From horsegate to leafy greens, and covid to the Ever Given, the last decade has highlighted how complex and just-in-time supply chains have left us more vulnerable than ever.

In parallel, Moore’s law tells us that technology doubles every 18 months, meaning our exposure, and reliance, on digital solutions has become more dependent than ever.

In this rapidly evolving environment, data governance and its security are no longer an option, but a must-have, and honestly are now often more of a pre-requisite at the start of due diligence than the questions on quality management.

As companies rely more and more on cloud-based platforms to streamline operations, protecting sensitive information is more critical today than it ever was.

At Safefood, we are backed by the legacy of more than 180 years of LGC, our parent company, of providing tried and trusted solutions that underpin assurance and quality at all levels of food manufacturing and its supply chain.

Of course, we don’t rest on this legacy and take practical steps to ensure we honour this tradition in the face of evolving threats and disruption.

For us, ensuring data security goes beyond compliance. It’s also an opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competitors.

This blog is inspired by our recent e-book on platform security and takes a transparent look at the measures we deploy to protect your data security and provide you with confidence that you are operating to the best standards and practices.

Security and Compliance: Building Trust Through Proven Solutions

We understand that you have entrusted us with your data and the security of it is paramount.

When you outsource critical business operations you are placing a high degree of trust in the vendor’s ability to maintain, and often exceed, the standards that you provide to your own customers.

We value this trust and strive to deliver best-in-class solutions that safeguard and protect your data security, privacy and compliance practices.

To us, data security means more than just meeting standards; it’s about ensuring peace of mind, and we strive to demonstrate our commitment to this by ensuring we are audited and credentialed.

By adhering to SOC 2 (Type I and Type II) protocols, we offer rigorous security controls to protect customer data, giving you confidence in the safety and integrity of your information.

If needed, we can provide a full copy of our SOC2 report to your technical terms during your due diligence.

Adapting to Your Business’s Needs

The foundation of our platform is built on secure Microsoft .NET technologies and hosted within Microsoft Azure cloud, giving you an enterprise-class solution with enhanced performance, scalability and flexibility to scale as your business’ needs grow and evolve.

This means you need options to the platforms and hardware you can deploy.

To this end, our solution is browser-agnostic and compatible with all systems that have internet access.

So whether you operate Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Opera or something else across Windows, macOS, or Linux, you won’t have any issues logging in.

If you need to operate offline, we also offer dedicated mobile applications available in the Apple and Android stores that allow you to record and take audit data with you anywhere in the world and upload the results later at a time that’s convenient for you.

This ensures your data is always available and accessible, whether you are in the office, on-site, on the move, in a black-spot or even in the air.

A cynic reading this might think it sounds well and good, but this is all “inwards” looking to the platform – and in an age of hyperconnectivity, what about integrations?

Well ,the good news is that our platform integrates seamlessly with your broader IT ecosystem through advanced API support.

Our technical teams will assist your developers and ensure tight and seamless integrations using REST APIs.

Finally, running though out the software is StatusBI, our out of the box integration with leading Business Intelligence software to provide you reports that dive deep into your business data.

This data is held in data warehouses to optimize the reports performance and enables easy extraction for the use with your own enterprise Bl tools should you wish.

Data Ownership and Control: Your Data, Our Responsibility

You will always retain full ownership of your data.

Under GDPR, we are considered a data processor and we will serve as the conduit for your business needs. In line with this, nothing of your use is disclosed to third parties, except as required by law or as directed by you (such as using our Supplier Portal).

As part of our role, we only use data to provide you the best service and experience, such as troubleshooting, detecting, and repairing problems which might be affecting the operation of services, improving new features, and protecting you against emerging threats.

All data, both in transit and at rest, within our platform, is encrypted, utilizing industry-standard encryption protocols like AES265, TLS 1.2 or better encryption.

Nonetheless, to further strengthen security, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) through smartphone devices, email or SMS can be enabled at both the user or business levels.

Moreover, our data retention complies with numerous international codes for information security, including the E.U. Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, ISO/IEC 27001:2005 and with the requirements of FDA 21 CFR Part II and EU Annex II.

Finally, in the event that you need to leave the platform for any reason, following the off-boarding process, data is securely destroyed, ensuring your sensitive information does not persist in our systems longer than needed.

Fault Tolerance and Continuous Protection

Our platform is designed to be fault-tolerant and redundant, ensuring that operations continue semi-automatically even in the event of failure.

Redundancies are built into the infrastructure, enabling a quick recovery with minimal intervention and the platform is monitored 24/7 to ensure effective migration of data should it be needed.

Furthermore, regular penetration tests, vulnerability scans, and secure coding assessments using internationally recognized and accredited third-party security tools and specialists are constantly conducted.

If a catastrophic event was to occur with a data center, all instances are geo replicated and will be made available at a back up location and available to ensure you have continued use of the platform and do not experience any disruption.

How important is data security to you?

In today’s interconnected world, data security isn’t just about compliance or a regulatory checkbox – it’s a competitive and strategic advantage and a key driver of business resilience.

We are committed to delivering industry-leading security that not only protects your sensitive data but also strengthens your operational processes while ensuring compliance with the latest global privacy and regulatory standards.

By partnering with us, you’re not just choosing a platform – you’re investing in a solution that continuously evolves to meet emerging security challenges while safeguarding the future of your business.

If data security is your top priority and you’d like to explore how we provide comprehensive protection, we invite you to visit our Platform & Data Security webpage for a detailed overview of our robust security features.