Does sustainability go hand in hand with food safety and quality? 6 agreements

Food producers are increasingly faced with the issue of sustainability. How can companies best address this issue? And to what extent does sustainability go hand in hand with food safety and quality? In this article, six similarities in a row.

The topic of sustainability is high on the political and social agenda. This also makes it an important topic of discussion for many companies. Especially from the EU, in many cases as part of the Green Deal, we see more and more sustainability legislation that imposes obligations on companies. Without going into detail, we can think of deforestation legislation (EUDR), CSRD, CSDDD, Green Claims Directive, PPWR and the recently adopted Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). Practice shows that in fact all companies have to deal with the issue of sustainability. Directly, because they themselves fall under the scope of sustainability legislation. Or indirectly, because they are suppliers to a customer who falls under this scope and who, based on their supply chain responsibility, imposes sustainability requirements on their suppliers.

Agreements quality, food safety and sustainability

Sustainability is also gaining prominence in food safety certification standards. In the latest update of FSSC 22000, the theme of food waste was added. And ISO 22000 recently made it mandatory to pay attention to the theme of climate change in the context analysis.

Companies would therefore do well to act on this growing importance of sustainability. But how can this issue be addressed? In many ways, sustainability has the same approach as quality and food safety. It can therefore be very well integrated into the management system a company has already set up for it. We explain six similarities between quality, food safety and sustainability systems.

1. Context and stakeholder analysis

ISO (and thus also FSSC) 22000 requires a company to look around and determine what issues and developments are going on in the world around it. Sustainability also requires a look outside to see what issues are important. Sustainability refers to the impact (or risk thereof) of a company on its environment. That is, on environmental and/or social issues. For this we often use the term ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance. This requires a company to make a good analysis of the context in which its production processes take place. On this basis, a company can assess whether and, if so, which environmental and/or social issues are at stake. This is no different from what a company is already accustomed to doing for the quality and food safety of its products.

In addition, ISO 22000 expects companies to map stakeholders to understand their requirements and expectations. For sustainability, a company must do the same. It is worth remembering that in the case of sustainability, the group of stakeholders is often broader than in the case of ISO 22000. This is because, in particular, those stakeholders (or their representatives) who experience the impact of business activities must also be included.

2. Risk analysis quality and sustainability

Acting on sustainability issues, as with quality and food safety, is all about risk management. Whereas the HACCP methodology is applied in food safety, in sustainability the so-called materiality analysis and assessment is leading. This involves not only risks within one's own production process, but also risks or impacts in the chain, both upstream and downstream.

The assessment of these risks has more or less the same methodology for quality, food safety and sustainability. In all cases, the risk is determined by a combination of severity and probability. Estimating this is not easy and depends on many factors. Companies are expected to prioritize the highest risks based on a risk analysis and assessment.

3. Measures, monitoring & verification

A company must take appropriate (management) measures to prevent or mitigate the prioritized risks. These measures are monitored. For food safety, this is called "monitoring" and has the specific labels CCP and OPRP (or CP). While sustainability does not have such designations, it too requires proper monitoring to see if the agreed measures are being implemented. Over time, an evaluation takes place in both cases. This involves verifying whether the measures were implemented correctly and led to the desired result.

4. Relationship with suppliers

Some food safety risks do not take place in the company's own process, but in the chain, such as suppliers. Companies therefore impose requirements on suppliers to ensure the food safety and quality of raw materials. This is no different for sustainability risks that take place in the chain. In practice, however, in many cases this is still in its infancy. More and more companies do send questionnaires to their suppliers about sustainability issues. The supplier selection and assessment that has long been common practice in quality and food safety is expected to come into play in sustainability as well.

5. Continuous improvement through Plan, Do, Check, Act

Continuous improvement is central to all food safety and quality management standards. Using the PDCA cycle, companies work systematically towards an ever higher level. The due diligence model that applies to sustainability also has this improvement cycle, as shown in the picture below.

The six due diligence steps. Source: OECD-Due-Diligence-Guidance-for-Responsible-Business-Conduct.

6. Management involvement

The themes of quality, food safety and sustainability are not only relevant to the quality or sustainability manager, for example. These themes also interface with various other departments within a company. Vision, direction and choices from the management are therefore necessary. This will provide clarity about the direction the company wants to take, allowing all departments to work in line with it and in coordination with each other.

Conclusion quality and sustainability

Does sustainability go hand in hand with food safety and quality? The six agreements above show that it does. The existing management system clearly allows for integration of sustainability. This does not mean that the quality manager is therefore also automatically responsible for the implementation of sustainability. Developments and the increasing importance of sustainability increasingly demand a company's vision and strategy. With this, the theme of sustainability should be a recurring agenda item for management.