It makes sense that a resilient business has a greater chance of delivering positive and consistent food safety outcomes.
To assist the industry become more resilient, Dairysafe developed a Business Continuity Model (BCM) to evaluate and reduce a dairy processor’s exposure to business continuity breakdown, as a result of a South Australian Government funded project in 2019-20.
The BCM tool has been updated and will shortly be freely available on the Dairysafe website at https://dairy-safe.com.au/food-safety-toolbox/.
The BCM is a self-assessment tool to assist a business to identify opportunities that will enhance resilience and reduce risk. Based on responses to a set of 13 questions, the BCM delivers a matrix identifying where the business is positioned within nine quadrants that indicate:
- Inherent product risk, assessed as low, medium or high; and
- Business maturity, assessed as opportunistic, managed or optimised.
After completing the self-assessment, the business is positioned on the matrix and a report identifying opportunities for improvement is provided.
“It is very quick to complete this analysis – the BCM process takes about 15 minutes,” said Geoff Raven, CEO of Dairysafe.
“The feedback from users of the BCM so far indicates the Model delivers real value, aids business resilience, and has the potential for broader application across food manufacturing businesses.”
The BCM was successfully tested with industry and dairy businesses told us the following:
“Easy and quick to use and at the end we received some good recommendations that we can take on board to improve the business.”
“The real benefit of this Business Continuity Model is the ability to track performance and improvements over time.”
“If every manufacturer completed the model and implemented the feedback, it would substantially enhance the resilience of the South Australian dairy industry.”