“Know your suppliers. An audit does not make up for lack of knowledge of a supplier.”

So said Bob Whitaker, chief science officer for the Newark, Del.-based Produce Marketing Association, at the Winning at Retail conference last week.

Or as Mansour Samadpour of Seattle says,??

“The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education.”

Which is why every time some group like organic growers proclaims to be validated by third-party audits as a sign of superior product, I sigh. Have they not heard of the third-party audits done at Peanut Corporation of America which found the plant produced superior peanut paste – so superior that some 700 people got sick, nine died and over 4,000 products had to be recalled because of Salmonella flourished in the crappy production plant?

Guess that didn’t come up in a recent survey announced by press release and uncritically repeated by others.

A study being conducted by Michigan State University (MSU) on behalf of DNV finds that U.S. consumers are highly aware of food safety issues and they have high recognition of third party certification as an effective signal of food safety assurance. The consumers strongly prefer to see products labeled as safety certified. … US consumers say they want to see evidence on product labels that the food they are buying has passed some kind of independent safety certification process. Moreover, slightly more than one third of consumers indicate a willingness to pay a premium, upwards of 30 percent more.

Food safety surveys along with hypothetical willingness-to-pay studies are crap: people overestimate their own food safety behaviors and vote at the supermarket checkout counter with their wallets.

The vast number of facilities and suppliers means audits are required, but people have been replaced by paper. Audits, inspections, training and systems are no substitute for developing a strong food safety culture, farm-to-fork, and marketing food safety directly to consumers rather than the local/natural/organic hucksterism is a way to further reinforce the food safety culture.

Whitaker also challenged the conventional wisdom that a high audit score — especially on an announced audit — is indicative of an all-is-well food safety program.

He said it’s obvious when a company cleans up in preparation for an audit.

“Unfortunately, I think in this industry we’ve gotten pretty good at dressing up and taking audits.”