Food safety standards
All European food producing companies are legally obliged to have a HACCP based food safety system in place.
 
Certification of the HACCP based food safety system is not required by law, nevertheless food safety systems are often certified for the following reasons:

 
Food Safety Advice does not only helps to writing a clear, uncluttered and functional quality manual, but also helps to implement the food safety standard in your organisation. The power of Food Safety Advice is to bring the food safety system to life in the company.
 
The most common food safety standards in the food industry include:

Please contact us for a free advice on which standard best suits your organisation.

Interim quality management

Substitution
During the temporary absence of a quality manager, it is very important the work and responsibilities are incorporated correctly and appropriately. In addition to the full take over and control of the quality department, the quality system and manual can be updated or even a complete new food safety standard (BRC, IFS, FSSC 22000 etc.) can be implemented.
 
Are you looking for a quality manager, but haven’t you found the most suitable person yet? Do not hesitate to contact us for bridging the period you have nobody available, this will prevent making a decision too hastily.
 
Even when your employee is temporarily unavailable due to pregnancy, sabbatical or other circumstances, we will offer you the solution.

Optimisation and reorganisation
Not only the absence of a quality manager can lead to hiring an interim quality manager. Interim quality management is also widely used to reorganise or to optimize the quality department or quality manual.

Outsourcing
When full-time quality support is not needed, outsourcing can fulfill your occasional need for feedback or quality support. For example, an independent view on the food safety system prior to the certification audit, extra support during peak periods.  The way of support and presence at the company will be fully adapted to the needs of the company.

 Benefits
The benefits of interim quality management by Food Safety Advice:

Legislation
Reading and understanding of laws and rules is often time consuming and still remains the question whether it has been properly interpreted. In addition, legislation is changing almost continuously.

Food Safety Advice can help. Clearly specify your question and we will start looking in the current and relevant European and Dutch Food Legislation and provide you with the requested information.

Product specification and labeling
Especially for complex food products, the preparation of product specifications and labels can be an extensive, time consuming and sometimes difficult job, taking into consideration the extensive relevant legislation, whereby certain things like font size and the images on the final packaging must be observed as well.

The fact that consumer and legibility of food labels is becoming increasingly important is shown by Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 of 25 October 2011 on the provision of food information to consumers. This legislation replaces the current regulations and directives in this regard and will have a major impact on many food labels and packaging. It is very important that food manufacturers and “private label” holders make an inventory in time of what the changes will be, so (raw material) suppliers can submit all the information and all labels and packaging are adjusted in time so that all products meets the new legislative requirements before the legislation applies and disposal costs can be avoided.

Food Safety Advice is not only offering support regarding checking specifications, labels and packaging, but can also prepare specifications for you, based on the information provided by your suppliers. Please contact Food Safety Advice also, if you need advice on a practical and proper construction of the ingredient declaration.

External audits
Despite only certified suppliers are accepted, it can occur sometimes that complaints or the supplier assessment indicates that the product quality or safety of the delivered products or services are not adequately controlled.
 
In such case, auditing of the supplier is the most appropriate way to determine whether the supplier meets all requirements. Unfortunately, on site auditing combined with the follow up of the audit can be very time consuming.
 
Food Safety Advice can take work off your hands. Through years of experience in  retail (e.a. supermarkets and wholesalers), much expertise exists in the field of auditing. Suppliers will be assessed in an independent, professional and integer but critical way against the relevant requirements. The results of the audit shall be reported as requested. If desired, Food Safety Advice will also follow up the corrective actions to be undertaken by the supplier.
 
Due to a native Dutch speaking auditor, Food Safety Advice is especially suitable for the auditing of suppliers of which Dutch is the main language.

Internal audits
To check whether the company complies with the applied food safety standard (BRC, IFS, FSSC 22000, ISO 22000 etc.), each company is legally obliged to periodically verify the food safety system, including on the basis of internal audits.
 
An audit is only useful when:

Of course, the cooperation by the auditees plays an important role also, but the auditor is more influential than often thought.

If an audit is carried out properly, it is one of the most powerful tools for a proper assurance of food safety. The audit results will also show opportunities to improve the organisation. Viewed in this way, an audit is a valuable internal management tool, rather than a necessary evil.

Many improvement opportunities remain untapped due to insufficient knowledge and inexperience. Company blindness occurs in almost every company. Most of the time, people are fixated on the current existing business situation, and virtually do not notice improvement opportunities, with the result that not all benefits are fully achieved or in the worst case the food safety system is not sufficiently verified.

By outsourcing the internal audit to Food Safety Advice, your organisation will be audited to the relevant standard in an unbiased, expert and integer way to gain optimum advantage from the internal audit. Audit results, including improvement opportunities, will be reported in  clear and comprehensive way.