Food Safety Culture and Climate: an analysis of the Italian packaged confectionery raw material suppliers​

Despite all the audits, training, and controls put in place in the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS), there are still numerous cases of foodborne illness around the world. This condition leads the research on food safety to change from a technology oriented FSMS to its human component, which is typically referred to as food safety climate. Currently, there has been no in-depth food safety culture and climate research conducted in Italy from an industry perspective and especially from raw material suppliers’ point of view. For this reason, in this study, the food safety culture and climate in the Italian packaged confectionery raw material suppliers’ industry was quantitatively assessed using a food safety climate self-assessment tool developed by De Boeck et al. (2015). The questionnaire evaluates the human dimensions of food safety climate such as leadership, communication, commitment, resources, and risk awareness through 28 indicator statements. A five-point Likert scale was used by the respondents to score the assertions. A higher score on the scale was intended to indicate a stronger food safety climate. Firstly, the relationships between organizational traits and the food safety climate were evaluated. Next, exploratory factor analysis was used to investigate the factorial validity of the applied food safety climate assessment tool, and eventually the national culture influence on the food safety climate results was tested. Based on the total valid employees’ answers, the overall Italian packaged confectionery raw material suppliers’ industry was found to have a good food safety climate, even comparing it to previous studies of other industries and countries. For some organizational characteristics investigated, such as company size, production sectors, and food safety dedicated roles, significant correlations with the food safety climate could be proven. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the existence of 2 underlying factors: factor 1 mainly dealing with ‘leadership and communication related’ indicators, factor 2 with ‘resources and risk awareness related’ indicators; the ‘commitment related’ indicators instead belonged to both the two factors. Finally, some correlations between national culture parameters and food safety climate dimensions were found.