Food (safety) for thought

22nd March 2023

Bureau Veritas offers a complete range of testing, inspection, and certification services in order to ensure the safety and quality of food, from farm to fork! None of this, however, is possible without trust.

With certification programmes such as ISO 22000 and The Global Food Safety Initiative Audits, Bureau Veritas enables its clients to deliver safe, high-quality food, whilst ensuring that they are compliant across the entire supply chain. The company’s customised audits help industry players to address specific food challenges, such as demonstrating responsible sourcing practices.

As a world leader in testing, inspection, and certification the Bureau Veritas name has, for almost 200 years, been synonymous with integrity – a key component in creating trust across companies, industries, and societies.

“We are a business-to-business-to-society company, which means that our work ultimately impacts on people and society,” says Gavin Hefer, Bureau Veritas district chief executive of Southern Africa. “Through exceptional service and living our values, our work impacts positively on our clients; their customers can therefore, in turn, trust the products they are using because they are Bureau Veritas tested, inspected, and certified. In this way, we create a circle of trust.”

As an independent party, Bureau Veritas has built, and continues to build, trust between governments, companies, and people – in other words, with society as a whole.

“Trust forms the cornerstone of everything we do. Our more than 80 000 employees, in over 1 600 laboratories spanning 140 countries, are encouraged to live values that create trust. While being ambitious, they should strive to be humble, responsible, accountable, open, and inclusive – and therefore trusted,” Hefer emphasises.

Over the past 190 years, Bureau Veritas has established a proven track record of integrity, impartiality, independence, and expertise. To date, the reputation it has fostered has enabled the company to ensure safety and reliability for 400 000 clients, by helping them to access markets, facilitate trade, control costs, protect their brands, and achieve licences to operate.

“We believe that our people, our global teams, and our processes are inherently driving us towards the realisation of our quest, which at the end of the day is to protect our planet and its people for future generations,” asserts Hefer. “The only way this can be achieved is through trust.”

“Despite advancements in technology – from autonomous manufacturing to state-of-the-art safety systems – we still see fatalities that could have been easily prevented. This is partly due to a lack of investment in safer technology and, instead, a focus on employee competency. However, the industry is slowly beginning to adopt the ‘lean manufacturing’ methodology, which focuses on minimising waste while maximising productivity, to further improve the safety of their employees,” Tozser adds.

Jordyn Aitken, Asia-Pacific health, safety, and environment manager at Alltech, believes that the issues facing the safety profession which were brought into the spotlight during the pandemic will persist: “Business continuity will remain a focus, with industry investing and preparing for future pandemics. Additionally, there will be a continued focus on mental health, with the WHO and ILO calling for action to address declining mental health in the working population.”

Enter the EHS Congress, the event that’s here to make your job a little easier. This year’s event is dedicated to providing health and safety directors with the latest tools, techniques, and best practices to create a safer and more productive work environment for employees. The conference, taking place on 24 to 25 May in beautiful Berlin, will feature world-class speakers, interactive breakout workshops, and smart-app powered one-on-one meetings.

“As we gather in Berlin for the EHS Congress, let us use this opportunity to share ideas and best practices to further our common goal of creating a safer and healthier world of work. Join us and be a part of creating a brighter future,” Tozser urges.