I want to be a food safety consultant, but no experience
My name is Kimaro from Tanzania, East Africa. Professionally am molecular biologist and biotechnologist for past three years i have been working as food microbiologist and quality control officer in BRC global standards certified site. The factory processes dried fruits, spices and herbs for export market.
I no longer work there and so I want to be a food safety consultant for small and medium enterprises (SME's) which are producing food products such as artificial juice,syrup, tomato ketchup, chilli sauce rice, maize flour, water, chicken,meat, jam, milk, eggs, for local market, am well trained on HACCP courses, certified food hygiene courses, BRC standards and I was also a trainer for food handlers at the plant but i have not done food consultation work.
Please I would appreciate to have your advice on this,practical approach on this so that trainings on HACCP and GMP can be more of hands on rather than too academic since I will be dealing with normal individuals who are not professionals in the field.
Looking forward to have your valuable response.
Best regards
Kimaro.
Nice to meet you Kimaro and welcome!
I would highly recommend you don't go from 0 to 100 all at one time.
First, I would shadow an experienced consultant - really see if this is something you want to do.
Years ago I wanted to drive big rigs, drive around the country - it looked like a great life and then I started talking to truckers, etc and instead decided to stay in cooking, eventually I saw an opportunity to become a hotel inspector as well as a restaurant inspector, 6 months later I'm in a high intensity training program traveling around the country inspecting franchised hotels and restaurants.
Then thru education/training beame an inspector on food stores - Targets, Sams, Trader Joes, etc. etc in the states and from that springboarded into inspecting food factories and then 3 years after becoming an SQF Auditor I quit, because I got tired of telling people what was wrong without being able to tell them how to fix it.
Thus, here I am for 10 years now as an SQF Consultant - it has it's ups and downs - lots of travel, lots of time away from home (currently at the end of a 1 month assignment to develop an SQF System in VA), but it is joyful in many ways and I feel blessed by Yah to work with some really terrific people and serve some terrific clients.
My biggest suggestion if this is the path you want to take is that you talk with an auditing company and become an auditor first - hard to tell people what to do when you don't first have the mind of an auditor.
Our clients get the best of two sides - auditor background and consulting rolled into one, we know how auditors function, because we were auditors once and and the consultants we have in our network must have been auditors for the applicable GFSI standard they consult on.
Get that experience, shadow a consultant for a while - see if the lifestyle (travel, away from home, etc.) fits you and then go for it.
Best to you.
It's real a big challenge for me any my career.
Thank very much for your time and valuable response, but here it's very hard to get a company where I will work as auditor before I go for consultation work.
It's real a big challenge for me any my career.
Being an auditor will give you incredible experience that you can apply to being an consultant.
Very Hard is not impossible.
Being an auditor will give you incredible experience that you can apply to being an consultant.
Very Hard is not impossible.
Hello Glenn,
Thank you so much for share your experiences. My company also very glad to recruit a consultant that has auditor experience because we can be sure is the gap implementation will affect so much for the system or only minor findings. Sometimes consultant without auditor experience tend to give good practice suggestion which the company not sure can implement.
I also preparing to be an FSMS auditor next year, I already get lead auditor certification, but what the next steps I should do? can you give me a recommendation? and is it possible to be a freelance auditor while I have to be working 5 days a week or should I just quit and be a full time auditor?
I am looking forward to hear your opinions, thank you!
Hello Kimaro,
If you like, you could join us as a local affiliate where if you can identify the projects, we can help you with completing the work with the support of our expert team. That way you also get to learn and grow as a consultant. Do reach out in case you would like to talk to us on the same.
Ramesh
CEO, Food Safety Works
Hello Kimaro,
If you like, you could join us as a local affiliate where if you can identify the projects, we can help you with completing the work with the support of our expert team. That way you also get to learn and grow as a consultant. Do reach out in case you would like to talk to us on the same.
Ramesh
CEO, Food Safety Works
Query was 2 years ago but thanks anyway.
Query was 2 years ago but thanks anyway.
Thank you for pointing this out. I guess because of a previous reply, it popped up as a recent thread. My bad I did not check all the way to the beginning.
Ramesh
I would recommend that you slowly get up to speed with relevant legislation in the USA and EU as well.
It's basically impossible to know everything by heart, but when you know how things are usually interpreted and where to look them up, you're already on your way to understanding it a bit.
It's important to know what your client's customers are going to expect and ask and it allows you to work towards those requirements as well.
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I just noticed this was an old thread too. I wonder what the OP eventually decided....