.png)
The CPG Level Up Podcast
A Podcast about the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry!
The CPG Level Up Podcast
#10 Rochelly Serrano: Developing a Strong FSQA Culture
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Rochelly's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rochelly-serrano/
Nathan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-schmidt-810756139/
Website: www.progressusolutions.com
Welcome everyone. I am Nathan Schmidt, the host of the CPG Level Up Podcast, where we bring CPG talent and leadership together to explore trends, elevate careers, and uncover strategies that power the products consumers rely on every day. Today I have the honor to have a conversation with Rochelle Serrano, a FSQA leader in the food and beverage industry and consultant. She is an accomplished FSQA professional with 30 plus years in food safety and quality leadership within CPG. She's built and scaled enterprise level food safety systems. She's the founder of a leadership development platform, a trusted coach bringing technical expertise and executive influence. And today we dive into the evolution of food safety and quality and why real change isn't just the science, but in communication. What it takes to build high-impact FSQA culture versus a checking the box type of organization and developing leadership and career growth in FSQA, balancing risk, speed, and perfection in CPG operations. I hope you enjoy this episode and feel free to share with someone you think would find value. Hey Rochelle, how's it going? It's going pretty good. How about you? I am doing great. I'm doing great. Thank you for hopping on the CPG level up podcast here. I know uh you and I had a brief conversation a couple weeks ago. Uh just, you know, I've reached, I believe, just resonating with some of your LinkedIn content and some of the thought leadership that you've shared there. Um, and so happy we're able to have a conversation here. I think uh a really good starting point for this conversation is if you could just give a uh a brief overview of your expertise and your career, and then we'll we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you for the opportunity, Nathan. I spent over 30 years in the food industry, started in operations, and shortly after that I moved into quality assurance, and I had spent the bulk of my career with quality assurance um in all sorts of different um um industries. I have worked in manufacturing, I have worked in restaurants, warehouse, supermarkets, the gamut from one end to the next. And that provides a really good visibility from end to end. So when I come to a place, I can speak from different set points, and I think that's pretty important to mention. A lot of us in the industry find a spot and stay in it for too long. And I have um kind of jump around a little bit in an essence and desire to learn and understand more, and that has provided me a good ability and wealth of knowledge so I can speak about much without being the expert at anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. I love that. Now tell me a little bit about from your perspective, how food safety quality assurance has evolved over the years within food and beverage.
SPEAKER_01That's an interesting question because you think about in regards to the evolution of really the food safety and quality. And when you look at it, it hasn't been much. It's really slow, and we're very slow to adapt. And there's many reasons for it. I think part of it because the majority of it is because food is emotional and um people really identify with food. And when you think about it, and the spectrum of the food industries in the United States specifically is from moms and pops to huge, huge uh operations. And the majority that lies in the middle, it's a combination of both. And in regards to regulatory expertise, the way it has evolved, as I mentioned, super slowly, but it once be it once was before the science, it was, I trust you that you're gonna do the right things. And with time, we quickly realized not everybody had the same mentality. So incidents continue to happen, regulatory got involved, and they become a bit of a scrutiny process in finding out what we were doing. And even with that, it was we will inspect the quality of the product, which meant that the product had to be done in order for you to inspect quality, and then quickly realize that is not the safest place or the best place in financially speaking terms, because the product is already done. So they thought, well, what if we build quality into the product from the ingestion from the beginning? And that's how we started processing and changing, but even with all that, what we're battling in food safety is microorganisms. That's a reality, and that's what's gonna get us sick for the most part, right? Yeah, so microorganisms they evolve even slower than we do. So the same microorganisms we were talking 20 years ago are the same microorganisms we're talking today, and the ways that we mitigate them 20 years ago is the same way you mitigate them now. So, in an essence, yes, we have changed, but very slowly.
SPEAKER_00Ah, gotcha. And these so if we can get a little sciencey here, the these microorganisms are not like a virus where they like are constantly evolving, mutating, etc. It's just kind of like, hey, this is what the microorganism is, this is what the environment is, this is the type of environment it lives in. Um, this is the type of environments that it doesn't live in, and there's not too much, I guess, adaptation involved with that, if that makes sense, or is it just a lot slower from what you suppressed?
