Purpose: The heart of the new US regulations is strongly related to this new concept of FSC. FSC involves the whole company, from top management to the workers, in order to produce the range of preventive procedures necessary to give evidence of their behavior and to trace their responsibility. In Europe, this approach has been recently introduced by a voluntary standard, the BRC V. 7. Clarification of this method to European small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) will be treated in this work.
Methods: The level of FSC in 60 European manufacturing companies was measured according to the matrix of the FSC proposed by Lone Jespersen (Food Safety Culture: Measure What You Treasure, 2015). Between June to December, 2016, these companies were active in training, qualification of their PCQI for PCHF, and drafting their own Food Safety Plan.
Results: About 85% of companies did not understand the concept of "Education" related to FSC; 13.5% of companies demonstrated a low level of FSC, and only 1.5% showed a good level of involvement throughout the entire company in demonstrating behaviors and responsibilities in line with the FSC. Procedures, documentation, and reviews have been poorly implemented.
Significance: The large volume of documents requested by the FSMA can be supported, only, with the understanding of the importance of implementation of an appropriate/right FSC method. Without that, domestic and foreign companies will find themselves in trouble.