Food Safety Policy Date – Should It Be Updated Annually Even If Unchanged?

Hi all, our food safety policy has remained unchanged since 2021, and it is displayed on the notice board. some have questioned why the date still reflects 2021. Should we update the date on the policy annually , even if no changes have ben made? 

Hi Carine,

If Senior Management have reviewed the policy (typically annually) and it doesn’t requiring updating then there isn’t a problem.

Personally, I would reissue after a defined period of say 3 years.

Note, some standards do not require the policy to be dated.

Kind regards,

Tony

I go with a 'reviewed date' and 'amended date' on my policies to demonstrate they have been reviewed within the past year and to show when the last change was made. So if the review date was a month ago but there hasn't been a change for a few years at least it shows you're on top of things and policies displayed aren't obsolete

It doesn't need to be changed and the date doesn't need to be changed if you can prove it was reviewed.

However, maybe it's worth really delving into the detail of the policy with your senior leadership team and checking they do agree to it all.  Inevitably out of such a review some minor tweaks would be made.  Also a change would normally prompt a rebriefing to the team.  If you've not shared the policy with existing staff (apart from on a wall) since 2021 perhaps it's a good time to do so.

I agree you can get away with not updating as long as you can prove it was reviewed at some point in the past year.  Proving it was reviewed should include the verification that your facility met the objective you've outlined in it over the past [whatever time period].  In our SQF facilities, this policy displays our Food Safety Objectives, and it's posted for all employees to see.  We can prove it was reviewed for each facility via monthly reports we publish out of our corporate office, including an end of year review for each objective.

We do update and issue a new copy of the Policy each year because we phrase the FSO's to apply to the current year.  Something like "reduce sanitation deficiencies noted through pre-op inspection by 10% per quarter over 2024."  The objective can be shown in our monthly reporting to be verified at each quarter, with full 2024 review just performed in January by the plant's management team.

Where do you put up reviewed date? 

I go with a 'reviewed date' and 'amended date' on my policies to demonstrate they have been reviewed within the past year and to show when the last change was made. So if the review date was a month ago but there hasn't been a change for a few years at least it shows you're on top of things and policies displayed aren't obsolete

Put reviewed date or revised date at the bottom or the top, it doesn't really matter as long as it is on there. I got a minor for this last year, although I could prove that I had reviewed all documents. The auditor was looking for brand new crisp sheets of paper to show that I had looked at every SOP and policy.