Global Food Safety and Quality Assurance Team

The Global Food Safety and Quality Assurance (FSQA) team met three times in 2018 and worked closely with the individual business unit FSQA teams to gain a better understanding of each of their processes, technologies and reporting capabilities in order to assist in streamlining and improving FSQA global policies and practices. One major project implemented by the team in 2018 focused on restructuring the company’s request for proposal process for laboratory services in the U.S. The project was developed in response to the fact that JBS will be unable to remain in the forefront of food safety without a laboratory service provider that will not only perform necessary daily tasks, but help improve our current processes. Additional projects included: 1) developing a strategic equipment purchasing deal that will generate cost savings and streamline more consistent processes across all business units; 2) leveraging various food safety technologies throughout the proteins beginning in the U.S. and then expanding globally; 3) researching and deciding on a build or buy technology strategy for collecting, analyzing and reporting FSQA data globally; 4) outlining the FSQA 5 Year Strategic Plan; and various other projects developed in response to opportunities that arose in the discovery process. Looking ahead, the major challenge facing the Global FSQA team will be pulling the best parts of each business unit’s FSQA procedures, sharing them across countries and getting the teams to buy into new approaches. Doing so will ultimately make JBS even stronger.