SPEAKER_01Yes, and and and you mentioned viruses. Viruses are part of the things that we deal with, they're part of the microscope of the microorganisms. They definitely are. They're more prevalent in the seafood industry than in other types of food, but they do exist. And and and I think what the point here is that yes, we know about them, now we understand more because of the impact in the industry, the impact on consumers, but they're the same. And you control them by temperature, you control it by chemicals, and you control them by different activities such as cooking, refrigeration, which enlist temperatures, right? Yeah, yeah, but but we're dealing with those now. We have different components as not only microorganisms, now we have um individually doing something purposely to the food. As as we evolve, there's other ways to really expand on what are the risks for the consumers, and that's where I have seen probably the most uh amount of growth.
SPEAKER_00Okay, amazing. Where uh where yeah, I I know you mentioned it's kind of a maybe a slow, more slowly evolving um or more slow evolution, but is there a trajectory or a trend that you know food safety, quality assurance, and food and beverage is really heading towards within the next, you know, 10, 15, 20 years that that you're observing with all the clients that that you serve?
SPEAKER_01Yes. And and it has been fascinating because I have started talking about this and I started to see how people reacted to it. The change is not gonna be in the science, the science is a science, the change is going to be in how do we communicate. And I'm gonna I'm gonna go down into this path. As you start working with technical groups, their responses are so technical that oftentimes we are disconnected and disjointed for the actual business. And and as an example, if if I am the VP of quality assurance, when I go into a meeting with a C-suite, typically I'm gonna speak in quality terms and food safety terms, which are science-driven. So, guess what? When I do that, the majority of my peers in that room, they're not scientists, they're businesses, right? They're business mind. So when I come with that type of language, it's like I come actually with a completely different language that the whole group understands. So if I'm gonna make a change that is gonna really impact the business, that is gonna really impact the company, it's gonna impact the world, has to be in the way I communicate with those. And that's where I see people really more adapting, understanding what is the business and how do I communicate like so effectively that leaders on my own circle understand and now know what is at risk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating you say that. Uh, a handful of placements that I've been brought in or searches that I've been brought into within food safety, quality assurance within the last six months or so. Uh, one of their biggest bottlenecks in their interview process has been uh that, you know, personality/slash communication skills, they usually label that in like just that cultural fit category. But what they're really looking for is not someone who knows the science of food safety, quality assurance, and these specific product categories, but actually how to communicate those cross-functionally and up the chain. So, how would one and honestly, I it's very tough to find people who have that skill refined and built out. So, what does that look like? Uh well, how how would some go how would some someone go about developing that skill set um in their career since that's where things are evolving towards within this department?
SPEAKER_01They're gonna realize I'm extremely passionate about this topic because I have been that individual that I only spoke science and couldn't get ahead. So there's three ways that I have devised that you can get ahead. One, you look for mentorship. And what I mean mentorship, I'm looking for people who can really tell me that side of the business that I'm not quite understand finances, operations, marketing, sales. The more you adapt to those languages, the more proficient and effective you'll become because now you can speak the language, right? Second, and I'm gonna self-tout in here. Um, I created a certification that teaches to do that, exactly that. Um, why? Because when as I shared with you, I was an individual that didn't know how to get ahead. I I knew I was proficient, I knew I was smart, I knew I was a go-getter, but yet I was only consulted when issues arrived. I wanted to be part of the creation, I want to be involved at the desk at the table when the inception, and I was not part of that. Why? Because I was an naysayer, and nobody wants an naysayer on the table, or nobody wants that person that nobody understands.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? I didn't fit in. It took me a couple of times understanding what and even learning with uh with my own forehead, as I like to say it. I was banging my head against the wall, right? I finally understood. I needed to speak the right language. So the third one is you self-advocating for yourself, self-continue to ask the questions, continue to do learn as much as you can, looking for for an individual who's willing to share with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, I I love that. And this is for our audience super, super important to develop. And it, there's not like I always like to the people that I talk to in the industry who are maybe looking to build these skill sets. I always tell them that this isn't like playing basketball where you have to be six foot ten and there's nothing you can change about that. These are skills that you can develop just through making a choice, and 100%. I I can almost see a correlation too. I mean, it sounds like you're really emphasizing the the value of mentorship and understanding the business side of things. Um, I've worked on a handful of uh positions where it's like uh companies looking for sales individuals that are from an RD background and so very science driven, but need to communicate in layman's terms to the customer. And one of the things that they value is being able to tell a story that drives a point home uh and to connect, um, because that takes that complexity and makes it simple. So um appreciate that value there. Now, let's say um, let's say you someone's working at a company or you as a consultant are going into a company and their you know uh PCQI scores are like in the 50s or something. They're just the everything's a chaos, like and I actually have had uh I've had an example of people I know of in the in the 50s. I'm not joking here. Oh god. Um, so that's obviously something that's not a good situation. No. Uh what's the foundation to build a a strong food safety quality assurance program?