FDA Logo U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationCenter for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Food Defense and Terrorism

 

October 2008

Employees FIRST
Food Defense Awareness for front-line food industry workers

Employees FIRST is an FDA initiative that food industry managers can include in their ongoing employee food defense training programs. Employees FIRST educates front-line food industry workers from farm to table about the risk of intentional food contamination and the actions they can take to identify and reduce these risks.

butcher and baker
food warehouse
field workers

Employees are the FIRST line of
food defense

Follow company food defense plan and procedures.

Inspect your work area and surrounding areas.

Recognize anything out of the ordinary.

Secure all ingredients, supplies, and finished product.

Tell management if you notice anything unusual or suspicious.


character with big smile and blue cap coming out of TV Employees FIRST Tool Kit

FIRST poster and DVD label for the English kit
FIRST poster and DVD label for the Spanish kit

Available in English:
Employees are the FIRST line of food defense.

Available in Spanish:
Empleados son la PRIMERA linea de defensa de los alimentos.


The Employees FIRST tool kit includes

  • an entertaining and informative animated 12-minute DVD (available for viewing online);
  • a 4-color poster (available in PDF*, (2.7MB), and Spanish PDF*, (2.7MB)) that can be hung in work areas to reinforce the initiative.

Employees FIRST Learning Objectives:

  • Increase food defense awareness
  • Define and explain the five parts of the Employees FIRST initiative

Order FIRST Tool Kit


*PDF Readers are available free from the Adobe web site.