Food Safety Starts Before the Seal – It’s All Hands-On Deck, Even for Packagers

Food safety is about preventing biological, chemical, and physical hazards that can cause foodborne illness or injury. Image courtesy of Cut Fresh LLC.

Ensuring food safety at the point of packaging is a public health imperative.

By Mike Buelow, FSQA Sanitation Manager, Cut Fresh LLC

In today’s food supply chain, food safety is top of mind—from the grower and processor to the packager, distributor, and retailer. But for those outside the plant floor, the full scope of resources, training, and vigilance that go into ensuring safe food, especially at the point of packaging, can often be overlooked.

Food safety is often defined as the methods adopted to ensure that food is fit to be consumed. It’s about preventing biological, chemical, and physical hazards that can cause foodborne illness or injury. In our business, we take this definition further. For us, food safety isn’t just protocols — it’s people. It’s hands-on work, technical expertise, and culture. And yes, packaging plays a central role.

Why Hands-On Matters

In my role as Food Safety Quality Assurance (FSQA) Sanitation Manager, I’ve learned firsthand that food safety success depends heavily on boots-on-the-ground leadership. The human element cannot be substituted — not even by the most rigorous standard operating procedures (SOPs) or automated systems. From the equipment used in packaging lines to the sanitation of conveyors and containers, attention to detail matters.

And that’s not just theory. According to the CDC, approximately 48 million people get sick from foodborne illnesses annually in the United States with 3,000 fatalities. This isn’t just a food supply or packaging issue; it’s a public health imperative.

Military Discipline Meets Industry Demands

My food safety foundation was forged in the U.S. Navy, where I trained as a Mess Management Culinary Specialist and earned certification from the Bureau of Medicine & Surgery. I was part of the 7th Fleet’s food safety division, training others in sanitation protocols. That same military discipline now underpins our approach what I’ve imparted to those who work for and with me. We’ve applied those rigorous standards to every step of the process, including how we clean and sanitize packaging equipment and ensure that all food contact surfaces are safe.

That effort earned our operations a 100 percent score on our latest PrimusGFS Food Safety Certification audit — a benchmark certification in the produce industry.

Training That Goes Beyond Compliance

Every new quality assurance (QA) technician, supervisor, or food safety quality assurance (FSQA) assistant undergoes a comprehensive 21-day training program. For sanitation teams, we incorporate Alchemy’s industry-leading food safety training modules — including essential videos like “7 Steps of Wet Sanitation” and “Preventing Listeria in Produce Plants.”

Even our packaging team members are trained to understand the direct relationship between cleanliness and product integrity. They learn that effective food safety doesn’t start after the product is packed — it begins before the packaging line even moves.

A Culture of Inspection and Ownership

You can’t manage sanitation — or packaging cleanliness — from behind a desk. I frequently work third shift alongside the sanitation crew, flashlight in hand, inspecting packaging equipment and validating compliance with our SSOPs.

We’ve implemented pre-production inspections using adenosine triphosphate testing (ATP) and weekly sponge swabbing sent to third-party labs. We’ve even equipped our sanitation supervisors with flashlights — symbolic tools that reflect a culture of ownership and attention to the smallest detail.

That same hands-on philosophy applies to our packaging operations, where cross-contamination risks must be identified and addressed proactively.

Packaging professionals are a critical part of the food safety ecosystem, maintaining hygienic conditions, selecting appropriate materials, and ensuring that packaging machinery doesn’t become a source of contamination. Image courtesy of Cut Fresh.

Recognizing the Team Behind the Clean

Creating a culture of accountability also means recognizing the people behind the work. From midnight pizza parties for the sanitation crew to ongoing praise for clean equipment audits, we’ve found that appreciation leads to consistency and pride in performance.

In an industry where third-shift sanitation and packaging labor can be hard to retain, showing respect and offering recognition have become strategic imperatives.

Certifications and Continuous Improvement

Our facility is proudly certified under the PrimusGFS audit scheme. We uphold every standard, from validating sanitation records to requiring initials on every document related to food safety, quality, and packaging sanitation. In 2023 we scored 99 percent. In 2024, we achieved perfection.

But certification isn’t the end goal, it’s the proof point of a well-run, people-powered process.

The Packaging Link in the Safety Chain

Packaging professionals are a critical part of the food safety ecosystem. We emphasize the role of packaging teams in maintaining hygienic conditions, selecting appropriate materials, and ensuring that packaging machinery doesn’t become a source of contamination.

Pre-shift meetings — another best practice I carried from the Navy — reinforce this mindset. We hold these meetings twice a week across all shifts to align on safety issues, quality control, sanitation reminders, and food safety alerts. We keep them short, interactive, and educational.

Everyone — from sanitation to production to packaging — knows that keeping bacteria at bay is a shared responsibility. And that kind of buy-in only comes when people know they matter.

It is about sanitation, safety, and seals.

If you’re striving to improve your food safety program, especially in packaging and sanitation, ask yourself: How hands-on are we really? Are you leading from the front or just managing from a distance … behind a desk?

Operationally, we believe that a safe product isn’t just processed, it’s handled with care, inspected with intent, and packaged with precision. Because when you’re truly hands-on with food safety, you don’t just meet the standard — you set standard.

About the Author

In his role as Food Safety Quality Assurance (FSQA) Sanitation Manager, Mike Buelow makes sure that every Cut Fresh batch of produce is held to the highest standards. Upon graduating from St. Thomas More High School, Buelow entered the United States Navy at the age of 17. He became a Mess Management Specialist where he learned the “NAVY WAY” of baking, cooking, food safety and sanitation. After graduating from Mess Specialist training, Buelow proudly served on the nuclear submarine USS Theodore Roosevelt, then on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea. While in the Navy, he became certified in Food Safety & Sanitation,  Visit: https://cutfresh.net