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna take a second to think about that one because I think this is gonna be it's like reading the tea leaves, right? The the principle behind it is transparency and honesty. The second most important element to me is recognizing that not one individual carries his weight, it is distributed among everybody. The third one is understanding that you're stronger together, and it's not a win-win if we have opposing partners or opposing ideas or opposing principles, it just doesn't benefit anybody, and where you see this really manifest it well, and I have been in companies in which I'm in awe of how they do things is when titles are not important, groups are not important, but what's important is that we all united making decisions, and once we get behind this idea, everybody will get behind it and execute it accordingly. And let's say I'm not strong enough in this, somebody will carry me at that moment. Is that I call that the circular rope, the circular um rope of immunity, because when when somebody drops it, the rest of the team keeps that tension in the circle tightened until that person can get back where he needs to. Is that collaboration? And I have been only in one place where I have seen that work. And they're a phenomenal company, they're a great restaurant, but they embody that.
SPEAKER_00So if I'm understanding correctly, you would say, you know, foundation to a strong FSQA program. Obviously, people are gonna need policies and systems and procedures in place, but more importantly, it sounds like there has to be a unity and a really strong uh you know and clear communication. It sounds like almost culture within a team.
SPEAKER_01It is a culture, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's like almost unbreakable in a way. So, from developing a culture then, uh, because you've you've led a good amount of FSQA teams throughout your career. Uh, how how would a leader go about you know cultivating a culture of excellence in that regard and of unity within um their their teams?
SPEAKER_01Great question. How do you create that culture? You have to embody it, you can create it, you have to become the culture every day that you show up, you have to show up owning that culture. And here's what I have noticed when you lead teams, people, and it's gonna sound cliche because I you have heard this before. People don't watch what you say, they watch what you do. Yep, and and and and they prioritize where you prioritize as well. So, how do you create that culture? You are the culture, and and there's not an acceptable role that doesn't embrace the culture. Everybody will have to become the culture and participate in it. And how do you create the culture? You go through the room and you then determine what's important for this company, what is it gonna really make us succeed? What is it gonna make us stand out? What are the principles that we get behind it? And those principles will have to percolate through from top to the bottom. It's not longer a slogan on the wall, it is a leaving thing. When it becomes part of the decoration, eventually you don't get to see it anymore. You have to leave it every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, awesome. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's a good mindset there. And so FSQA is obviously working heavily cross-functionally um within organizations. And I've I've heard some FSQA professionals that I've spoken to describe uh you guys as like the police of food of food and beverage. You guys are the police going around. Um and so uh what does strong cross-functional collaboration and communication look like, especially when there's competing priorities uh in manufacturing or just the product lifecycle, etc.?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna answer that in two ways. The first one is I um the term of police, I really it's it's a very negative for me. And I'm gonna tell you I kind of despise it. And here's why. In order for you to be police, there has to be a set of rules that nobody wants to abide for. So therefore you're making sure those rules are abided to.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that is not a win-win. It will never be uh collectively or collaborative or team effort, never, right? Because the minute that police is no longer there, people will want to do what they want to do. That's why they're police. If if everybody would adopt to it, there wouldn't be no police.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01So to me, I would hate to be called the police because I don't want to force people to do anything. I want to tell you the story so compelling that you not doing what I'm sharing with you will become part of you know part of not wanting to be part of this team. It is your duty to do this, not because I'm telling you, but because you understand when you don't do it, what are the costs of not doing it? Yeah, big difference, right? Yeah, how do I create that? Again, you don't create that, you have to embody it, but you also have to create room for people to not do it or not do it well. So you are there coaching them and saying, Look, what did you learn about this? How do we do it differently next time? What do we need to do to change this behavior? But to me, when when they refer to quality as a police, I'm like, okay, let's start from scratch. I I don't need to be that reminder because the costs of not doing this, the here's the impact to the business. So it's beyond quality and beyond ops. Now is we are in it together, we both get affected by this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like too the importance of, I mean, because each department has their own priorities that they're focusing on. But if people are fuzzy on like the overall picture of where the business is trying to go, maybe the goals for the business, then um, if there's not unity on that, it sounds like then you know you can't really unify on anything, if that makes sense. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And even the way I see it, what you're describing is people rowing on a boat, but they're all rowing a different cadence. Yeah, the boat is not going anywhere anywhere fast enough, right? Because we don't we're dealing with our own things and our priorities are different, similar but different.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. Now, uh, you have the unique perspective of serving in a lot of organizations, um, having inputs in perspective into companies throughout the United States. And so uh what are, and you you'd obviously I wouldn't recommend going into specifics with like current case studies or anything like that, but from all of your observations throughout your career, like what are what are some of the common gaps in most food safety quality insurance programs that end up hurting the business in the short term and also in the long term?
