CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON FOOD SAFETY

Climate change is inevitable, the impact of climate change has implicated a lot on the food safety.

Climate changes happen due to the increase in global temperature and increased frequency of moderate to heavy rainfall. Due to the climate change a great harm is expected on food yields.

The seasonal climate and temperature pose a threat to the agriculture, livestock and also the fisheries. 

These changes in the temperature increases the prevalence of salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis. Further, higher temperatures increases the susceptibility of animals to disease, which in turn is transmitted to human beings. Aquatic animals also become weak as the metabolic processes of fish are influenced by temperature, salinity and oxygen levels. 

These climatic changes also affects the mycotoxin contamination of crops. It can also lead to more harmful algal blooms. These algae can produce toxins harmful to humans.

The climate change has affected the food safety globally, by disrupting the food availability, reduce the access to food and effect on the food quality.  

Catering Waste Management

The food waste is generated in the kitchen at various environments like catering facilities and restaurants while preparing food. The food waste consists of cooked and raw food. It has become an alarming issue as the food waste contributes to a negative impact on the people and the animals by way of spreading diseases and infections.

It has become very important to have a strong catering waste management strategy in order to control these kind of situations and save from the negative effects like methane production from the rotten food, CO2 production and prevention of disease and pollution.

How should the catering waste be reduced?

The catering waste can be reduced in few of the ways mentioned below:

Food recycling

Compositing

Animal Feed

Generating energy from Food Waste

SMART KPIs

Setting up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the employees in an organization is very important. 

These KPIs measure the aptitude of the employees in the different departments. One thing to remember is “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Every KPI should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (SMART). These are the best indicators to track the performance of the employees and ensure that they are treading in the right direction.

Each performance indicator is a quantifiable matrix, which reflects how well the organization achieves its goals and objectives.

Specific

By defining specific goals, a clear path is defined. This helps in measuring the performance and in giving the required guidance to attain the set goals.

Measurable

Once the goals are defined, they should be measured. It is important to stay focused and work.

Attainable

Always set realistic goals. The set KPIs should motivate the employees to work hard.  

Relevant

It’s always important to set KPIs that helps in working towards the growth of the employees and also the organization

Timely

Timelines should always be specified in order to achieve the set goal.       

These KPIs should be monitored on a regular basis through review meetings.

SMART KPIs help in driving the company towards greater success. Implementing them appropriately ensures that the employees will work to their full potentials and attain the set goals

SUPPLIERS DOCUMENTS PROCESS

Choosing the best supplier for the required products depends on the wide range of factors like facility audit, quality of material, value for money, reliability, prompt delivery and after service and availability of appropriate required documents.

After considering all the above mentioned aspects while choosing the best supplier, below is the emphasis on the documents requirements:

1. It might not require all the documents for all types of suppliers, hence it is important to determine what kind of documents required for which kind of suppliers.
2. If the supplier belongs to the service category then the required documents might not be the same as that of a regular items supplier. Hence categorize the documentation as per the suppliers’ category.
3.  A combination of suppliers which belongs to the similar or near to similar category can have the same set of documents.
4. A matrix showing the various suppliers and the category of material supply should be made. Based on that the document requirement depend on the category of supplies can be made. Through this matrix it would be easy to check if a combination of suppliers can get the same kind of documents.
5. Create a process depicting the supplier sourcing and the document requirements for the suppliers and service providers. 

COMPRESSED GAS CYLINDERS

The compressed gases are stored in metal cylinders which are designed and tested for use with compressed gases. They are made in various sizes and shapes

The compressed gas cylinders should be connected only to regulators and the equipments designed for the gas in the cylinder. Connecting to the wrong equipment might be dangerous.

Here are few tips on handling and storage of gas cylinders

How should the compressed gas cylinders be stored?

