agribusinessreview.comJAN - MARCH - 20228TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN FOOD SAFETY ­ WHERE TO STARTBY JILL HOFFMAN, DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL QUALITY AND FOOD SAFETY, MCCORMICK & CO. INCWhether you're using the term"Quality 4.0", "Digital Transformation," or "Quality of the Future," to guide your path for technology enablement, the goal is similar. Using technology, data, and enabling digitalization have made its' way into quality and food safety in recent years. Now quality leadership must think about how to support all of the possibilities and requests for bringing a digital transformation into the quality and food safety function. Now before you feel you need to run out and hire a handful of data scientists to your quality team, take a step back and look at the whole picture. What Do You Want to Know?Sometimes we can get mesmerized about the possibilities of what data and technology can do for us now or in the future. Ground yourself first, and don't put all of your bets into something just because of the novelty. Ask yourself and your teams the simple question of, "What Do You Want to Know?" and then quickly follow it up with the secondary question of, "How Do We Use This Jill HoffmanInformation to Support Our Goals?". Also, ensure you have a plan on how to deploy the technology so that its' value isn't marginalized by not having a plan for deployment. A quick example of this can be illustrated through horizon scanning technology. There are many offerings on the market for horizon scanning tools that bring multiple points of data into a "one-stop-shop" for users to view trends or emerging risks. The purchase of these types of tools is a great way to bring big data and insights into the quality and food safety function. But don't just stop with the purchase. You will need to think about how you want to manage this ongoing stream of information and insights and how it will play into decision making or action into the quality function. You'll need to identify resources that will monitor this tool and information and determine what will require action if a trend or emerging risk is identified. Does it trigger a notification to a supplier for potential action? Do you decide to test a raw material opinionIN MY
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