SPEAKER_01What I have noticed the most with people in my industry is a lack of understanding the business.
SPEAKER_02If you think from the perspective that a business is here to make money, right?
SPEAKER_01That's what a business is for, unless you're non um uh I forgot the name, um nonprofit, non-profit, all of the businesses that I work for, they're here to make some money. Yeah, so so to me, a biggest gap will be you know, in understanding the business and and and you not becoming savvy enough to understand that every idea that they bring to the table is a viable idea, and you may be the only gate stopper for it. So, how do you how does somebody in FSQA becomes really um an individual that now is really an influence is understanding every possibility out there there is and how is that impact impacting the business?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. And um kind of with that, and kind of go maybe even just going back to the uh you know, you know, the FSQA culture side of things, uh are you seeing in the companies that you've been able to have input in, like how how often are FSQA teams really just existing to like check boxes and more procedural heavy versus like I think you mentioned like there's been one culture that you've been like has really adopted uh a strong that that circle that you talk to. So if you could maybe speak to Um, just kind of comparing those two because I'm sure, like on paper, it's probably the same thing. It's you're kind of following certain procedures, you're checking these boxes, making sure that everything is followed, you're doing root cause analysis, all the things. Um, just I don't know if you could speak to that, a checking the boxes culture versus a FSQA culture that actually creates an impact.
SPEAKER_01So, what you mentioned to me is checking the boxes is something that I really have struggled throughout my whole year. And here's why. QA goes checking the boxes as you referred to, and just with a piece of paper, paper and pen checking that operations have completed the task. It's never a situation where it's fostering any teamwork whatsoever. Why? Because I'm checking on you, checking on your work, checking whether you did or didn't do it. Imagine what how impactful that is for our relationship. It's gonna hugely impact us, but not in a positive way. So I have always shined away from being the quality department that goes behind with the clipboard checking every box that there is. I don't like it. I don't think that's where quality should play the biggest role. Why? Quality doesn't own any process. Why quality should be checking the process. That's a huge paradigm. That's a huge paradigm, right? I don't own operations, I don't, I don't own the beginning to the end. I don't do hardly anything. All I do is tattletale on you. If you think about it, right? Yeah. Or ensure that you don't go so far off from the specification that now you're sending a product that doesn't meet the consumer's expectation. Right? In places in which I have work, I have pushed away from this idea. I really want operations to own the process from end to end. You need to own it, you make the adjustments, you collect the data. Where I become more effective is if we don't do this, here's what can happen, and here's the impact to the business. If we have a product that did not quite 100% met specifications, I can influence the decision whether retain it, release it, or destroy it, but I'm gonna write down for you every scenario and that will give you the pros and cons. So we collectively make a decision towards the quality and the food safety of this product. That's where I think we're missing, missing the mark in quality and food safety. And that ties to your question of the policeman. Every time you go check the boxes, you become the policeman. And I'm gonna bring another scenario for you. When you're checking the boxes, you are so preoccupied making sure the A, B, and C and D and F are crossed. You don't have any room for you to really think about does this make any sense? You don't have any room to think about is there any other way of doing this better? You don't have any room to say, hey, what is an innovative way in which I can do this or accomplish something differently? It doesn't create the space for you to think, it creates a space for you to follow and do.