Toronto, Canada: QMI-SAI Global presents the Food Safety Symposium, coming to the three largest Canadian cities – Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver this spring.
Over the last few years, the food industry has gone through a lot of change in terms of Food Safety. These include new regulatory laws, higher standards demanded by retailers/customers, an urgency in adopting new processes, new training and even a new culture. Managing this change is no easy task, and companies must be prepared for even more changes coming their way.
QMI-SAI Global will host Canada's brightest food safety thought leaders to share their stories and solutions on how to overcome barriers and achieve excellency in Food Safety. Quality experts of major retailer chains, such as Loblaw and Wal-Mart, will discuss how to drive Food Industry change and how to transform the culture in a company.
Attendees will also uncover the most common issues and concerns when moving from HACCP to GFSI standards from a small processor perspective. Senior representatives from Embassy Flavors and AgroExpert will describe the process of managing compliance paperwork and will cover issues recently arisen.
The changes coming to GFSI and the Packaging industry will be addressed on a highly anticipated session.
In the second part of the day, QMI-SAI Global will hold two group workshops that will be facilitated by food industry experts, Gordon Hayburn and Julie Press.
Gordon Hayburn, Technical Director of Agri-Food at QMI-SAI Global, is a highly qualified professional and subject matter expert in areas of food safety, food law and food science. Gordon brings over 25 years of experience in food manufacturing, food safety and auditing.
Julie Press, Strategic Program Design Manager at QMI-SAI Global, is not only a certified auditor but also a knowledgeable and known professional in the food industry who has been actively involved in the development of certification programs for various standards across a wide range of industries. Recently, Julie has been focusing on the development of a supplier compliance management solution, a big challenge the food industry faces today.
"Risk Assessments and Internal Audits are key components of all Food Safety Management Standards (FSMS) and they frequently result in non-conformances," says Gordon Hayburn, "They are often misunderstood or misinterpreted. Our workshops aim at clarifying and simplifying these subjects in order to have a better understanding of not just what the FSMS say, but what they mean. We hope that our workshops will assist clients to meet these requirements within their own FSMS, help improve their standards and eliminate NC's during the audit."
In the last part of the symposium, QMI-SAI Global will have a panel discussion with GFSI Standard Owners and Industry Experts. Leaders from organizations, such as BRC, SQF, CanadaGap, IFS and The Packaging Association, will review new topics and recent changes happening with standards and will answer any questions asked by attendees.
In addition, there will be an exhibit hall with booths and representatives of all GFSI standards present at the event, as well as consulting and services companies catering to the food safety industry. The symposium will close with a professional networking cocktail reception.
