Beyond Compliance: Key Takeaways from Our Dublin Root Cause Analysis Workshop

In the high-stakes world of global food safety, audit non-conformities are often met with reactive, symptomatic fixes. While compliance is achieved, lasting prevention remains elusive if the fundamental, underlying causes—the root causes—are not identified and addressed. 

The prevailing challenge for the audit ecosystem, including GFSI, Certification Programme Owners (CPOs), and Certification Bodies (CBs), is how to fully leverage Root Cause Analysis (RCA) as a comprehensive tool for systemic improvement. This gap between compliance and true prevention was the driving force behind the dynamic and interactive workshop held in April at the GFSI Conference 2025.

Moderated by Natalie Dyenson, Roy Kirby, and Cliona Murphy (1), “Mastering Root Cause Analysis – Strategies for Continuous Improvement in the GFSI Landscape” brought together over 30 industry leaders, auditors, and food safety professionals to critically assess the application of Root Cause Analysis (RCA) within the current audit ecosystem, focusing on its potential to drive continuous improvement and a paradigm shift in auditing.

Key Conclusions on RCA Application

1. Applicability Across the Ecosystem: RCA is a systematic, evidence-based method focused on identifying the fundamental, underlying causes of a problem to prevent its recurrence. Participants unanimously concluded that RCA is applicable to all areas of the audit eco-system, including GFSI itself, CPOs, and CBs. 
2. Current State of RCA Maturity:

• Food Business Operators (FBOs) demonstrate a high level of maturity and widespread application of RCA. This is partly driven by the requirements for corrective actions detailed in standards like ISO 9001, which mandates determining causes to prevent recurrence of non-conformities.
• Narrow Application within FBOs: Despite the high overall maturity, participants observed that the application of RCA can be narrow and inconsistent within Food Business Operators, often varying significantly across functional silos. This internal variability, coupled with challenges in conducting thorough RCA across organisational boundaries, can limit systemic improvement.
• Variability in Capability: The capability and patience required to conduct thorough RCA are variable among the Quality and Food Safety (Q&FS) community, sometimes resulting in a lack of depth and a failure to reach the true root cause.

3. The Auditor’s Paradox: A particularly interesting finding was the observation that the audit process includes an assessment of FBOs’ ability to carry out RCA, but the very organisations carrying out the audit—namely, CPOs and CBs—do not seem to be widely or maturely applying it to themselves for continuous improvement. While emerging examples exist, they are not yet widespread.

Opportunities for Extension and Refinement

The workshop identified significant opportunities to leverage RCA as a continuous improvement tool across the entire audit ecosystem to address underlying issues and achieve better long-term outcomes.

Suggested opportunities include:

• Benchmarking Requirements: Increasing the focus on RCA application within the Benchmarking requirements, specifically with greater emphasis on tracking and resolving repeat issues.
• KPI Reform: Re-looking at the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) around corrective action closure times to incentivise more thorough and high-quality RCA and corrective action implementation, rather than just quick fixes.
• Enhanced CB Assessment: CPOs should enhance their assessment of Certification Bodies by more closely reviewing the CBs’ use of RCA and their acceptance criteria for FBO Corrective Actions.

We extend our sincere gratitude to all the participants for their strategic insights and willingness to engage in these critical, future-facing discussions. Their collaborative work underscores our commitment to establishing meaningful conversations with the entire food safety ecosystem as we look ahead to the 2026 conference: “Food Safety is Everybody’s Business.” This ongoing dialogue will be essential to ensuring we collectively drive better outcomes for consumers globally.

(1)

Natalie DYENSON is Chief Food Safety Officer at Boar’s Head Brand

Cliona MURPHY is an Experienced board member (Chartered Director, currently Non-Executive Director at Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board), former GFSI SteerCo member and former Vice President Quality Assurance at PepsiCo

Roy KIRBY is Partner at FoodsafERM, former Co-Chair of the GFSI Steering Committee, and former Global Director of Microbiology, Food Safety and Toxicology at Mondelēz International