Building a Strong FSQA Strategy at Nichols Farms

Watch the Replay:
https://safetychain.wistia.com/live/events/cpl8umrj13

Join Jennifer Dunlap, Director of Food Safety & Sanitation at Nichols Farms on Thursday, June 20 for Building a Strong FSQA Strategy at Nichols Farms. During this webinar, Jennifer will discuss how their quality team went from constantly fighting fires to making quality a data-driven and strategic function within the organization.

1. Building a Strong FSQA Strategy: A SafetyChain Customer Success Story Jennifer Dunlap With featured speaker: Director, Food Safety & Sanitation

2. JENNIFER DUNLAP Director, Food Safety & Sanitation Nichols Farms 10 years at Nichols Farms Master’s Degree in Food Safety from Michigan State University Meet Your Presenter

3. NICHOLS FARMS Hanford, CA About Nichols Farms Located in the heart of Central California’s San Joaquin Valley Pistachio and Almond Farm Established more than 60 years ago Committed to producing and safe and quality product

4. Nichols Farms + SafetyChain Implemented in 2021 SafetyChain replaced another QMS System Started in quality and snowballed to other departments including roasting, raw processing, maintenance, sanitation, shipping & receiving, and the flavor lines Roughly 20,000 records recorded a month via SafetyChain

5. CCPs: Metal & X Ray Metal Detection Look at individual records Look at trends, lot numbers & typos X Ray Log Instant look at right now: green/red SOP = hourly checks

6. Common Checks on the Floor Finished Goods Full bags checked Cartons & Totes Stencils checked & photos added Hourly Pasteurization Hourly CCPs Roasting and Flavoring Each batch Photo evidence needed for burnt product findings

7. Bag Seal & Oxygen Check Bag Seal View/filter by non conformance Drill into specific record Pass/Fail/Correction Issue Trends Problem in new machinery Pin holes causing seal problems Resolved, but made for a lot of extra inspections and product on hold!

8. Moisture & Salt: GIVEAWAY & QUALITY

9. Pack Weights Tight Specs Min/max on the forms to help operators know SPC charts help to understand issues and trends getting away from the spec Balance giveaway with fairness to customer 3rd parties going to be looking at this

10. Complex Food Safety & Quality Audits

11. Audit Prep Pre-SafetyChain

12. SUCCESS STORY: Audit Prep Recently underwent unannounced SQF audit and four customer audits with in a month, down one employee on the audit team. Decided to not hire a temp - was able to complete all of the audits with minimal stress and overtime resulting in $16,000 savings relative to labor costs.

13. Customer Complaint Resolution Faster to Evidence Form data found by lot ID Allows for easy compliant investigations Simplifies investigation, reduces from hours to minutes Stencil check on hourly bag weight

14. Exceptions Reporting Corrections By Form By Field By Resource

15. Unlimited Potential Forms for anything Supplier Manager Dynamic Flows Roasting Check Allergen Check Bag Seal Check Bag Weight Check … and more

16. Tips for Seamless Adoption Across the Organization Get everyone a log in Start with a very simple form that will make their lives easier Let them experience the platform - what the screen looks like, how to enter data, etc. at their own pace When they see how it helps, how easy it is vs a paper form you’ll get buy in and people start asking “What’s Next”

17. Quality Becomes a Strategic Function

18. Looking at Data Across the Business JUST LAUNCHED: Training program for supervisors and managers across quality and operations. GOAL: To help keep them in tune with what’s going on across the floor so they can be proactive vs. reactive using data. HOW IT WILL WORK: Starting with a small group of volunteers. We are going to customize views in LINK so they can get the data needed to make data-driven decisions across their business unit, including giveaways, weights, recipes, etc.

19. Stop “Checking the Boxes”

20. Bringing Together Quality & Ops SafetyChain gives us neutral data that doesn’t lie, you can’t argue against it Helpful to see something trending in real time Less going to the SOP to see what to do next, the form tells you want to do next – a lot of dynamic flows SUCCESS STORY Testing the use of SafetyChain on small batch flavor products. Checks occur through the blending process and data can indicate if something is off and it can be re-blended and checked again = less on hold product and a higher quality outcome.

21. SUCCESS STORY: Bag Seals Had a known bag seal issue due to pinholes in the finished product Had new machinery in place causing the issue Was able to pull data from the old machine records vs. the new machine records to pinpoint the issue Was able to use that data in outreach to the machine manufacturer

22. What’s Next for Nichols Farms + SafetyChain? More suppliers Additional Dynamic Flows Shipping incoming/outgoing inspections Moisture + salt check Sanitation Lab

23. Jennifer Dunlap Director of Food Safety & Sanitation Building a Strong FSQA Strategy At Nichols Farms

24. Next Steps Everyone will receive an email with the recording of today’s webinar and relevant additional resources. Not a SafetyChain Customer? Request a demo to learn how SafetyChain can help transform your workplace culture. Visit www.safetychain.com for more information.