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so it's best to have uh it sounds like if I'm gonna summarize, uh if you know, giving having people create ownership of their processes, and then um also just to kind of piggyback off of the uh checking the boxes thing, is oh, I just forgot what I was gonna say, but anyway, it sounds like really just having ownership of processes, and instead of just hey, we gotta follow these steps and kind of doing that mundanely, it's if you have ownership of the process yourself, there's gonna be a greater care, and then also that's gonna open up maybe some creative thinking, um, creativity, uh, to just improve some of those pieces down the road there, if I'm following correctly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yes, you are. Yeah, no, you are, and but I also follow to mention that it I think we have, we being the quality department, FSQA department, we have created a little bit of a bad people checking the boxes. Um, because traditionally, when you find part of when you find the issues is via the checkboxing against ops, right where would it work really fantastically would be that by ops checking the boxes and ensuring that process they own, they have the authority on it, they come to quality and say, Hey, I messed up. Here's what I did today. How do we collaborate to make sure this gets fixed, doesn't happen, educate me. I think that's where really QA and food safety can make a bigger impact, more so than I mean the police or the box checker or yeah, yeah, yeah. The regulatory body that exists within the plan.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Okay, gotcha. Now, um, you've you've had the experience of leading FSQA teams at a pretty large scale and everything. So when you as a leader are looking to bring in talents or you're adding headcount and everything, like, and this is for the people who are maybe earlier in their careers, maybe looking to progress through the gear gears and everything. What are you looking for uh as a hiring manager um when you're looking to expand your FSQA team?
SPEAKER_01I love this question. I'm looking for somebody open-minded, first and foremost. I'm looking for somebody who's not an naysayer. I want somebody who's curious every single day, regardless of how many years of experience they have. I'm looking for somebody who's willing to learn. I can teach the technical expertise, you got it at school. But the soft skills, those where we'll spend a lot of the time. And if you have those, even better, because I don't have to spend time on it, right? But but I'm looking for somebody who understands you are part of a business, and because you're part of a business, maybe your idea will not always win. And that is okay because as long as the company is winning, you're also winning. So I'm looking for, I'm gonna coin it a team member.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I think we have overused that term to the exhaustion, but I'm really looking for somebody who's understand that when you're signed under this brand or this company, you are an entity and you get benefit by the benefit of the company. Therefore, you need to be open-minded, flexible, willing to learn, curious, all of the things that I mentioned to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. And maybe um from a candidate's perspective, so those are things that you're looking for. But let's say someone wants to really progress through the gear, because that's for okay, is this person qualified for this position and what I'm hiring for the needs of the business that time? But what if there's a candidate or someone that really wants to progress their career all the way from the manager to director, even potentially VP level and above? Uh, what are the separators you're seeing from candidates that are kind of on that trajectory versus maybe those who are um kind of either plateau in their career or want to stay in a specific level in the organization, if that makes sense?
SPEAKER_01I'm not sure if I understood the question.
SPEAKER_00So if someone wants to like really progress like their career from a like, let's say a tech to a supervisor to a manager to a director to a VP, like what the people who have that trajectory in their career, like what have they done to develop themselves to where they've been able to make those progressions?
