Harmonisation of the food safety systems in a group of bakeries

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to harmonise the documentation of the food safety and quality systems of the bakery group's companies, commissioned by the group. The goal was to produce as many procedures and documents as possible that are common to the group's bakeries. Since the bakeries are certified to different standards, the differences in the documentation requirements of those standards were compared. The expansion of food safety systems necessitates harmonisation to address evolving regulatory requirements and growing customer expectations for transparency regarding health, safety, and sustainability. Meeting these challenges requires efficient resource allocation and continuous enhancement of organisational expertise to align with increasing demands. In this thesis, we studied differences in standard requirements, focusing on requirements for companies to be audited; differences in auditing processes are not included. This action research was a case study that employed coding and content analysis to identify differences among food safety system standards. Themes were formed from the sections of standards that required documentation and the existing instructions. Group discussions were used to promote interaction, mediate disagreements, and form a shared vision to define necessary processes, methods, and instructions. This case study of the bakery group found no significant differences in documentation requirements between food safety and quality standards. The result of the work was that most of the bakeries’ procedures and documented instructions can be harmonised.