This Q&A is sponsored by Registrar Corp, publisher of the 2026 Global Food Safety Training Survey.
Most food manufacturers rate their training program as “sufficient.” It clears the audit. It fills the completion report. And that’s the heart of the problem. “Sufficient” is the grade you give a program that gets the job done and stops there. Meanwhile, the plants that push past it are posting measurable gains in behavior compliance, retention, and risk reduction.
Few people have watched that development more closely than Laura Dunn Nelson, a globally recognized food safety consultant with Culture Strategies Group and more than 40 years designing food safety, quality, and culture programs across manufacturing, processing, packaging, food service, and retail. She’s served on multiple GFSI technical working groups, including Food Safety Culture and Storage & Distribution, and is known for helping organizations turn regulatory expectations into practical, culture-driven execution. As a co-founder of the Global Food Safety Training Survey, now in its ninth edition, she’s spent years tracking how training really happens on the plant floor. The 2026 edition drew on more than 1,200 food safety professionals across 3,000-plus facilities worldwide, making it one of the most comprehensive looks at the subject anywhere.
In this conversation, Laura unpacks what “sufficient” really costs, why so many plants stall there, and what separates programs that view training as a checkbox from the ones that turn it into a performance engine. She digs into the follow-through gap between knowing and doing, the leadership habits that make training stick, and where AI is starting to earn its place in learning and development.
Q. Your research found that most facilities rate their training as “sufficient,” and only one in five call it above average. What does “sufficient” actually look like, and why are so many plants stopping there?
Laura Dunn Nelson: We define sufficient as “gets the job done.” And when I look at the industry, sufficient is really compliance-required training. Folks who are focused on audits, on SQF or BRC or GFSI, look at what those codes require and execute the training needed to achieve and maintain the certification.
There are any number of ways to do that, and the survey delineates a lot of those methodologies. But the code doesn’t say you need to do it well, in a compelling way, in a way you can confirm. So a lot of it is one and done. Get it done. And what we know is that the delivery often isn’t optimized.
Some people bring everybody in for a big Saturday and run the annual refresher all at once, food safety stacked on top of environmental health and safety. Onboarding can be the same. Here’s where the time clocks are, here’s where the bathrooms are, here’s a bunch of food safety courses, and here’s slips, trips, and falls. It’s all put together, and then we wonder why employees forget. That’s one of the hallmarks of why training doesn’t get followed.
It’s also about how it’s delivered. Is it at an education level appropriate for the workforce? We look at around an eighth-grade level. I’m a microbiologist, so we love to pack in the technical jargon, and it’s just not well understood. We’ll get head nods, we’ll get people finishing the quizzes, but often we don’t achieve the knowledge transfer we’re after.
Language is another one. We tend to lean into English, and some of these plants are so diverse, close to 20-plus dialects and languages spoken. We don’t always do a good job presenting the material in someone’s preferred native language. So again, we get the nods, but taking that information and applying it on the plant floor can be a miss. If all we do is check the box and document completion, that’s sufficient. That’s the definition.
Q. High-quality programs are tied to measurable performance jumps. Going from sufficient to above average drives a 137% lift in consistent SOP adherence. What are companies missing when they stop at ticking the box?
LN: They’re missing the chance to root out why employees aren’t following procedures. There’s a real dichotomy with the people going above and beyond. They’re achieving results that reduce risk. Their employees adhere to SOPs. They’re more likely to identify a food safety risk, elevate it to a supervisor, make a call, or stop the operation.
Those outcomes come down to both the quality of the training and how effective it is. It goes back to language and to the construct of the content. It might mean adding training topics beyond what SQF or a similar certification requires, because a particular plant needs to mitigate a particular risk.
The other thing I see in those companies is investment in the coaching and verification of behaviors. That’s the key step. We can train all we want, and employees may have the knowledge, but are they applying it in the plant? That’s where it often falls apart.
Q. Your data shows 75% of facilities measure with quizzes and tests, while too few check whether employees apply the training or how it affects performance. What’s the risk of that lack of follow-through?
LN: There’s a big risk in missing that step. Training has been evolving. Fifteen years ago, when I was immersed in this, training was classroom-based and instructor-led. We collected everybody’s signatures, maybe ran a quiz, maybe not, and that was it. Now it’s evolving into learning and development, and part of what’s pushing that is the forgetting curve. Without reinforcement, people forget something like 98% of what we cover, even when many of these training tasks are critical to our food safety operations. There are all kinds of reasons we need to reinforce training, and the people who miss that concept expose themselves to risk.
Let me give you an example from my auditing days. I was at a plant that used quaternary ammonium spray as a preventive control for Listeria. I asked if we could double-check the concentration in the spray water. We hunted around for the measures, and it came back all water, a completely neutral 7.0 pH. The operator was puzzled. The tank that was supposed to be automatically dosing the quat was completely empty. Nobody had checked it. It was on the task list, and that employee had missed the verification. They were assuming this expensive sanitation system would just function forever.
