Food safety culture and marketing go together
I’ve been writing and talking for a couple of years about the importance of food safety culture from farm-to-fork, and that companies should become more aggressive about marketing their food safety efforts.
Turns out, the two ideas can feed each other, in a synergistic manner (Chapman made the pic).
Those companies that promote food safety culture can market their activities, and then consumers have a way to choose at the check-out aisle, providing feedback to those companies that make food safety a public priority.
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Some thoughts on this ...
Can you (or anyone) get a grant or some such to start a demonstration farm/processor/retailer that is food-safety aware/active?
How much would it cost to do so?
Maybe you (or someone) could work with a local farm/processor/retailer to develop a food-safety culture.
Just trying to come up with ways to convert the concept into reality. Corporations in general are resistant to change, even when the change would be beneficial. Similarly, the US government is reluctant to impose change on corporations. I'm afraid the average consumer is incapable of truly understanding the issue (otherwise we wouldn't need signs in bathrooms telling people to wash their hands).
I figure an "outside force" is needed here.
I think it's still taboo to compete on food safety. It's sort of like airlines competing on safety records. You don't see them bragging that they haven't killed a plane load of people after their competitor does.
Even the peanut butter companies treated the issue with kid gloves after their sales slumped from the King Nut disaster. But it was encouraging to see them address the safety of their product, even just a little.
I have seen on the backs of some organic products, healthy products- that they choose to go into detail how many times they have inspected the product to ensure safety for the consumer. I truly think this does create a sense of trust, which enhances (obviously) loyalty with the consumer base (or at least those who care).
At our company we check at least 20x a DAY with our products and were considering seriously using this to our advantage. Especially with the conditions in the marketplace right now- i think that consumers are looking for SAFETY, etc.
what do you think?