Complex Systems: Food (Safety) Industry

Rounaq Nayak (ACIEH) Doctoral Student

Loughborough University

About me • Bachelors: Vellore Institute of Technology (India) – B.Tech.

Biotechnology (2013)

• Masters: University of Birmingham – MSc Food Safety, Hygiene and Management (2014)

• Sub-warden at David Collett Hall

• About to begin the final year of PhD. Started in 2015.

• Publications: Nayak, R. and Waterson, P.E. (in press), The assessment of food safety culture: An investigation of current challenges, barriers and future opportunities within the food industry. Food Control DOI: 10.1016/j.foodcont.2016.10.061 Nayak, R. and Waterson, P.E. (2016), ‘When Food Kills’: A sociotechnical systems analysis of the UK Pennington 1996 and 2005 E.Coli O157 outbreak reports. Safety Science, 86, 36-47.

UK food industry facts • Major contributor to the UK economy • Britain’s largest private sector employer • The UK’s largest manufacturing sector • Leader in support of SMEs • Increases every year • A key partner for the farming industry in Britain • Produces food to feed over 27 million households

(~64 million people) • Employs many hundreds of thousands of people • Was the easiest trade to learn in the olden days

Adapted from http://www.igd.com/About-

us/Media/Key-industry-facts/

Dark side of the food industry • Use of irregular casual workers • Working under unfair conditions • Loopholes in the food regulations • Falsified labels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaCKn-m1-Mk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMc2OFQgAX0

• High consumer demand leading to pressure on food manufacturers

• Food fraud (e.g., horse meat scandal – 2013)

Food safety history • Ancient Rome was the first recognized

society to focus on freshness in fruit and other food.

• They were the first to add salt to their food and use salt for preservation.

• Next came preserving food in ice, waterfalls and creaks to keep it cold.

• Following that came boiling food followed by putting food into jars with lids on them. Suggested by Nicolas Appert.

Discovery of microorganisms

• Discovery of microorganisms by Francisco Redi in 1668

• Ever since this period, when people think of food safety, they think about microorganisms and how to eradicate these.

Importance of food safety • Foodborne illnesses are

preventable and have extreme effects on vulnerable population (children, those with reduced immunity and people older than 50)

• Food poisoning is expensive for consumers as well as manufacturers

• Typhoid Mary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THLZpWJMK7M

Complex systems

• A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other.

• It consists of some (and possibly all) of the following characteristics: feedback loops, spontaneous order, robustness of the order, emergent organization and hierarchical organization.

Food industry – a complex system • Subsistence farmers and

hunter-gatherers are outside the scope of the modern food industry

• Food industry consists of: agriculture, manufacturing, food processing, packaging, marketing, distribution and transportation, food service and retailing, regulation and R&D.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf74rrn1uLk

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7rn5hH5XN8

Safety culture • Concept originated after the Piper Alpha oil

and gas explosions that occurred twenty-eight years ago resulting in 167 deaths

• ‘Culture complacency’ and relaxed attitudes towards safety were regarded as the chief factors that led to the accident

• There are multiple definitions for safety culture and hence there is a confusion between safety culture and safety climate

• Safety culture: Values Safety climate: Perception of culture in the business

• In organisational safety, safety culture is defined as ‘combination of those behaviours which either increase or decrease the risk of harm, with safe denoting protected from harm, and unsafe at high risk of harm’

Activity 1

• Scenario: Jane has been kidnapped and Tarzan wants to go save her.

Activity 2

• Chinese whispers (importance of good communication):

One person whispers a message to another and so on through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group.

Food safety culture

• Griffith states that food safety culture provides staff with a common sense of food safety purpose.

• A business with a good safety culture would be one where staff are aware of the possible risks, where appropriate tools are used to assess food safety (HACCP, FSMS, FHRS, SALSA, etc.) and where staff are encouraged to practice good safety practices (rewards, positive reinforcement, incentives).