The point is that important steps get missed if we’re not reminding employees and doing the due diligence to go out and confirm the data. Where’s our chemical check? Are we checking the tank? We’re relying on that to control a pathogen. Codes like SQF and BRC are now requiring that training assessment be baked in, so you’re out of code if you’re not doing it. And yes, it’s hard. It takes resources and time to make the assignments and run the assessments. But deciding not to validate employee behaviors on a routine basis is a risk to the organization.
Q. Do you have an example of a plant that does this exceptionally well? What did that resourcing or process change take?
LN: I have several. So many of these companies are leaning into technology and innovation and doing creative things once they recognize the risk. They understand that learning and development plays a critical role in preventing issues and mitigating risk through employee alignment.
One company I’m thinking of invested in a digital learning system with prompts and the ability to assign supervisors to coaching events after the training. They made sure they had trained trainers, which is somewhat unique in this industry, so their people understood the whys and could answer questions effectively. Then they trained the coaches, the supervisors having those two-way conversations. And they built it into those supervisors’ job responsibilities. It wasn’t one more thing to do on the fly. It was an important part of the role.
They gave those supervisors leadership training too, which is also a little unusual here. A lot of supervisors get promoted because they know the equipment and they show up, not because they have leadership skills. So this made a real difference. Once they lined it out, fundamental training for employees, then supervisors going out to mentor and coach on a routine basis, they saw better retention, fewer non-compliances, and improved GMP scores. The digitized system lets them document the whole process. It’s powerful, and they’re not the only ones. More and more companies are understanding the value of validating those behaviors.
Q. When you asked why workers aren’t following protocols, the top answer wasn’t “bad training.” It was people reverting to old habits and leadership not reinforcing the new way. How much of a training problem is really a leadership problem?
LN: There are opportunities on both sides. From a leadership perspective, you have to decide how you’re going to run the business to get aligned behaviors. And honestly, some companies still have brutal turnover. Working in food manufacturing isn’t always comfortable. You can’t have your phone, sometimes it’s very hot or very cold, you’re on your feet a lot. I know companies that hire 25 people on Monday and have two left by Friday.
So some of them decide not to invest in formal onboarding, figuring these folks will leave anyway. They assign a new hire to shadow an existing employee. That’s not consistent training. If you’re showing me the job tasks and someone else is showing another new hire, you get all kinds of variation. It’s also how bad habits travel. You might tell me, “When we get busy, as long as you turn in all the temperatures, it’s fine. You can catch up at the end. Just fill in every blank.”
Now what the new employee heard is that they don’t actually have to take product temperatures every hour within range. They just have to hand in a full sheet with acceptable numbers and there are no consequences. That kind of breakdown is worrisome, because how do you ferret out that risk unless you’re out there observing, having a dialogue, and coaching? Asking, why are all these temperatures filled in when it isn’t even ten o’clock? Those short cuts can easily introduce a potential food safety risk if uncovered.
I saw the same thing on an audit once. Someone was filling in temperatures well in advance because they had to turn the sheet in, and the real problem they were solving was pulling non-compliant product off the belt so they didn’t lose a customer. That tension between production and doing the right thing on food safety is real. We have to help employees understand what I call the must-have food safety behaviors.
Q. You found that more than half of facilities are still training off paper, and only 17% use a learning management system. Across all industries, that number is 76%. Why is food manufacturing so far behind here?
LN: Two reasons. One, we’re not good at change, especially where we don’t have to change. Production evolves every day, and that’s where the focus goes. Training is one of those things that stays back in “sufficient.” If we can get 100% completion, we feel like we’ve achieved our training goal.
It’s interesting. During COVID, we saw a jump in e-learning because plants had to do things differently for health and safety. Companies invested in learning management systems to run e-learning safely, and most of them experienced the wow factor. It’s micro-training. It’s faster and more engaging. The course won’t advance until the employee has answered the questions and clicked through the interactions, so it forces them to participate. It has drag-and-drops, scenarios, things you don’t get in an instructor-led classroom. The “aha” moment was that e-learning delivered more capability. Employees seemed to enjoy it, engage more, and remember more.
That said, you have to explore and do your due diligence. For very large companies, some with 1,000, up to 5,000 employees, pure e-learning is almost impossible. There are physical and logistical limits, though there are workarounds. It’s a bit like buying a new car. I’ve seen friends with vented seats and biometric features we didn’t even know existed until we went and researched what’s out there. Training is the same. If you don’t spend time looking at the newer platforms, you won’t know the efficiencies and advantages they can deliver.
