Four Ways to Use Apprentices to Improve Food Quality
There are Four Ways to Use Apprentices: to help reduce the risk of a recall, help pass third party certification audits, fix root causes of complaints, and reduce the cost of manufacturing. The impact on your business bottom line can be tremendous. Here are some ways apprentices are currently being used by our clients:
- Apprentices can be used to pass third party certifications. This would allow you to land additional clients (make a list). Retailers and other manufacturers often require their suppliers to pass industry certification audits. This is because of the danger to reputation and bottom line that a recall by a supplier can have. The best example was the cumin recall where one supplier’s tainted product forced 38 other companies to recall their products, which used cumin-contaminated with peanut.
- Apprentices can be used to reduce risks. The Blue Bell recall is a good case study. The issues identified in recall are ones that an apprentice, working toward an industry certification, could have easily identified. As was pointed out at the September 2015 FSMA workshop, it’s usually the small things like hand washing and clean bathrooms that trip companies up.
- Apprentices can handle complaints, and use those complaints to identify correction/preventative actions (CAPA). An example how to calculate the cost/benefit of handling complaints is on our blog. The example highlights how most of your customers will not complain to you, but rather to an average of 28 of their friends and associates.
- Company-wide certifications reduce complaints and long-term costs. In a whitepaper about certifying their facilities, US Foods and IFS demonstrate how their certification program reduced long term costs associated with handling complaints.
Apprentices
The apprenticeship program covers part of the cost of training and employing apprentices while they work toward an industry certification, typically one or two years. We focus on providing apprenticeships for military veterans, students, mothers returning to the workforce or individuals coming off disability. Apprentice positions include Quality Control, Regulatory & Compliance, Clinical Research, Biostatistics & Clinical Data Management, and Drug Safety.
