme to have.

I would agree with the above statement 'Quality is negotiable, food safety not'

The Quality of the food is less important to the customer than safety.

What is the point of having Quality food that is unsafe for consumption?

I think the above statement is referring to the Quality of food as in 'class' rather than Quality Control leading to the safe production of food.

I agree with Jim Wynne, it is the context of the statement.

milesnmiles,

(..and of course all frineds here...),

i am a food technologist and i work as a QAM in a food chain service sector.

I have to make some clarifications at first.

- i assume you talk for a bussines in the food industry.
- the food is like a gun. In the hands of an irellevant it is a potential danger.
- there are some foods in which you cannot "play" with their shelf life. For example milk, chicken, meat, eggs...
- on the other hand there some other foods that you can "negotiate" their shelf life with a minimum risk like salt, dry pasta , herbs etc.
- from the beggining i have to clarify that i am not negotiating food safety.
- All are a matter of pure luck. For example : a) you graduated, you are a food technologist and in your first job your supervisor tells you to pass with the "OK" mark a batch of a product (e.g. baby food) knowing that the batch has not been checked for listeria and salmonella. What do you do? Do you valiantly say no and suffer the results of being fired or humbly accept your fate and pass the batch ? b) you graduated , you are a food technologist and in your first job your supervisor , knowing nothing from food safety , has put all his hopes to you! What do you do ? Do you shamellesly take advantage of his lack of specific knowledge or you honor your shelf helping the company provide safe food to people?

Dear friends i cannot play with food safety first of all because i am a food technologist. On the other hand my "second nature" as a Quality Assurance Manager tells me that apart from SAFE food the customer worths also a GOOD food and a NICE service.

In order to have safe food and the same time quality , IMO the following things have to exist :

- First of all , the GM of the company should be quality oriented.
- the GM also has to be sensible with food safety
- the company should have enough recources to support SAFETY and QUALITY together (this last one contains all that has to do with , hiring the right people for the right positions, appropriate tools, certified suppliers...and so on).
- QA department and / or food safety department
- Educated personel (both on food safet and quality)

You see? The above are good but have a common knowledge drawback : they COST.

So what do we do now ? If we have not all the above we start making some :negotiations" for example :
- we do not have a food safety specialist in our bussines so we check out the food law by reading and knowing some main topics and trying to make them practice but only some of them. Simultaneously we built an expensive and very very attractive dine in restaurant in order to enhance that experience of the customer during his visit, or
- we cannot afford to pay too much money for cheese from the best supplier, instead we buy cheaper cheese (infact much much cheaper) from a supplier who is not HACCP / BRC certified. In order to overcome this we give trhe customer a coce for free hoping we did something more for his expectations, or
- we buy the best pasta from a certified with HACCP supplier but lacking food safety education we leave the pasta in the fridge for 7 days after the defrosting and simultaneously yelling to all we give the best quality in our customer...

The scenarios are many. Unfortunatelly there are many factors affecting the outcome.

Please excuse me for writting too many things i just express my opinion and indeed it is a nice topic. I will close with the following :

Lets' see some numbers :
more or less each year in U.S. are reported 5.000 deaths from food poisoning. As a percentage in comparison to the population of U.S. maybe is considered small. But what if one of these 5.000 where your child, or wife, or husband or your neighbour? All i want to say is that i cannot negotiate food safety. Neither should.


See you!:bigwave:

I would agree with the following statement

'Quality is negotiable :bonk: , safety (All fields) not :caution: '

Why?

Because Quality is voluntary aspect and Safety in mandatory and under regulations & Laws with legal responsability.

But due to Security is under national laws, therefore some Companies could have difference levels of security depend on the market the product it goes.

i.e Secutity in Europe is not the same that the security in India or China.

I do not want to say more or less just difference.

Thererefore could be negotiable if you play putting your product into difference Countries and having levels of requirements.

Higher Requirements to Low requirements.

:mad:

Sorry, I do not want to be redundant but yhis idea is in conection with the before one.

Do you notice how many BMW and Mercedes are in Africa?

There are many importers that put cars with suffered critical accidents and then fixed cars and sell them into these countries probably due to these cars will not meet the Security in next checks in Germany (for example) but it does there. and they have these markets as low security.

When I was in Germany I went into a car damaged shop for selling outside Germany. It was incredible many Audis TT with a back damage in Highways.