Finding a Consultant for Beverage Company Audit
Good day, everyone!
So, I work at a small fermented beverage company, focused on craft honeybrew kombucha (using mostly dry botanicals) and beet kvass (a delicious drink made from fermenting raw beets).
We have finally reached a point in our small company where we have hired a broker and are looking at moving into bigger distribution. We are going to need a 3rd party audit, as we have goals of working with UNFI.
Again, we are a small company, and this is a huge step for us. I've done a lot for the company to ready us for this move, but it is still a bit above my head. We've discussed it and decided we'd like to find a consultant to help us determine what steps we need to take, but there is a lot of information and we don't know where to start.
We are based in the state of Washington. Any guidance on how to find a consultant or how to know which certification to go with would be much appreciated.
Hi Eryn,
A starting point would be to decide which food safety management system certification scheme you want to go with.
It might be worth talking to someone at UNFI to see if they have a preference, they state a requirement for 'Copy of latest third party food safety audit certificate. All Suppliers must adopt and operate in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).'
If not specified I would probably go with SQF, you can download the relevant SQF Food Safety Code for free here.
SQF also has a Directory of Support Functions that includes Consultants. You can search the Directory here, this is what I got when I put Washington into a search for Consultants:
SQF Consultant Search WA USA.png 459.52KB 1 downloads
Alternatively, you could consider one of the IFSQN Implementation Packages, for example the SQF Edition 9 Implementation Package for Food Manufacturers. The packages include comprehensive food safety management system and good manufacturing procedure templates, lots of tools that assist with implementing the package and technical support until you achieve certification. They are well worth a look and offer large savings over employing a consultant, see the customer reviews here.
Kind regards,
Tony
Good day, everyone!
So, I work at a small fermented beverage company, focused on craft honeybrew kombucha (using mostly dry botanicals) and beet kvass (a delicious drink made from fermenting raw beets).
We have finally reached a point in our small company where we have hired a broker and are looking at moving into bigger distribution. We are going to need a 3rd party audit, as we have goals of working with UNFI.
Again, we are a small company, and this is a huge step for us. I've done a lot for the company to ready us for this move, but it is still a bit above my head. We've discussed it and decided we'd like to find a consultant to help us determine what steps we need to take, but there is a lot of information and we don't know where to start.
We are based in the state of Washington. Any guidance on how to find a consultant or how to know which certification to go with would be much appreciated.
Check out Impact Washington, I think they are based out of Bothell (the rep we talked to had a Bothell address). https://www.impactwashington.org/ They charge but also offer grants and are a part of a national program geared towards helping manufacturers, and can get you audit ready and make sure you are good with federal and state regulations. They will help you figure out what scheme to go with if you aren't sure. We were going to use them a couple years ago, but management was too slow to commit and our grant window closed. I'd recommend contacting them now, although grants might not be available until the first of the year, but you can get the ball rolling. They were going to help us go from AIB to SQF.
Definitely check out the SQF link Tony provided above. If you go the SQF route, study and learn as much as you can and anything you can do and implement beforehand can help lower costs (less man hours for the consultant if they are reviewing rather than creating). Even if you don't go with SQF studying it will definitely help get you ready for any other kind of audits. We are AIB in some sites and SQF in others and as we mostly follow SQF guidelines at all sites, the AIB scores are always high.
I would echo SQFI, if there are no other factors involved.
I currently work out of Idaho and have done several SQFI and BRCGS programs start to finish. I moslty help small operations (as few as two employees) and cater to not just creating workable procedures, but training key personnel the standard and implementation to ready them to manage the program.
All contact info @ www.twofishfs.com