Digitization of Food Safety Data: Two Sides of the Same Coin

September 21, 2023

Jessica Jones, Digital Solutions Sales Director at Neogen discusses how she recommends using Neogen Analytics to be more proactive instead of reactive in food safety reporting.

 

Video Transcript

TITLE CARD: Neogen Analytics

[Music]

TITLE CARD: Digitization of food safety data: Two sides of the same coin

TITLE CARD: Jessica Jones, Digital Solutions Sales Director, Neogen

[A screen shows videos of Jessica Jones and Dan Dwyer speaking.]

Dan Dwyer: Jessica, what are the challenges that you hear from food safety professionals on the visibility to their food safety data within their organizations?

Jessica Jones: There's not a way for corporate folks to have one system that they can go in and see all of their aggregated data—all of their plants—in one place. Where are my problem areas? Where have they been the past month or the past quarter or even the past year? Did we have a leak? Was there construction? So, being able to go back in time, right, and say, "Okay, this area of the plant—this has given us issues! Let's try to fix it, remediate it. Let's be more proactive! Use the data! Don't just let it sit there for for no purpose." This is going to allow them to to report, to analyze, track, and trend all of their food safety data in one system. The insights reporting module is really where you're going to take that to the next level and actually use the data for your benefit—to be more proactive rather than reactive.

[The screen shows the Insights page from the Neogen Analytics platform with images of Jessica and Dan speaking of to the side. The Insights page has the "Environmental" tab selected showing a line graph with dates along the x-axis. The screen shows the cursor moving to the dropdown selector under Sample Date to select "Today Minus 12 Months".]

Jessica: I can see all of my plants' aggregated data in one view under the environmental over the past 12 months.

[The screen shows the cursor moving to the dropdown selector under Sample Date to select "Last Quarter".]

Jessica: Now, I can narrow this down and say, "Just give me last quarter."

[The screen shows an alert prompt titled "Sites". The cursor selects a checkbox for 2 of the 4 plants listed. "Apply" is clicked closing the window. The screen now shows a line graph with different data. The tab "FSQA" under the "Environmental" tab is selected. Other tabs at the "FSQA" level include "Drill Anywhere", "Pathogens", "Indicators", "Audit", "Corrective Actions", and "Test Points".]

Jessica: Let me just do a comparative analysis between two of my plants and then this is going to give you these two plants in the last quarter with all of their indicators and pathogens. Because you have this tab up here that you can drill down even even further, but FSQA is giving you pathogens and indicators. So, this here, this is one of my favorite reports.

[The screen scrolls down the screen to reveal a table of data.]

Jessica: I can see some problem areas in Zone 3 and Zone 1. So, I can click down into these and say, "Okay, out of my two floorplans, my problem areas are coming from my RTE Meat Zone 3. Okay, looks like the bathing line has given me some issues."

[The cursor selects the open report for one of the Zones having issues. A new screen with a line graph above a data table shows.]

Jessica: Each one of these reports opens up into its own report. So, I'm going to extract that here and then I can see over the past quarter this is the raw data at the bottom. You can kind of see here percent non-conformance over what sample week. We had a spike on 3/30 another spike 5/31.

[The cursor goes to the top of the page to select an icon to export the data. The other icons are selected to show the alert prompt for each that allows their functions to share, broadcast, and alert.]

Jessica: I can export this. I can share it within my facility. So, if I wanted to send it to the plant manager or the QA supervisor, whoever that might be. I can share. You can turn on a broadcast and include however many recipients you want. Let's say I just want to send this on the first day of each month. It's a Monday, right, for the previous month, so I want that data on the first Monday of every month for the previous month and I would get this report—or whoever else in my organization as an end user would get this report—automatically. As the real data is coming in you can also create alerts. If you, for example, wanted to say, "Okay, show me how many are a percent non-conformance? I do not want that greater than five percent. If a non-conformance reaches five percent, I want to be alerted about it." Any non-conformance at any of my plans and I can be alerted directly—to me or whomever it might be.

[Music]

TITLE CARD: Neogen Analytics

 

I was recently presented with this challenge and argument:

“Digitizing our food safety data could make it easier for forensic discovery if we are the subject of litigation.”

 

This is true.

My response was:

“Digitized data allows us faster visibility to issues and to become more preventative. Doesn’t this then allow us to prove that we are doing everything in our power to prevent food safety issues from happening in the first place?”
“This is the other side of the coin”, I said. Digitizing your food safety data will make it easier to find and remediate issues before they harm your operations, products, customers, and consumers.”

 

An example of the power of digitized food safety testing and sanitation data is illustrated by a project we worked on with a customer:

  • During an 18-month period, we digitized an EMP (Environmental Monitoring Program) testing program at a major dairy producer’s facility.
  • Initially, the testing volume increased drastically as more positives and failures were found.
  • Over time, the program yielded the desired results. The digital collection of data allowed the food safety team to determine the proper mix of test volume, types, methods, and frequency.
  • A new understanding of the relationship between testing and analysis concluded that the program could now consistently deliver many improvements.

The overall financial result?

  • While the company did see a significant jump in lab fees for the increased testing required for the early phases of the study, they realized an overall drop in remediation costs over time that halved their labor and materials costs for testing in just one year.
  • The positive hit rate reduction, combined with a leveling of the "swabs per month" volume, provided a more efficient means of budgeting and operating their EMP workflow, rather than the crisis-mode approach of the past.
  • They reduced risk and the associated costs of waste, rework, quarantined product, delayed production starts and downtime that were caused by frequent food safety issues.

To learn how your organization can see comparable results, schedule a demonstration of Neogen Analytics today.

 

Schedule a Demo


Category: Food Safety, Consumer Goods, Dietary Supplements, Food & Beverage, Pharmaceutical & Biotech, Microbiology, Pathogens, Environmental Monitoring