Critical success factors for managing quality in food processing firms

Factors critical to successfully managing quality in the food processing industry are identified and include: the role of top management, the role of the quality department, employee relations, training, and process management. Little relationship was found between a factor's importance and firm performance with respect to that factor. Thus, while a factor might be important to successfully managing quality, the firm may not be managing it well. This suggests that many companies have a long way to go to improve quality management. Firms with decentralized quality structures had higher overall levels of quality performance than those in which quality was the responsibility of a single department.