Near miss reporting for food handlers: getting staff to speak up

At 06h10 a packer at a bakery’s flour sieve saw a tear in the mesh the size of a thumbnail and said nothing. Eleven days later a customer sent a photograph of a strand of wire in a loaf. That is a plant without near miss reporting by food handlers. The scene is a composite.

What is a near miss in a food plant?

A near miss is an event or condition that could have made food unsafe or out of specification, and was caught before the product reached a customer. A torn sieve found at the start of shift. The wrong label reel, spotted at line clearance. Nobody was harmed, and somebody nearly was.

The packer at the sieve had a near miss in her hands at 06h10. By 06h15 it could have been a held batch of flour and a new mesh. Because she kept quiet it became a complaint and eleven days of product to trace. A near miss is cheap information about where the next complaint will come from.

Why do food handlers stay silent, and what does the supervisor’s first ten seconds decide?

Food handlers stay silent for three reasons: fear of being blamed, a belief that reporting is someone else’s job, and the memory that nothing bad happened last time. The supervisor’s reaction in the first ten seconds after a report either confirms those beliefs or breaks them.

Fear

On many sites the person who reports a problem is the first one questioned about it. If the last operator who stopped the line got shouted at, the whole shift saw it, agency staff included.

“Not my job”

A packer who is told QA checks the sieves will assume QA has seen the tear. Nobody told her she is the only one who looks at that mesh forty times a shift.

Nothing happened last time

The detector rejected, someone put the pack through again, it passed, and no complaint came. People learn from that. The 2017 to 2018 South African listeriosis outbreak is a reminder that “nothing happened” can mean nothing has been found yet.

The first ten seconds

The supervisor’s half is a management skill. The operator’s half can be trained, a whole shift at a time: module 3 of the food safety culture course for food handlers, “My job every day, and speaking up”, covers the near miss. Where that fits in a wider programme is set out in food safety culture training for food handlers in South Africa.

Train your operators to speak up: Culture for Food Handlers, R450 each

What should a food handler do when they see something wrong?

A food handler who sees something wrong should stop, tell the supervisor straight away, show what they saw without fixing or moving it, write it down, and ask afterwards what was done. Five steps, short enough to read out at a toolbox talk.

An operator who pulls the torn mesh out and bins it has removed the only evidence of how much wire is missing.

A plant with zero near misses on file probably has a reporting problem, and the auditor knows it.

What goes on a simple near miss reporting form for food handlers?

A near miss form needs five fields: when and where, what I saw, what I did and who I told, what could have happened, and what was done about it. One page, no signature chain. If it takes longer than two minutes, operators will stop filling it in.

Filled in for a spice sieve at Mzansi Fresh Meals, the fictional Gauteng ready meal plant ASC uses as a training case.

Field four builds culture. An operator who writes the risk in her own words has just practised an answer to one of the questions auditors ask food handlers. Root cause belongs to QA afterwards, through your normal corrective action and root cause process.

What is the difference between an honest record and a backfilled one?

An honest record is written at the time of the check, by the person who did it, and shows bad readings along with what was done about them. A backfilled record is completed later from memory or imagination. One proven case puts every other record on the site in doubt.

The signs are well known.

• One pen and one handwriting down a full week.
• Chiller temperatures of exactly 3,0 °C at exactly 08h00, 10h00 and 12h00.
• Checks recorded for a line that maintenance logged as down.

Teach one rule. If you missed a check, write that you missed it, tell your supervisor, and carry on from the real time. A gap with a note is a finding you can explain and correct. Errors get a single line and an initial, never correction fluid.

Module 3 of the course deals with the honest record, and module 4 is “The records I use”.

How do you count near misses and show them as culture evidence?

Count near miss reports per month and per area, how many different people reported, how many were closed, and how many reporters got feedback. Put the trend in your culture plan review. FSSC 22000 Version 7 additional requirement 2.5.8 and BRCGS Food Issue 9 clause 1.1.2 both need evidence, and this is evidence.

Expect the count to rise for the first few months. BRCGS Food Issue 9 also expects a confidential reporting system for staff concerns, so keep a route open for the person who will not put a name on a form.

Then add evidence per person. Each learner who completes ASC’s culture training for food handlers gets a Certificate of Achievement the auditor can verify online, and a workplace observation form the supervisor signs. The trend shows the system, and the signed form shows the individual.

What does the Food Safety and Quality Culture for Food Handlers course cover, and what does it cost?

Food Safety and Quality Culture for Food Handlers, from ASC Food Safety Training, covers hazards and culture, audits and the questions staff are asked, speaking up with the near miss and the honest record, and the records a food handler uses. It takes about four hours on any phone and costs R450 per learner on the current special (normally R799).

Enrol in Food Safety and Quality Culture for Food Handlers, R450

Questions people ask before they enrol

How much time will each operator be off the line?

About four hours in total, and it does not have to be in one sitting. The course runs on any phone and a learner can stop and continue later. It has twenty short lessons, five short animated videos and twelve timed games and quizzes.

What is the price, and how do I buy for a whole shift?

R450 per learner on the current special, normally R799. For five or more learners, contact ASC on WhatsApp for the team rate. You receive one invoice for the team and a completion report per learner.

My packers have never had formal training. Will they cope?

Yes. No prior training is needed and the course is in plain English, with a printable workbook. It uses real South African factory, packhouse, kitchen and shop situations, so a packer or cleaner sees a workplace like their own.

What proof do I get for each person?

Each learner who passes every quiz and the proctored final assessment at 70 percent receives a Certificate of Achievement with a QR code and verification ID that anyone can check online. There is also a workplace observation form that the supervisor signs.

Can a site outside South Africa enrol?

Yes. Prices are in rand, and the course page shows an indicative equivalent in USD, EUR and GBP. Payment settles in rand. The examples are South African, but a torn sieve is a torn sieve in any country.

Back to 06h10

The packer at the sieve had worked out, from watching her supervisors, that silence was the safer choice. Change what she sees and train what she knows. Food Safety and Quality Culture for Food Handlers handles the second part for R450 a learner while the special runs (normally R799). Price eleven days of product to trace and one complaint investigation, and put that next to R4 500 for a shift of ten. Enrol one operator today to see the course. The supervisor course is on the food safety and quality culture training hub.

FSSC 22000 is owned by Foundation FSSC and the BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety by BRCGS. This course is an independent training product and is not approved or endorsed by either organisation or by any certification body.