When it comes to food, some things are black and white. It must be safe, and laws and regulations must be kept up with, understood and adhered to.

When it comes to production and quality, you have to achieve both, in balance. Complaints, financial losses, or both can be the result when overemphasizing one at the expense of the other.

Then there’s data – we’re all swimming in a sea of it. But useless data is just noise. We’ve all heard the term – “analysis is paralysis” – too much information. Or, information not focused on key metrics. However not enough and you are essentially operating blindly, not maximizing potential.

In either case, if relevant data is collected but not properly acted upon, trouble can arise. In our travels we have been to companies that collect massive amounts of statistics – and then ignore all of it. We have also seen operations that record none. Which brings us back to balance – identifying and using the correct KPIs.

Things go wrong. Mistakes happen. Equipment malfunctions or goes out of calibration. Well trained staff leave. New requirements can make it hard to keep up. In order for businesses to succeed, proper systems should allow them to either:

A. detect and correct unacceptable trends before a serious problem occurs, or B. quickly address after-the-fact. 

If you would like to examine any of these topics, or have other needs related to seafood safety, quality, recall or other systems, are dealing with customer complaints, rejections, suppliers out of spec, or other challenges, we are happy to help. Whether you’re in retail, grocery, importing, food service, supplying or anywhere else along the value chain, please reach out.