Protecting Your Food Brand

Kwik Trip’s food safety event helps build relationships throughout the industry and government.

July 12, 2017

By Jeff Lenard

This article in its entirely is featured in the July 2017 issue of NACS Magazine.

It only takes one instance of food borne contamination—or rumor of contamination—to essentially kill your brand and business. A long list of companies have struggled or failed to come back from a high-profile contamination case.

Protection of the food supply chain and the new food safety initiatives and regulations are increasingly important to the convenience retailing industry as it grows foodservice sales. In 2016, foodservice (prepared foods and dispensed beverages) accounted for 21.7% of in-store sales and 35.2% of gross profits for our industry.

NACS and convenience retailers play a critical role in protecting the food supply chain through food safety measures. This September, Kwik Trip is hosting its eighth Annual Food Protection/Food Safety In-Service Event. The company hosts the annual event to address the four key elements of Food Protection:

  • Food Safety: Chemical, physical and biological hazards entering the food supply chain
  • Food Quality: Cooking to the right temperature, holding food for the right amount of time, etc.
  • Food Security: Intentional acts to degrade the quality/safety of food products
  • Food Science: Using science to validate and verify processes and programs to protect the food supply chain and public health

Kwik Trip’s owner, Don Zietlow, feels this event is very important to the company’s business model and for its business partners. “There are three major threats to Kwik Trip’s success: a food-related illness, decay of our culture, and burdensome and unnecessary government regulations. Kwik Trip’s culture, managing our food-related risks, and working with all levels of the government on regulations are all critical components of our Food and Brand protection,” he said.

The event, held annually in La Crosse, Wisconsin, brings together Kwik Trip, Inc.'s growers, processors, manufacturers/suppliers, distributors, other retailers, academia and governmental agencies to hear from experts in the field and to see food protection practices in place at some of Kwik Trip’s facilities. There is no registration fee.

For more information, contact Jay L.E. Ellingson at jellingson@kwiktrip.com or Marty Putz at mputz@kwiktrip.com.

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