Food Safety Advice & Guidance
Choosing the right food safety consultant is vital for a business because there is an assumption that making and keeping food safely is a straightforward process. However, to produce, manufacture, store, and distribute food on an industrial level, food safety enters into another level of knowledge and expertise.
Ensuring our food products are legally safe and incorporating good practices takes policies, procedures, leadership, and commitment.
When a business needs food safety guidance and advice, the person they often turn to is a food safety specialist.
Selecting a Food Safety Consulting Company
First set out clearly what support you are requiring from a food safety company, for example, preparing for BRC Accreditation.
Searching for the right food consultant can take a few varied routes. Ask for a recommendation from a colleague in another food company. Secondly, search Google for food safety consultants or use LinkedIn using the same search term.
However, there are more specific routes that are useful. The SALSA Certification body has an online directory of SALSA Food Mentors and Auditors with their location. The IFST (Institute of Food Science & Technology) has an online register of professional food auditors and mentors. A reputable food consultant will be a member of the IFST at least. Finally, BRCGS (the accreditation body for several safety standards) has an online consultants directory. These are all reputable sources.
Each route has advantages and disadvantages and will provide you with a list of potential names to work with. However, what skills and attributes do you need to see in your search for the right food safety specialist?
The following Do’s for selecting a food safety consultancy involve using your initial research, in conjunction with, an initial telephone call or preferably a 30-minute online Zoom call.
Character of a Food Safety Consultant
The food safety expert you choose should be a consummate professional and look after your best interests at all times. Note here, their education level and qualifications. Do choose a consultant that has a good level of education in a relevant subject i.e. HND or degree level and professionally a member of IFST.
Are they willing to carry out some extra support, such as grant funding?
Experience
Choose an expert that has solid experience in different parts of the food supply chain, such as retail or a supplier. This gives a consultant a good perspective of the demands required from these sectors and what can work best for their client’s project. Experience in a particular food or product is not essential though desirable. Look at case studies or testimonials on a web page. It is perhaps more important that a consultant has in-depth experience of working in certain high-risk areas, such as, ready to eat meals.
Is the Food Safety Consultant a Problem Solver?
Do choose a food consultant with excellent problem-solving skills. Guiding a business on how to create and implement a food safety system that is tailored to specific needs, yet still following a safety standard, is vital. This way, a business can understand and work with its system in order to achieve the best business opportunities and improvement.
Communication Skill
Choose an expert who has excellent written, oral communication skills, and creates detailed flow process mapping involving risks and controls. Doing this accurately is essential, as it needs to be understood by all staff because it forms the core of a safety system (HACCP). Creating user-friendly tailored manuals is also vital to a successful project.
Also, choose a food consultant that fully grasps all the food safety challenges you are facing as a business. Good listening skills are also needed for staff mentoring. Without this skill, how can a consultant tailor food safety systems to improve business internal structures and externally to attract opportunities?
Interpersonal Skills
For a food safety system to work to its fullest potential, a food consultant and client relationship has to be based on trust. Being able to reveal and discuss intimate business information is important for a successful relationship. Choose a consultant that you feel you will be able to develop this kind of business relationship with.
Part of forming this good working relationship is both sides understanding what is required of them. Choose an expert who provides a contract with terms and conditions set out. Understand from the consultant what level of resources are required from you. The level of resources required to pass a food safety standard, such as BRCGS or SALSA cannot be underestimated. Therefore, select a specialist who will carry out a Gap Analysis report of your current systems against the desired food standard. This way, estimates can be based on some facts.
Do Not…
Do not select a food safety company that will create a system based on a standard ‘off-the-shelf’ manual with extra virtual support at a monthly rate. This is a false economy because you could end up with a system that is not relevant to your product or company. This could leave your business liable to unnecessary legal enforcement actions, non-conformities at audits, and ultimately unsafe products. Do not allow this to damage your brand and hard work at building a business.
Good research can pay good dividends in your search for a food safety consultant.