-  Cylinders should not be stored under direct sunlight and 

    near hot work areas

-   Cylinder to be stored safe, secure & in vertical 

     upright position

-    Full & Empty cylinders to be marked and stored separately

-    Store cylinders in well ventilated areas and with 

      protective caps

-    Oxygen cylinders should be stored 5 meters away from other cylinders

-     Fire extinguishers to be kept near cylinder storage areas

Safe handling and Transportation

-          Cylinders should not be rolled horizontally, it should rolled at its base

-          Cylinders should be secured in vertical upright position while transportation

-          Cylinders to be fitted with valve caps or hood

-          Use cylinder trolley for carrying cylinders

-          Do not strike an arc on cylinders

-          Do not lift with slings or by protective cap.

-          Lift to upper levels with approved cages only.

Working with high pressure

-     Air hoses should not be disconnected at compressors until the hose line has been bled and is free of any air pressure.

-     Check hoses & couplings daily before use.

-      Use only hoses specially manufactured for compressed air

-      Compressed air for cleaning parts of machinery must not exceed 30psi.

-      Do not remove reducing nozzles.

-     Keep hoses off the ground or floor wherever they pass through walkways, roads etc. if possible use hose ramps.

-      Compressed air should not be used to blow dirt or dust from cloth or the body

Advanced Analytics in procurement

What is procurement analytics?

The tool which supports the improvement strategies. It shines the spotlight on the company’s expenditure spent, how where and on what and also by introducing the competitive external market data which supports category and sourcing strategies.

The advanced procurement analytics supports the transformation of procurement tactical to strategic function. This transformation helped procurement in positioning itself as a value creating organization with faster access to better leverage the data.

The procurement analytics should have a clear focus on the company’s goals and objectives.

It is important to determine the procurement analytics needs like the vendors data. A process to ensure that effective evaluation criteria is applied to analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of the vendors’ performance related to timely deliveries, perfect order and supplying the required quality and quantity.

By developing advanced analytical competencies, procurement can make a transformation to a strategic function. 

Steps to a Great Resume

Resume is an outline of the skill sets, work experience, educational qualifications and accomplishments of one’s career.

Employers spend very little time to scan the resume. It is a first impression on the potential employer; hence it has to be articulated show casing the abilities, accomplishments and qualifications in the best possible manner.  

An effective resume gets noticed because:

• The emphasis is on relevant accomplishments and potential contributions.

• The main focus is on the skills and requirements of a specific field or position.

• It is concise, well-organized and easy to read.

Here are few steps to write a resume:

Customize:

The resume should be tailor made, optimize it as per the key words to give it a customized look and grab the attention of the employers.

Concise:

The resume should be clear and concise. Incorporate relevant job experience, education and other projects. The format should have easy to read fonts and readable font size.

Quantify:

Quantify the work experience and accomplishments in order to show that you are the potential candidate for the job.

Review:

The resume should be reviewed for spell check, grammatical errors and whether the appropriate language has been used or not. As an addition save your resume in the PDF format.

Having a ready resume is always an asset when seeking a job.

Make free space with CCleaner

Why should the free space on a hard disk be wiped?

When any sort of file is create in the system, a certain hard drive space is assigned to that file. That memory space is unique to that particular file. When the file is deleted, it would be transferred to Trash. When the Trash is emptied, we get rid of the file effectively.

The hard drive space that was once assigned to the deleted file remains in existence. As long as this still exists, it can be virtually recovered by skilled technicians or hackers. This is one of the principles of data recovery software. If that information is sent to Trash to be effectively removed forever, wipe free space software should be used.

CCleaner is able currently to do 3 types of wiping: Zero Out, 7-pass erase and 35-pass erase. Any of those methods will generally make impossible recovery using commercial grade software recovery. The number of erasing passes it is relevant just for very sensitive data that could be hardware recovered by specialized laboratories in an controlled environment using direct plate reading even from defective hard drivers. But in this case it is better to use dedicated erasing software that include DoD and other sophisticated algorithms.

From http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner one can download CCleaner for Mac.

It can be installed like any usual application, with a simple drag to application folder.

In the tools tab Erase Free Space button is found, as seen in this screenshot.

Choose the hard drive volume of which you want to wipe the free space. After pressing the Erase Free Space button. Depends on the size of the disk, could run for few minutes or for hours.