SPEAKER_01I don't know if I can answer that straight up, but here's how I'm gonna tackle it. First of all, I have seen a lot of people that have started from supervisor to manager to director to senior director. Not because they had the knowledge, not because they had the expertise, but because they were good at something. And because they were good at something, they thought they could be good at the something else, right? And that's where you find some leaders that aren't really good at managing people, but they're great technical saviness, right? So that's not the career path that I would want somebody to follow. Every career comes with its own challenges, and it is upon the individual seeking that career to understand that. But at some point, just because you're solid technical doesn't mean you're gonna be solid at anything else. You got to develop yourself and create that expertise, and it's it relies mostly in treating people treating people and knowing how to communicate. If you have technical expertise and you're you're strong in your feel and you're overqualified, but you have no idea how to talk to people, your career will be very limited.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, amen. That that's consistent with what I've seen as well in my observations and work in some of those positions. So uh if we're kind of gonna go back to more scenario-based questions here, what does it look like? If you could paint a picture, what does it look like um for teams handling the pressure of production speed and versus production with with safety? Obviously, we would want both, but from the people that I've talked to, sometimes when you really push the speed, speed, speed, that can lead to some compromises and or in safety. So if you could speak to just handling the pressure between those two, I would love to hear that.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna bring you a different perspective. Okay, speed, speed and safety, they're not opposite ends, they're in the same spectrum, they're connected together. You can be fast and be safe. You can. Let me tell you, give you a scenario. Um, in a job that I was, we were bottling uh so fast bottles that you could not even see them when they were processing. Honestly, even the label application, you couldn't see it. The only way you could see it if you film it on your phone and you slowed it down. You could see the labels being applied, the cap being applied to the bottle. And does that mean that because they were running fast, they were not safe? Not necessarily, right? That that's one example to tell you that that idea is kind of flaw in a sense. Um, the other thing that I want to bring to you is is that technical people like me, they tend to be perfectionist. And there's something you need to learn in the industry, is that I value progress over perfection a hundred times. Why? Because if you wait for a product to be perfect, you'll never get to market. And that is something that is hard to teach to a technical individual. But it's always progress over perfection. That's one of the things that I started teaching my teams. Why? Because they were holding this idea and this project and they were overpouring love and attention and work towards it, but we never went to market with it. So, how good is that product?
SPEAKER_02Not good, right?
SPEAKER_01Not at all, right? It's not benefiting anybody. So, how do you train this set of teams? First, you teach them that failing is fabulous, you need to fail. In fact, if you don't fail, you are not doing a good job. Why? Because failing will teach you better ways of doing it, right? So, failing is embrace in an organization in which people speak about failing proactively, you know that company is going somewhere because it has really given that ownership to those individuals to really try it out and make it work. And that is honest behavior and there's transparency in it, and people embrace it and they know they're not gonna get in trouble.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, second, any company that expects perfection in a product is a is a product that nobody can afford. It doesn't exist. So if you really want a product in the market, you have to live with the notion that it's not gonna be perfect in the market. But what you need to do is minimize the risk in the market, right? So you need a leader in quality that can tell you look, if we fail at this, this is how much it's gonna cost us. This is how many customer complaints we're gonna get, and the risk of exposure to the brand is X. If we do this one, the same scenario, if we do this one, the same scenario, and be able to tell you based on these numbers and the impact of the brand and the impact of the business. Here's the one that I recommend. And very seldom you have leaders in my position that can do that.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Hmm. That's amazing. Um, that's a progress over perfection. I love it.
SPEAKER_01Every a hundred percent every single time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's kind of uh that statement, honestly, um kind of poked on a paradigm that I had of food safety quality assurance being so consumed about perfection. Um, because in my mind, like if if food safety quality assurance, if like if that fails, then that I mean that potentially has the impact to significantly hurt the brand, obviously hurt the consumer, all of those things. Um and so, but it's talking about uh you talk about the leadership um proactively talking about failure, failure, and how can we learn that from every and everything? So, what is the where's the balance come then of obviously there's failures that like you know would really significantly hurt the brand, but then there's failures that are just expose exposing poor processes or process that processes that need to be improved within the team. So I guess is there a balance between that from a cultural standpoint? Um, or I I guess help me if you could elaborate on that point a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01So the question is, is there a balance between those two points, right? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Because obviously, you like you know, you could have a culture of um, you know, saying, like, hey, like failure is good because we it exposes flaws, we learn from that, but like if you have a person like me that's gonna go in, I don't have a technical foundation, like I could probably really screw something up really, really bad. That would really hurt the business, right? Right, right. And so, like, there's obviously there's got to be a line somewhere um with that. So, and if you could just go deeper on that point, I think that really resonates.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna break it down, I'm gonna break it down even farther for you, right? Yeah, in quality assurance, specifically in food, um, there's two components there's food safety and there's quality. Yep, and those are not the same. Food safety deals with things that can happen to the food that potentially will harm you as an individual. Let's let's go back to the microbiological, the viruses, the bacteria, all those things could certainly injure and affect the brand. There's quality components in it that oh, let me go back. So that this food safety is black and white. There's no deviating, yeah, unless you really want a recall, or unless you really want your your brand reputation to tank. Mess with this one and you're down, right? Quality. Quality deals with all of the things that you the operations deals with and controls that the consumer may or may not be aware. I'm gonna I'm gonna explain it. Okay, the location of a label on a product that's a specification. The specification tells you you're gonna be three quarters down the bottles, two inches from the bottom, and it's gonna be completely unwrapping the bottle without any wrinkles or bubbles, and the label will contain the expiration, the plan number, blah blah blah blah blah, right? That's that's that's a label. Now, let's say the machine is running so fast that eventually traded off a few millimeters. So now that label is slightly above where it needs to be. Okay, that's quality. So as a leader of quality, um, quality and food safety, that typically that product will go on hold because it doesn't meet the specifications that you have. So you put that product on hold and now you go through the risk assessment. Okay, can I release this product because uh it's not gonna hurt somebody? Absolutely, I can release it. All right, what is the impact to the brand if the consumer notice that the label is a fraction of a milliliter off? Well, it's pretty insignificant because consumers will not know that, right? That's the mentality that people like me need to adopt versus it's out of spec, throw it away.
SPEAKER_04Ah, gotcha.
SPEAKER_01And we we we really tailor towards more throw it away. Don't bother me, you screw it up, it's your fault. This position is on me.
SPEAKER_00No, uh, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So between those two terms, there's some leeway that you can play with. A lot of us are super afraid of playing with that because it will mean an impact, but you can even calculate the cost of that impact too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's I appreciate that uh distinction there. That's very helpful. Now, uh, help me understand like what it looks like because I've I've heard stories of you know, people I'm trying to get on the phone with someone, they're they're saying, Oh, it's it's audit week, like and they're scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble. Wow, no, no time, no sleep, nothing. What does it look like for a team to stay audit ready versus oh, audit is coming now? We got to scramble.
SPEAKER_01Um a lot of companies are audit ready and a lot a lot no none, they're not, right? And to me, those companies I call in, they like to just apply lipstick on a peg, right? They just say we believe in quality and for safety, and it's written on all the slogans and it's in the business cards they give you, then they don't embrace it. And and the separation of it is just how much are you willing to work for? And how much of a culture do you want to create? It's the culture of the that you're creating and the one that you're showing to people, because remember, we talked about this earlier. People believe what you do, not what you say, right? So, if in from that standpoint, if you are the type of people that takes a month off to clean the plan and paint it and patch the hole, so when the inspector comes in, sees everything shiny and beautiful, well, you wasted your time. And quite honestly, um you you're a fake. Because to me, if you're really gonna embrace and you really deem that your consumer as a priority, then you will not do it that disfavor. You will be audit ready all the time, you don't get you don't get bogged down in the uh in the menu shelf painting, you understand it's part of the process. And as qualities, we're not looking for fresh paint. We're not, we're looking to see in documentation if you if you walk the talk and talk the walk, that's it. So if you patch a hole, yay, great, congratulations. But what I'm more concerned is are your consumers and how are you handling your customer uh deviation, how are you handling your kappas, how are you handling your corrective actions, how are you handling your uh supplier agreements? Those are the things that you know, I don't care how quickly you get to clean, you're not gonna fix it in a week.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. I appreciate that. Appreciate that. Now we have a little bit of a tradition in this podcast where uh as we kind of transition out here, um the previous guests ask a question for the next guests, and the next guest then ask a question for the guest after that. Um, I gotta I gotta tattletale myself. I uh I have the question from the previous guests, but I did not write it down before we recorded. So it's in my computer somewhere. It's not in front of me right now. So we could have one of two options, Rochelle. We could just take like two minutes and I go find that question and then ask you, or I can ask you a mystery question off the top of my head right now and go from there. I'll I'll give you the choice.
SPEAKER_01But well, it did this is a tradition in your podcast.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is. I I just I uh a couple minutes in, I was like, oh, wait a second, I didn't write down the question from the previous guest. It's on my computer, but it'd take a couple minutes to dig for it.
SPEAKER_01So look, I love traditions, why don't you have a few minutes? Go get it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let me let me go get it here.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So the question here um Okay, so I'm gonna do my best to summarize this this honestly uh so you have no context to what this is or Who it's coming from. So you may interpret this from like a food safety quality assurance lens or not. Okay. Um, but the question was essentially where's the biggest disconnect between the story of the of a brand that is put out to everyone. Uh, so aka the the marketing story that the consumers see with a brand versus what really happens behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, that's kind of sounds like the the just culture we discuss, right? People who paint the building, yeah, but they're not really embracing in there for it takes extra from them and nobody buys it, anyways. People can see it.