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEVrg2zi65w

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG38Y5hS8oo

Accimaps • Systems-based

technique for proactive accident analysis (can be used to assess the human factors involved in the food safety sector/any other industry’s safety sector)

• It helps to analyse the causes of accidents and incidents that occur in complex sociotechnical systems

Adapted from Svedung and Rasmussen (2002).

Limitations of Accimaps

• Hindsight bias (‘knew-it-all-along’): “inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective for predicting it” (Roese and Vohs, 2012)

• “Forgive yourself for not having the foresight to know what now seems so obvious in hindsight” – Judy Belmont

Example of Accimap: 1996 Outbreak Accimap – Highlights some of the common

human factors related to a food safety accident

Public unaware of dangers

Authorities reluctant to

enforce guidelines

10. Cross-contamination

11. E.coli O157 outbreak

EHOs not motivated5. Outcomes

9. Inefficacious layout and design

of plant and equipment

Raw and cooked meat not separated

Temperature monitoring and controlling less than

ideal

Skinned and non-skinned carcasses hung too close to

each other

Untrained helpers at church halls and

community centres

4. Physical/Individual events, processes and

conditions

Distribution chain difficult to trace

8. Hardly any product recall

systems in place

Legal requirements to carry out hazard analysis not met

No documented system in place

Operator responsible for food safety

Too expensive to carry out routine

testing

Not an offense to present dirty animals for slaughter

Food prepared in non-registered premisesRejected animals

accepted at other abattoirs except in

NE Scotland

OVS lowered quality check

standards

3. Organizational/ Workplace

2. 1995 Regulations less prescriptive

Regulations too complex to understand

3. Loopholes such as Codes of

Recommended Practices and

GuidanceMixed

transportation standards

4. No legal authority for Meat

Hygiene Service (MHS)

5. High demand on the limited resources of

EHOs

No symptoms exhibited by infected

animals

6. Inadequate number of EHOs

dispensed with many tasks

7. Move to unitary status2. Government

1. Media difficulties Commercial pressures1. External

Underestimating the importance of detailed

regulation

Underestimation of transport risks

Not enough support for EHOs

Key

Precondition

Direct Cause

Indirect Cause

Adapted from Nayak and Waterson, 2016

Steps for Accimap Analysis 1. Create a blank Accimap format on which to arrange the causes: Separate

the sheet of paper into relevant number of sections with the headings of the 4 levels on the left-hand side and horizontal lines separating each level.

2. Identify the outcome(s): Identify negative outcomes to be analysed and place them in the ‘outcomes’ level of the Accimap.

3. Identify causal factors: Make a list of al causes in the accident (factors without which the accident would not have probably occurred).

4. Identify appropriate Accimap level for each cause: Next to each cause, make a note of the level in which it belongs.

5. Prepare the causes: Write each cause on a sticky note. Make sure that causes are brief. Instead of saying just ‘training’, say ‘inadequate training’.

6. Insert causal links: Draw the links between various causes. There is no limit to how many links can be drawn from one cause.

7. Fill in the gaps (if any): If there are any gaps left in the causal chain, fill in wherever information necessary. Remember – every cause relevant to the accident needs to be included in the Accimap.

Activity 3

• Design Accimaps for the 4 case studies

• What do you feel could be common causal factors that lead to food related outbreaks?(Group discussion)

• Place these causal factors in their various systemic levels

Activity 4

• Looking at the Accimaps in front of you, could you identify what you feel are the most common reasons for a food related accident to occur?

Benefits of assessing food safety culture

• Helps identify multiple possible causal factors related to a food industry.

• Helps identify, isolate and address root causes behind a food outbreak at a level much before microbiological outbreaks occur.

• Long-term solution

Queries?

• If you have any queries regarding food safety culture and how human factors play a role in the food safety industry, contact me on R.S.Nayak@lboro.ac.uk.