About Paula Irvine
I Started my Food safety journey almost 15 years ago when i started as the Custodian with my current company. Food safety is interwind with so many aspects of the day to day Fresh Fruit & Vegetable industry. I am experienced in Program/ SOP development, Risk Assessments, Hazard Analysis and Preventive Controls to name a few.
I enjoy reading, camping and fishing when i can.
Industry sector
Fruits, vegetables & nuts
Job level/seniority
Manager
Are you attending a Food Sure Summit in 2025?
No
What are your biggest challenges in compliance management?
Auditing: overlapping audits needed by multiple customers, unclear/changing regulations
What are your biggest challenges in safety management?
Increasingly complex supply chains, sustainability/climate change & environmental factors
Workforce: staff retention, training, quality & safety as a culture
In what way are supply chains affecting food safety & quality?
Increasingly complex and globalised supply chains
Quality variability across suppliers
To what extent does advanced technology play a role in your food safety program?
No new advanced technology is used
To what extent are budgets constraining food safety & quality improvements?
Overlapping, and unnecessary audits can impede growth
The latest tech can be very expensive
Recent Discussions
Hello My name is Paula Irvine. I have almost 15 years experience in all aspects of Food Safety and regulatory compliance in the Fresh Fruit & vegetable sector. I enjoy working my way through Food safety concerns to determine the root cause and find the best way forward. A few of my proficiencies are Risk Assessments, Hazard Analysis and Program development. I enjoy camping and fishing the beautiful lakes available to me.
Recent Comments
Dear All - I have received from Erica Sheward GFSI Director some clarifications around the GFSI discussions in the recent auditing roundtable which I am sharing below for you to digest and share your thoughts on - I hope you find them helpful.
They are her comments and she has asked me to pass them on.
From Erica Sheward GFSI Director. They are her comments and she has asked me to pass them on.
Dear All - I am very happy to see this group discussing auditing and also delighted to see such a constructive debate which I would very much like to encourage to continue.
I have some clarifications around GFSI that I need to add and I hope you find them helpful.
1/ There is not in fact a GFSI standard - There are GFSI Benchmark Requirements which the Certification Program Owners (CPOs) use to develop their standards. The comment around lack of flexibility of the GFSI Standard is therefore difficult to understand. However I do agree that it is debatable as to whether strict adherence to checklists is the best way of delivering rigorous audit outcomes.
2/ The comment in the document about auditors not always having the technical knowledge matching the processes being employed at the food facility and the suggestion that auditors experience should match the facility being audited should be addressed by our up-coming Auditor Technical Professional Development program (ATPD) - at least for 3rd party audits carried out under GFSI recognised programs. More on this will be announced at the conference in Dublin.
3/ I found the question raised about root cause analysis and the link to pass/fail audits extremely interesting. It would be an interesting debate to look at this in more detail at least from the point of view of 3rd party audits. I strongly support the sentiment around the desire to promote learning from and resolution of issues with the goal of prevention.
Wishing you all the best and I hope the debate continues and hope to see some of you at GFSI.
Thank you for sharing - That is informative insight.
Glad for the canteen they were able to resume business.
Interesting that root cause could not be determined though. Hopefully the investigation is continuing to determine the cause and how to mitigate it from occurring again.