Managing food safety inside food processing plants is a complicated, ever-changing job. As a Plant manager or FSQA manager, we understand the significant amount of pressure to make sure every decision and action related to food safety is validated with scientific research.
Keeping up with regulatory and audit requirements, new microbial strains, new products and technologies, and environmental changes is not an easy task. However, the planning, testing, training, and on-going education that happens behind the scenes is ultimately what dictates the success of your program. It’s critical to have a team of specially trained experts across various categories who not only stay up to date on all the latest research, but also have the specific insight to understand how it affects your specific plant and what you should be doing about it.
“An effective sanitation program is the foundation of food safety,” said Scott King, Vice President of Food Safety for PSSI. “The research and attention to detail in the beginning can have a significant impact on future outcomes.”
PSSI’s Technical Services Team validates every step of our food safety process and execution for our partners. Our team has more than 800 combined years of food safety experience, including a corporate microbiologist, field micro experts, HACCP practitioners and trainers, former FSQA managers, and more. We are PCQI, Food Defense, and GFSI Certified and participate across a wide range of national and regional industry organizations.
Leveraging our specialized education and experience, PSSI partners benefit from a variety of unique value-added services that ensure optimal food safety performance.
Field Audit & Support Team (FAST)
PSSI has a dedicated team of food safety experts spread across the U.S. and Canada to support our partners on a localized level. The FAST representatives have in-depth education and training to monitor and manage a variety of technical details to food safety management.
- Proactive or for cause food safety assessments & prioritized action plans
- Benchmarking current sanitation practices
- Swab-a-thons and other environmental pathogen investigations
- Sanitation verification & validation support
- Statistical and other analytical assessment of KPI’s
Team Meeting & Training Support
Education and training are a central, on-going part of food safety success. PSSI has a team dedicated to organizing critical information and training our teams and our customer’s teams across key topics that impact the safety and success of our work.
- Sanitary Design
- Performance-based sanitation approach
- 8-steps of Sanitation
- Pre-operational Inspection
- Master Sanitation Schedules
- Microbial Control Equation
- CIP / ACS
- Fundamentals of Wet & Dry Sanitation
- Verification & Validation of Sanitation
- RCA & CAPA
Risk Assessment & Management
There are many different factors that can impact food safety in a plant. When making any changes or adjustments to the function of a plant, it is critical to have a food safety expert as part of the proactive planning team. PSSI’s Risk Assessment & Management team provides strategic consultative services to assist our partners with proper sanitary design related to:
- Construction and major maintenance
- Out of standard conditions (roof leaks, drain back-ups, floods, fires, etc.)
- New plant or line start-up
- Sanitary design for new equipment or infrastructure
Research & Development
Our team at PSSI is constantly focused on continuous improvement and committed to staying at the forefront of the latest research and innovation. We partner with leading industry organizations, companies, and universities on strategic research & development projects to help solve complex food safety issues. Most recently, we’ve partnered with the University of Wisconsin Food Research Institute and the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University to test the effects of different chemistry on Biofilm elimination. We also tested our own 8-step sanitation process to validate it for pathogen elimination.
“Education is a foundational element to food safety,” said Lindsey Perry, Director of Technical Services for PSSI’s Safe Foods Chemical Innovations. “We go above and beyond to make sure we are making decisions and recommendations for our partners that are supported by validated research to provide the highest level of confidence in our work.”