HeavyConnect Blog

Carole Patterson is the Director of Compliance for Red Blossom, a strawberry grower with nationwide distribution and growing operations in the US and Mexico. Over the past 5 years, Carole has defined and executed Red Blossom’s food safety plan to support the company’s compliance initiatives. Carole joined us to discuss one of the most top-of-mind terms in the compliance world: Food Safety Culture. Our interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Although prevention is the gold standard in food safety practices, most pathogens aren’t entirely preventable and outbreaks are still inevitable. When a foodborne pathogen sickens consumers, a fast response can literally save lives. During E. Coli outbreaks in romaine lettuce between 2018 and 2021, there wasn’t sufficient accessible electronic data to allow a quick discovery of the source. Although the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) required some traceability recordkeeping, the rules weren’t stringent and allowed for paper and other manual methods of sharing records. 

After a new wave of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) outbreaks in romaine lettuce that started in 2018, leafy greens have been synonymous with risk even for those outside the food supply chain. Since the outbreaks, the industry has started taking additional steps to reduce the hazard and make leafy greens safer for consumers.

Salinas, CA – September 2, 2021 - HeavyConnect announced today that its Food Safety and Compliance platform is now available on SAP^® Store, the online marketplace for SAP and partner offerings.

Episode: "Enabling Time Savings And Compliance In The Food Supply Chain"

This week Patrick Zelaya, HeavyConnect Founder & CEO, joined the Digital Supply Chain podcast with host Tom Raftery, Global VP at SAP. Listen to the episode where they discuss the time savings companies achieve by going digital with their Food Safety programs.

Your HACCP plan is a proactive approach to food safety management that aims to stop problems before they occur. You’ve already put in the time to thoroughly evaluate your facility’s processes, identify every potential risk, and get your organization on board with the necessary precautions. But did you know that a paper-based HACCP plan might still be costing you time and money?

When you think of the weeks leading up to a food safety audit, what comes to mind? Late nights, frantic searches for missing reports, other work falling to the wayside, and stress that affects the whole team? Food Safety Managers are responsible for reports, documents, and binders being current, accessible, and correct during an audit. If your job relates to food safety, you probably know these concerns well.

Compliance touches so many parts of every agricultural operation that it might feel like all you can do to stay on top of food safety, labor regulations, buyer requirements, and every other standard you need to prioritize. On the day-to-day level there are inspections to complete, corrective actions to take, employees to train, and documents to update. Over the long term there are audits that hold your operation accountable for all this work.

Keeping track of your employees’ time requires accurate tracking, coordination between crew leaders and the office, tallying up the time sheets, inputting data, uploading to payroll software, and adjusting for any mistakes. It’s easy for something small to go wrong, like a paper timecard getting lost between the field and the office, an employee clocking in late, or a crew leader forgetting to document a required break. 

Last week AgSafe held their annual Innovate Regulatory Compliance Conference with webinars hosted by officials throughout the industry. Douglas Parker, Chief of Cal/OSHA Division of Occupational Safety and Health, spoke about trends in worker safety from 2020. We attended with employers’ needs in mind. These are some of our main takeaways from the session: