The label on your product is not a formality.

Your product tastes incredible.

A lot of founders picture the same finish line.

Every successful food product on the shelf in front of you went through a process.

You have a recipe people love.

You have probably heard the number.

If you work in food and beverage, or are thinking about a career in it, you will hear the acronym HACCP within your first week. You might hear it pronounced "hassup" by people who know what they are doing, or "H-A-C-C-P" by people who just learned what it stands for.

Ask ten people what a food safety manager does and you will get ten vague answers involving clipboards and inspections. The job title sounds straightforward enough, but the reality is considerably more interesting, and more varied, than most people expect.

The word "audit" makes a lot of food safety professionals nervous. Even experienced ones. There is something about the combination of clipboards, checklists, and someone walking your facility looking for problems that tends to raise the blood pressure. If you have never been through a food safety audit before, that anxiety is completely understandable. But here is the thing: audits are not.

If you have started looking into food safety education, you have probably run into both terms: certification and training. They often get used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing, and understanding the difference can save you a significant amount of time, money, and frustration.