Reactive to Resilient: A Smarter Approach to Food Safety

Here at Fortrex, we have over 10,000 employees spanning multiple teams, divisions, and functions. At the heart of our operations is a dedicated group of food safety professionals with combined experience of over 80 years. These experts work directly with our customers to improve their operations and protect what matters most.

Lapses in sanitation can lead to foodborne illness outbreaks, product recalls, and serious harm to public health. By taking a deep dive into the eight steps of the sanitation, reviewing Master Sanitation records, inspecting facilities, evaluating equipment design, and noting GMP opportunities, we help optimize food safety programs. This includes strengthening sanitation controls and protocols, identifying potential biological, chemical, and physical hazards, and providing corrective measures.

After each assessment, a customized action plan is developed to address identified opportunities and serve as a launch pad for positive, lasting change within a facility.

Improving Processes & Boosting Efficiency

 Areas of focus for food safety improvement:

• Microbial Mitigation involves investigations at facilities to prevent environmental and product pathogen concerns that could result in product recalls or foodborne illnesses. These assessments are commonly conducted at Ready-to-Eat (RTE) facilities with environmental monitoring programs that target listeria.
• Performance-Based assessments involve observing the sanitation process, chemistry, and overall condition of a facility to improve sanitation program performance. This includes refining sanitation steps, improving pre-op processes, passing ATP swabs, increasing shelf life, and preventing spoilage bacteria in products. These are typically requested when a facility is looking to improve basic cleanliness.
• Proactive Audits are perhaps the most valuable of the three. Our teams work with customers ahead of time to prevent the need for either of the above assessments altogether.

Improving Cleaning Protocols

Sanitation is often one of the first areas to feel the pressure of tight production schedules. Reduced cleaning windows require more team members and resources to complete the same work, and cutting corners creates risk.

Our experts help boost productivity by providing actionable suggestions that can lead to step changes in a facility’s sanitation and infrastructure. These recommendations can help eliminate biofilms and bacteria, improve efficiency, and minimize downtime for repairs. When plants clean properly, they meet regulatory requirements and maintain high-quality products.

Closing Gaps and Staying Ahead

When issues go undetected or unaddressed the consequences can be severe. Foodborne illness outbreaks, lower product quality, recalls, and government audits are all very real possibilities and the biggest risk of managing food safety without the right support is ultimately the risk to public health. The most common places facilities try to cut corners are sanitation time, resources, and necessary hygienic restoration projects. But cutting corners is never worth the cost.

Fortrex’s food safety experts are here to help your team move from reactive to resilient. Whether you are looking to close gaps, strengthen your sanitation program, or get ahead of your next audit, we bring the experience and insight to help you protect your products, your people, and your reputation. Do not wait for an issue to surface. Let us help you build a food safety program that is ready for whatever comes next.

Click here if you’re ready to talk to us about optimizing your food safety process.