Q. When you asked about barriers, scheduling time was by far the most common answer. Yet classroom sessions and supervisor coaching are the most time-intensive and hardest to schedule. Beyond unfamiliarity with newer systems, what else keeps manufacturers stuck using the most painful methods?
LN: It’s a great question, and it’s genuinely puzzling in some cases. We just keep our heads down and stay in static mode. One of our survey questions asked how facilities are resourcing their training department: more money, less money, or the same. A huge majority said the same investment level. Only about 15% or less were putting more into their training program.
When you look at where the investment goes, the thinking is, why would I do anything if it isn’t broke? But have you really evaluated your training effectiveness? What I see is people getting comfortable with 10% GMP non-compliance last month, with the spike on second shift, mostly hairnets or beard guards worn wrong, or glove use. And the response is, okay, supervisors, let’s get on this. But those supervisors have got a million other things to do, so correcting it never becomes a normal focus. We trained everyone on GMPs and glove management, so clearly there’s a disconnect.
That comes back to whether we even understand how effective the training is. Did people understand it? The third most popular answer for why employees don’t follow the rules was “I didn’t understand it” or “I don’t remember it.” That’s not effective training. Measuring effectiveness is the missing link for a lot of us. We stay on status quo and don’t even realize something’s broken, or that we don’t have to accept it. There are ways to drive out those non-compliant behaviors using tools that are available to us now.
Q. Quality training also supports retention. You found that above-average programs are 108% more likely to improve it. In an industry with a painful, ongoing labor shortage, how should leaders think about training differently once they know it can move retention?
LN: The companies that go above and beyond see so many advantages, and better retention is one of them. When you cross-reference what those folks are doing, one of the big ones is investing in upskilling and professional development.
Say you’ve got an employee stuck on third shift who wants first shift. That might mean learning different equipment. So they train people across different equipment, tasks, and roles. Those employees recognize the company is investing in them, and it gives the company stronger bench strength. When you have no-shows, you know someone else is trained to step in. It works for operations, and it answers that underlying question employees have: does my company even care about me, or should I be looking elsewhere?
The companies that do this well also identify emerging leaders and give them leadership training so they’re ready when a supervisory role opens. I’ve watched turnover drop dramatically at companies like that. They went from always hiring externally to constantly promoting from within. That’s where the justification for going above and beyond lives. It’s outside compliance training, but it just makes business sense.
Q. Another big opportunity is AI, and only 13% of facilities are using it in training right now. The top barrier wasn’t fear of job loss, but a lack of internal expertise. What does a realistic first step look like for a manufacturer who’s curious but unsure where to start?
LN: AI is the topic of the day. We made a conscious decision to embed AI questions in the study for the first time, and honestly, we were surprised by the answers. We expected security or job loss to be the barrier, and it wasn’t. It was more that it’s unknown. That makes sense. We’re always busy, and it’s easier to keep doing what we’ve been doing.
The opportunity is to get educated on the use cases around training. I’m glad to see conferences like the Food Safety Summit and IAFP hosting workshops on how to write a good prompt and manage projects. That kind of knowledge is where we need to start.
Some digitized training platforms are already leaning in. They’re using AI for translations, which is amazing, not perfect but helpful. They’re using chatbots for training knowledge, so an employee can ask what the regulation is or how to do something and get real-time information. Some of the newer training platforms have AI course creation built into them, to turn SOPs into e-learning courses incredibly fast. There are real efficiencies AI can bring to learning and development, and they’re hugely valuable when the number one thing everyone says is that they don’t have time. So start with education. LinkedIn has resources, and there are plenty of training opportunities out there. I’d encourage people to take them.
Q. Zooming all the way out: if an executive reads this report today and could change only one thing this quarter, what would you tell them to do?
LN: First, I’d thank the executives who want to embrace change, because asking “what could we be doing better?” across their departments is such a great thing, and learning and development is a perfect place to ask it. The next thing is to resource it. The codes all talk about management commitment and support, but we need executives to actually lean in and challenge their teams.
My one recommendation would be to move away from measuring training completion and move toward measuring employee capability and competence. Pick one high-risk task. Maybe it’s had gaps in the past, maybe you’ve had turnover there, or maybe it’s just high risk. Make sure you have effective training for it. Then test it by asking employees what they’re supposed to do in that role, what their responsibility is, and why. Assign coaching and behavior verification to that task, and close the loop. Do we have knowledgeable, trained, competent, confident employees who can make the critical decisions that position requires?
And the coaching isn’t just confirming that someone follows the five steps of handwashing. It’s the why. What do you do if the soap is missing? If you see someone next to you washing their hands while wearing a ring, what happens? Now we’re edging into culture, which is a whole new topic. But if an executive took on that kind of focused effort, I think it would uncover opportunities across the organization and level up not just training effectiveness, but operational performance.
For more insights on building a better food safety program, download the 2026 Global Food Safety Training Survey report.
