What KPIs or metrics do you use to track food safety performance—and how do you apply them in practice?

[Kristy]

Food safety performance isn't just about meeting compliance—it’s about creating a culture of continuous improvement. In your role, what key performance indicators (KPIs) or measurable metrics do you rely on to assess and maintain high standards?


Consider sharing:

• The specific KPIs you track (e.g. audit scores, non-conformance rates, training completion, environmental monitoring data)
• Why those metrics matter to your operations or sector
• How you gather, analyse, and act on that data
• Tools or dashboards you use to monitor trends
• Any challenges you face in measuring or reporting on food safety effectively

Your insights could help others refine their own systems—and vice versa. Let’s build a smarter, safer industry together.

 

[Marzena STC & QTC]

When I was working in manufacturing, we tried to keep the food safety KPIs simple so the team could easily understand them.
Some of the main things we tracked were internal audit results, number of non-conformances, customer complaints, and staff training completion. These usually gave us a good overall picture of how the food safety system was performing.
We also looked at environmental monitoring results and followed up on corrective actions to make sure issues were properly closed and didn’t happen again.
Most of the data came from audit reports, quality records, and production checks. We normally reviewed the results monthly in team meetings to look for trends and identify any areas that needed improvement. Simple Excel logs were very useful.

One challenge we sometimes had was making the data meaningful for people on the factory floor. Too many numbers can make things confusing, so we tried to keep reports simple and focus on the most important risks.
I’m not in manufacturing anymore, but I’d still be interested to hear what KPIs other teams are using today.

 

[Cathy Gladwin]

@Kristy - great question! @Marzena STC & QTC love the straight forward and simple approach to meaningful data.

You both know that in fact in our business we tried to create some meaningful metrics and it's so difficult, isn't it, to track and record data? Honestly - we failed and gave up - we simply didn't have the time. The biggest challenge by far is finding the time to collate the data and to essentially ask ourselves, "Is this data specifically meaningful for the business right now?" In a very small team it can almost become counter-productive to spend time that we don't have collating data when the picture is already clear because it's such a small business. Having just said that though, that isn't necessarily right. The more a business grows the more it becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees and here data becomes essential. Lean Six Sigma will tell you that data is everything but it means nothing unless that data can be analysed so that we can draw logical conclusions. If we're going to take the time to collate and analyse data then it's got to be done in a way that brings the business value. Even BRCGS standards will tell you that data must always be collated and analysed so that we can assess the impact on product safety and quality. It's just so difficult to do .

I would say that the most common KPI or business objective we see that gives us a measure of how a business is performing specifically against food safety and quality metrics is analysis of customer complaints. I like it because we can make it a SMART measure of continuous improvement for any business. It meets the BRCGS requirements and it's simple and easy to do. Again if the business has the time and the resource to analyse more data then that's fantastic but following on from what Marzena said, staff can become blind to too much data that when it's not particularly meaningful and that does more harm than good.

Sometimes, less is more