Challenge

One of the largest food distribution warehouses in the Southeastern U.S. was struggling to keep up with sanitation staffing, execution, and overall upkeep on their facility. Its third-party janitorial team was inconsistent and unreliable. It put a significant amount of pressure and stress on the company’s internal Food Safety Manager who was wearing multiple hats and trying to keep up with the demands. As a result, their audit performance scores were not good, and it was resulting in loss of business.

In the months leading up to an audit, it was a stressful, all hands-on deck situation with staff having to work overtime to get the facility in decent condition. This impacted moral and had a significant impact on bottom line revenue having to pay overtime costs.

The facility knew they needed to hire expert help.

Solution

PSSI was identified as an industry leader in helping food processing and warehouse facilities manage food safety and audit performance based on word of mouth. Previously accustomed to working with third-party “janitorial” services, the partner was attracted to the higher level of food safety expertise PSSI offered and overall management structure.

From day one, PSSI had a team, management structure, and sanitation plan in place to begin improving the condition and audit-readiness of the facility.

The previous third-party janitorial company had only provided 2 shifts of coverage during the week, which left an eight-hour gap of coverage. PSSI’s comprehensive program provided 3 shifts, 24-hour coverage Monday through Friday, which eliminated any coverage gaps. This also included a mandated policy ensuring a manager was onsite for each covered shift.

PSSI also added an additional 8-hour shift on the weekends to execute special projects like pressure washing designated areas of the warehouse and conducting deep cleaning.

Every single sanitation activity was documented to ensure thorough coverage and reporting. As an example, this particular partner dictated that every low-level slot be cleaned on a quarterly frequency, which was the equivalent of thousands of slots. The PSSI Tech Services team created detailed slot pull maps of each facility so the team could track the specific cleaning of each shift and day.

This level of detailed documentation not only provided a higher level of clarity and validation with the warehouse management team but was also extremely valuable as part of getting the facility audit-ready. As part of its management oversight, PSSI also provided full and thorough support for the duration of every audit, including the Site Manager, Area Manager, Division Manager, Tech Service Manager and Corporate Account Manager/Regional Sales Manager.

Result

Within 90 days of starting the partnership with PSSI, the warehouse had an unannounced BRC audit that they received a perfect score on for sanitation.

The relationship has remained strong over the last three years, continuing to receive perfect audit scores on both announced and unannounced BRC audits for sanitation. And most importantly, it allowed the warehouse to focus on other areas of opportunity to ultimately earn the first ever perfect BRC audit score across the entire colossal facility. This was an incredible honor for the company at a national level and a key driver for winning new business.