Dole Fresh Vegetables Food Safety Best Practices Featured as QA Magazine’s October 2013 Cover Story

SafetyChain congratulates customer Dole Fresh Vegetables on its cover feature in Quality Assurance & Food Safety (QA) Magazine, focusing on its “open book” policy on food safety, automation project, training commitment and more

SafetyChain Software, the leader in Food Safety Chain Management solutions that automate, streamline and improve food safety and quality assurance (FSQA), congratulates our customer Dole Fresh Vegetables, whose food safety practices and insights were highlighted in QA Magazine’s October 2013 cover story: Dole Fresh Vegetables – Food Safety is an Open Book.

The article, by QA’s editor Lisa Lupo, features an interview with Dole Fresh Vegetable’s Vice President of Technical Services, Thomas Mack, and Senior Food Safety Manager, Nye Hardy – focuses on Dole’s commitment to food safety as its highest priority, covering such topics as:

  • Willingness and knowledge-sharing of food safety practices across the produce industry
  • A hands-on approach to oversight, standards, policies and inspection of the entire safety process from grower to customer
  • A food safety program that is not only aligned with LGMA – California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement; but goes further in certain areas, such as water and buffer zones
  • Training that focuses not only on tasks that need to be completed as part of food safety program – but why they’re important and the impact each process has on food safety
  • Implementing an automated solution from SafetyChain that leverages mobile technology to gather and assess FSQA information in realtime from the field, for timely Corrective/Preventive Actions (CAPA), and promotes focus on food safety vs. paperwork

Using SafetyChain for Food™ and SafetyChain Mobile™, Dole Fresh Vegetables is now able to:

  • Conduct food safety evaluations via iPhones and Blackberries with capabilities to check off food safety factors, note issues, and add comments or photos as applicable
  • Submit completed field assessments, field approval or non-compliance with the click of a button
  • Manage non-compliance issues in realtime, with alerts sent via email and notifications to applicable persons for timely corrective actions
  • Have all information, including before/after digital pictures, available in a centralized database for traceability and audit readiness

“As highlighted in the article, Dole Fresh Vegetables goes above and beyond when it comes to food safety practices – sharing information that helps improve safety across the industry – and leveraging best practices and technology tools for continuous improvement.

SafetyChain is excited to see its hard work and efforts featured in QA Magazine, and extends its congratulations to Tom Mack, Nye Hardy and the entire Dole Fresh Vegetables safety team,” said Barbara Levin, SafetyChain SVP and Co-Founder.

The feature in QA Magazine’s article can be accessed here

 

About SafetyChain Software
SafetyChain Software’s SafetyChain for Food™ helps the food and beverage industry manage safety and quality compliance in realtime – preventing non-compliant ingredients, raw materials and finished product from coming in or going out.

With SafetyChain for Food’s affordable solution modules – for Supplier Compliance & Management, Safety & Quality Data Reporting, HACCP / GFSI Compliance and Customer & Finished Product Compliance – food growers, producers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, food services and importers save time, save money and create efficiencies that contribute to the bottom line.

SafetyChain for Food is a global, Software-as-a-Service solution, designed for fast deployment and even faster ROI. www.safetychain.flywheelstaging.com

About Dole Food Company
Dole, with 2011 net revenues of $6.9 billion, is the world’s largest producer and marketer of high-quality fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, and is the leading producer of organic bananas. Dole markets a growing line of packaged and frozen fruit and is a produce industry leader in nutrition education and research.