Quality teams throughout the food manufacturing industry face increasingly difficult obstacles and risks while keeping our food safe. A team can discover a positive Listeria result on a slicer component inside a ready-to-eat production zone after earlier environmental monitoring signals in the area were unconnected.

Diagnostic testing data exist within the facility and in record books, but the relationships between those signals aren’t visible across separate record-keeping systems. By the time the broader risk is recognized, the facility has placed product on hold, expanded its investigation, and is facing regulatory scrutiny over whether earlier indicators could have prompted action. The issue isn’t a lack of food safety controls or data. The issue is that critical information has been disconnected when it matters most.

 …