How to convince Senior Management to support food safety

My frustration is that when we audit our own kitchen and highlighted several major non-conformance, senior management wont approve to buy new appliances.

Examples: To replace a chiller that is not functioning at optimal that is long overdue.

                  Had explained the consequences in terms of food safety, quality and potential customer complaint but failed to be heard.

I am wondering if there is a way to convince and make the boss to make changes to most issues related to food safety. Is there a cartoon analogy to support this? to make things less serious so that they can think of it differently.

I dont wish them to act promptly only when there is a big blow from customer complaint.

Find out some some real world scenarios or events that happened in a different company of your same type, like outbreaks or hazards because of such negligence and lack of anticipatory action. Try to convince him ( estimating how much approachable he is) about what would happen otherwise with some data and statistics, possible deterioration of the business if onetime an outbreak/hazard happened etc.

"Study your boss well first then sketch a plan accordingly"

I agree with EagleEye. Know the your boss's motivation though money is a strong motivator. Show the cost of a new chiller vs the cost of an outbreak, loss of business.

Agreed.......if $$$ is the only motivator (and it almost always is) then show them a cost analysis..............and overstate your case

Just the cost of what's in the chiller may be worth more $$ than the cooler itself

Even the scenario of the $$$ involved in a recall might not motivate...it will never happen to us mentality. 

Another important factor when thinking about money is the financial benefits of a new chiller. Are you continuously paying for repairs or having to throw things away as a result of the chiller's sub-par performance? Will there be potential energy savings or possibly refunds from the government or utility company if you got a new chiller? All of these things can be used to put together a plan that shows financially that a new chiller will pay for itself in X number of years AND improve how your kitchen looks to potential customers increasing business AND improve food safety. 

It's often difficult to look at all of these things as a food safety professional and think, "None of that's my job, why do I have to do that?", but sometimes we don't have a choice.

Whatever angle you end up taking, try to make the deal to good to say no to.