Critical Thinking: The Key to Elevating Food Safety and Business Success
Dr. Karl Kolb, president of Ceres University and Ceres Certifications, International (CCI), brings over 30 years of industry expertise as a microbiologist and quality assurance professional. As a featured presenter at the upcoming March 11-12, 2025 Indoor Ag-Con, Dr. Kolb will lead pre-event food safety workshops designed to challenge conventional thinking and inspire innovative approaches to food safety management. In this month’s column, Dr. Kolb shares how the workshop will explore the vital role of critical thinking in building effective food safety and quality programs. From questioning assumptions to embracing data-driven decision-making, he offers actionable insights for food safety professionals and executives alike:
Do curiosity and logic guide you to innovative approaches to your organization’s food safety and quality status? Do you seek outside information? Do you recognize the importance of information in decision-making?
Critical thinking is essential to not only the success of your food safety and quality program but to the lasting success of your company. In over 30 years in the food business, I have seen literally thousands of companies begin from scratch and either prosper or bump along the road, never achieving much of anything only to be bought up by a larger organization or wither away. Why?
Why do some companies wither away to a horrible existence in a rich, sophisticated and thriving industry such as produce, indoor growing and specialty foods? Why do large wealthy companies have recalls and yet survive but don’t learn from their mistakes? How do we manage when a majority of the workforce is uneducated, speaks a foreign language or the company is understaffed by all of the above.
This workshop at Indoor Ag-Con is not about selecting key performance indicators or building around the concept of management by exception, but thinking differently about food safety and asking insightful questions that the root cause is found in food safety.
- Detach yourself from assumptions about food safety –
- Use reflective urgency when making decisions –
- Asking the right questions –
- Thinking scientifically without being an “Einstein” –
- Using date to break the silver bullet of decision-making –
- Opinions drive subjectiveness. Overcome this decisive norm –
Critical thinking is the driver to food safety. Here lies the KPIs of the successful business.
Come to the workshop if only to listen. I dare you to learn something.
LEARN MORE ABOUT PRE-EVENT FOOD SAFETY WORKSHOP
