Developing a food safety culture of practice: Addressing the challenges of shared-kitchens and small-scale manufacturing operations

CWK aims to develop and implement a multi-faceted food safety training program as the foundation for building a robust food safety culture that permeates throughout CWK's operations, including its leadership, manufacturing and facilities staff, and member businesses and their employees. To address this goal, five main aims have been identified.Aim 1: Determine the Food Safety Needs of CWK's Small-Batch Manufacturing Operation and Shared Kitchens. To achieve this aim, CWK will develop and administer a baseline assessment to establish the current state of understanding and consistency of adherence to basic Serv-Safe and good food manufacturing practices and applicable FSMA and other relevant regulations, as well as risk-based preventive controls such as cGMPs, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP). This assessment will be both for CWK's own manufacturing operations and for the operations of the wholesale and retail companies sharing CWK's incubator kitchens. This baseline assessment will include topics like proper hand washing and clothing, cleaning and sanitizing procedures, time and temperature logs, labeling and storage systems, and other record keeping and documentation. By assessing the level of proficiency among food handlers prior to developing the curriculum, the training content can be customized to focus on any content areas of high need. Aim 2: Creating A Customized Training Program with Modules Focused on CWK's Manufacturing Operations, and a Subset for Shared Kitchen Member Companies. CWK will adapt FSPCA Preventive Controls for Human Food and ServSafe Food Handler and Allergen Awareness training materials to achieve this aim. CWK will make the materials specific to its manufacturing and food business operations in a way that is accessible to the diversity of cultures, languages, and educational backgrounds of the members of its community. A series of training modules will be created to encompass each stage of the food handling process including purchasing, receiving, storage, preparation, and servicing or packaging stages. These training modules will be delivered through various methods including: conversational, visual, and kinesthetic learning. Conversational portions of the training will involve the use of a "Food Map" to reflect the operations pertinent to CWK organizations and members. Visual portions of the training will be developed specific to CWK operations. Kinesthetic portions of the training will involve hands-on demonstration of concepts introduced through the conversational and visual methods to reinforce clear understanding and application. The intent is to develop a comprehensive training for CWK manufacturing staff that can adjusted and broken down into workshops and adapted for different types of processes represented by the range of CWK member companies, including food trucks, caterers, bakers, meal kit companies, and packaged goods companies.All content will be developed by CWK staff with review/support from expert consultants to ensure regulatory compliance. Once developed, member business owners will be asked to provide feedback so that the final product can address specific needs of their individual operations. Each member company will be required to send at least one PIC to participate in the training annually to ensure that all members are adhering to the same standards, and building strong knowledge and practices across their staff. By addressing the challenges of shared kitchen spaces, the final training program will be useful and readily adaptable for other shared kitchens.Aim 3: Deliver Training to CWK Employees and Member Businesses, To achieve this aim, CWK will roll out training modules in separate stages, focusing initially on its own staff, and then expanding to include member businesses. A multi-stage approach will allow CWK to ensure that the curriculum is clear, understandable, and easily implemented. The staged approach also allows for rapid feedback to ensure that the content and delivery method is accessible. By rolling out the training program within its manufacturing operations first, it will be possible to leverage input from a highly-experienced workforce with low turnover before engaging member businesses of CWK's shared-space kitchen. The first stage will make use of the "Food Map" created through Aim 2 to carry out conversation-based training that focuses on the relevance of food safety practices at every step of the manufacturing process. The second stage will involve interactive modules along with hands-on demonstration of the skills gained through the training. Results from this stage will be documented and used to improve the training program before engaging member business in the shared-used kitchen facilities. Aim 4: Assess Impact of Training on CWK Employees and Member Businesses. Once the training content has been developed, a set of pre- and post- training assessments will be created to gauge if improvement was made towards a higher degree of application of food safety practices and behaviors, based on the content addressed through the training program. The first of these assessments will focus on specific content areas such as demonstration of correct hand washing procedures, food temperature measurement, labeling of stored food items, and record keeping and documentation. A second assessment will be developed to gauge the state of food safety culture before and after the training program is implemented. This cultural assessment tool will identify food safety maturity through five progressive stages of food safety culture: doubtful, reactive, aware, proactive, and internalized. The data obtained will be used to determine the course of continuous improvement strategies that can lead towards a robust food safety culture at all levels of the facility. Aim 5: Refine Training for Distribution to Other Shared Kitchen and Small-Batch Manufacturing Facilities. Once the curriculum is developed and presented, CWK will conduct evaluations to gain feedback and make adjustments as needed. This adjusted curriculum will then be formalized into a simple handbook that can be made available to other organizations operating similar facilities to adapt to their specific operations. The final documents will be included in the final report to NIFA, to allow for additional distribution through their network.