St. Louis-based ASI LLC saw big changes in 2019 and the first part of 2020, enabling the company to provide its commissary, supplier and retail clients with even better food safety audit and other services, said Tyler Williams, vice president of operations. “The two main areas that we’ve had our largest strides in are our technology and our ever-growing list of new services,” he said. On the technology side, ASI has been working on harnessing the power of both its audit and training platforms, Williams said. The company’s auditing system now gives it greater control over the entire audit and corrective action process, along with excellent reporting capabilities. Also new and improved for 2020 is ASI’s training platform, which has helped streamline both internal and external training. The company is also now able to offer online, on-demand training to the public. ASI’s other main focus has been to grow its list of services that it can provide to the industry. PSSI helps its customers stay “two steps ahead of their audits” with its Real-Time Performance Metrics (RPM) platform, Lucas said. “The data and corrective actions recorded by our team through the RPM platform is exactly the type of documentation regulators are looking for to validate the consistency and effectiveness of each cleaning process,” Lucas said. The platform not only helps streamline data tracking and reporting needed from a compliance standpoint, she added. It also enables food safety sanitors to proactively respond to any changes or concerns related to the sanitation process in real-time, which in return will set PSSI’s customers up for audit success. PSSI’s audits include but are not limited to GMPs, foreign material control, regulatory compliance and verification of documentation for all procedures and policies in place, which is crucial to supermarkets, said Kent Bruns, the company’s senior director of food safety, north division. “The eight steps of sanitation go into everything that audits entail,” he said. “Sanitation is one of the cornerstones of food safety. It starts with a clean plant.” PSSI helps its supplier partners become audit-ready and achieve SQF and BRC certification, which the majority of companies require for their audits, Bruns said. PSSI does that through its eight-step sanitation protocol. Every PSSI auditor first examines the plant with a visual inspection to verify the sanitation process is effective. The final step is documentation, which provides plant managers with the data they need to be audit-ready. PSSI also helps with SSOPs, food safety sanitor training guides, and pre-op measures, Bruns added. The company collectively gathers data for trend analysis to identify any potential food safety opportunities for its plants. “Our audit is internal,” he said. “Our customers don’t use our audits. They have their own process. We provide our real-time tracking tools and the eight steps of sanitation to help provide them with the tools and information to prepare for their audits.” Generally, suppliers utilize third party auditors to perform required audits by supermarkets such as SQF and BRC. Those audits encompass the entire food safety system, which includes sanitation. – Source: Food Safety Monitor/Food Business News.