The Role of Inspections and Audits in Ensuring Food Safety

There is no question that the food industry is one of the industries where safety is of utmost importance. In the United States, many health issues can be traced back to food sources before food safety regulations were implemented. In modern times, the food supply chain is governed by a variety of government regulatory agencies that require adherence to detailed and rigorous rules and regulations. These guidelines are essential to maintain society’s health. 

It is vital for the public’s health that food businesses are audited on a regular basis to guarantee food safety. In this article, you will learn about the different audits performed for ensuring food safety: 

GMP Audits 

For safe production and handling of food products, ingredients, and packaging, good manufacturing practices (GMP) are crucial. 

FSSAI Audits 

To start in the food industry, every organization must have a license from the FSSAI. Typically, this applies to small, home-based food businesses. 

HACCP Audits 

Food producers should follow the HACCP guidelines, managing the issues that could compromise food safety. 

FSMA Audits 

In addition to establishing food safety plans and hazard analyses, FSMA audits provide guidelines for other food safety protocols. 

FSSC 22000 Audits 

The FSSC 22000 is required for businesses involved in food packaging. 

Significance of Food Safety Audits & Inspections 

Audits and inspections of your food safety facilities are crucial to the success of your business, as they demonstrate that you are complying with applicable regulatory standards. By law, food supply chain audits and inspections are required for all companies. However, they are also beneficial for many other reasons. For example, they help organizations to 

• Enhance their management system and reassess priorities. 
• Ensure that your quality and safety inspection teams are following best practices. 
• Build a culture of quality and continuous improvements. 
• Manage compliance and operational risks efficiently. 
• Take a proactive approach towards quality issues. 
• Improve planning and decision-making processes. 
• Improve business outcomes and brand reputation. 
• Assess any occurrences and identify any issues that need to be resolved for better efficiency. 
• Comply with applicable regulations and laws. 
• Assess supplier performance and customer feedback/requirements for implementing necessary changes. 

Is Using Inspection and Audit Management Software A Smart Way to Manage Food Safety? 

Certainly! 

Using a next-generation software can help manage food safety more effectively than ever. 

You can significantly reduce compliance risks, make your audit and inspection processes efficient, save money, meet compliance, gain supplier performance insights, manage customer responses, and much more using an integrated quality management solution.  

The emphasis on food safety audits and inspections is more critical than ever since a significant portion of our food comes from restaurants and packaged foods. 

Using a Food Safety Audit and Inspection Management Software, the details of inspected foods can be documented thoroughly and accurately. You can easily configure intuitive software for audits and inspections based on the type of assessment process, frequency, and workflow. You can quickly enter the information about your audit, generate an accurate report, and send the corrective actions and follow-ups. 

The software-based safety audits and inspections help you comply with necessary food quality standards such as HACCP, GMP, and FSMA. Thus, you’ll become more aware of food-related risks, thereby improving product quality, and reducing costs associated with manual labor. 

Inspections and audits are equally important for ensuring food quality and safety. But these processes include a lot of paperwork, which is time-consuming and tedious. Moreover, the paper-based systems are prone to errors, wear and tear, and other physical damage. 

Related Article: A Brief Guide on Food and Beverages Quality Management

This is where Qualityze EQMS Suite for Food and Beverages plays a critical role. Qualityze eQMS is a compliance-friendly, cloud-based SaaS application designed to simplify food safety inspectors and audits. The software comprises configurable workflows and an intuitive interface so you can easily streamline your processes efficiently.  

By using Qualityze, you can avoid dealing with multiple documents and inconsistent inputs. You can take a simple form into the field to collect audit or inspection details. The software enables you to build your checklist precisely the way you want it with the form builder. It provides a variety of ways through which you can collect the right data from your inspection or audit. You can set checklist questions, set answers, set rules, and set reminders. 

Qualityze: A Smart Solution to Streamline Food Safety Audits & Inspections 

An effective quality management process with transparency and control is essential when considering food quality and safety for consumers and producers. You can build such a process using the Qualityze EQMS suite. Our inspection, audit, and supplier quality management software comes with a pre-defined checklist. You can configure them according to applicable assessment parameters while streamlining all your process workflows. Our smarter quality solutions allow you to:

Collect, Analyze & Organize Data 

Take advantage of automatic data collection in the desired format consistently and accurately. Further, you can use validation controls for every process review and approval to keep track of all the activities. 

Streamlined Workflows 

Streamline the audit and inspection processes, schedule the tasks ahead of time, and eliminate the lengthy manual processes. 

Related Topic - Quality Management: 9 Important Functions of Inspection That Matter

The Detailed Dashboard 

With the centralized dashboard, you can find all the information you need. You can view your data in chart/graph form or download it in spreadsheet form. 

Keeping Track of Real-Time Progress 

Capture real-time data and feed it to the automated workflow. You can instantly generate reports that show compliance issues in real-time, and you will be alerted to problematic areas. 

Generate Reports In a Fraction of Seconds 

Getting a clear picture of the results is as simple as generating an actionable report. Our smart analysis allows you to gain deeper insights. 

Related Topic - A Quick Guide to Understand AQL for Inspections

Connect anywhere, anytime 

With Qualityze cloud-powered platform, you can perform safety audits and inspections anywhere and at any time. It provides the required flexibility, security, and reliability to manage data and processes globally. 

For more information on Qualityze smarter quality solutions and request a free demo, please get in touch with our customer success team today at 1-877-207-8616 or write to us at info@qualityze.com, and we will be right there for you.