SPEAKER_00Right?
SPEAKER_01I can I'm as an auditor, I can detect it right away.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now, do you think consumers can can see that, or is that just like internally as consumers can see it?
SPEAKER_01Consumers can see it, absolutely they can see it. Here's how. Um in this social era where things are a fingertip, that is that is that could be poison, right? Because they can easily tell what you're all about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that's true, that's true, right?
SPEAKER_01Today in this era, and well, wait till next year, all the cameras collecting all the information, there will be nothing hiding anymore, right? So if you really think that um an image and your culture and and and creating this place in which your goals and values are really pouring from, they better be authentic because people will come out and see it pretty soon. And there's always somebody who hates you so badly that will want to um expose you. That is the reality. So I don't think nobody is um precluded from being in that scenario. What is the easiest thing to do is be you. If this is your company, just be you in the company, create something that really um exemplaries who you are that because that takes no effort, yeah. The other side takes so much effort, yeah, yeah, it does, right? It kind of rubs you from who you are, and at the end of the day, you're not gonna be for everybody, just must well be just be you, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Amen to that. That's that's truth, right there. That's truth. Uh, so now what's a question that you have for the next podcast, guest?
SPEAKER_01And it could be about any topic, right?
SPEAKER_00It could be professionally or absolutely anything. I literally had a guest one time uh ask their question was what was the greatest uh food you've had at a restaurant in your entire life? Like it could be it could be any absolutely anything, it could be random, it could be professional related, it could be literally like anything you want to, but if you have a question, I'd love to hear look, I'm I'm gonna share what it is, but I'm gonna tell you the feedback on it.
SPEAKER_01I was um in I'm a coach, and as as a coach, I was asking one of my clients um who is has stage four terminal cancer. Um, I was asking her things, and in and uh my question to her was if you if you weren't afraid of anything, what would you be doing right now? And that became my favorite question to ask anybody in that particular case was specific because of the conditions around it, but but how often are we so tied around the fear that it just inhibits from allowing us to live the fullest life? And that individual at that time was trying to live every second of her life, and I think it's uh it's a great teacher, Brian. It's a great teacher.
SPEAKER_00That's a good question. I'm gonna ponder that myself too. That's a great, that's a phenomenal question. Probably honestly a great question to ask yourself every day. Yes, when you wake up in the morning when you go to bed. So that's amazing. Uh well, Rochelle, I really do appreciate you taking the time here. I I learned a ton. Honestly, I'm gonna be listening probably to this. I listen to every podcast maybe once. I might be listening to this two or three times. Uh one, I'm an I'm a novice, understanding the business of this side of things, but two, I think you pairing your your mindset and leadership with your cultural dynamic and the technical science side of FSQA, I think is a tremendous value add and incredibly rare, um, especially with all the positions that I work in this department uh on an annual basis. That that trifecta in a way is is incredibly rare. So I appreciate your your time. How can people stay connected with you moving forward?
SPEAKER_01Look, they can find me through LinkedIn, Rochelle Serrano, right? I also have um a website that it's called enterpriseriskleadership.com. And that's where I teach a lot of leaders this different language that they need they need to start understanding how to communicate in a business environment and how to connect to the people that you uh influence the most. And the last uh website that I have is yourpathfindercoach.com. That is more for life coaching. Uh it's less it's less leadership coaching, but in any of those venues, they can find me if they want to contact me or something that they have found that I posted really kind of um struck a nerve or made them think. I'm more than happy to discuss and and I love doing this. I really do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, awesome. Well, I appreciate that. And uh again, thank you so much for hopping on the line and having the conversation. I'm looking forward to staying in touch.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Have a wonderful weekend and thank you, Nathan, for the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're very welcome.
SPEAKER_01Take care. Bye.
SPEAKER_00And that concludes another episode of the CPG Level Up Podcast. If anything that we shared today resonates with you and adds value, would love to connect. You can reach us at uh our contacts page on our website, progressusolutions.com. You can follow us on LinkedIn, and you can also connect with me and message me personally, uh Nathan Schmidt on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there, and we'd be open to hearing some suggestions, feedback, etc., so we can help improve the content moving forward and looking forward to hearing from you. Have a great day.