Services

In-house works if you have a technologist with both the time and the authority to change processes. Without that person, the system stays a folder of documents. A clear sign of a poor contractor is a document package produced without visiting the site. Honest work includes a site survey, flow diagrams for raw material, staff and waste, hazard analysis, a justification for every critical control point, record forms designed for your shift, training and a trial run. Responsibility is shared: the expert builds the system, your shift keeps the records. The first does not work without the second.

Walk the site as an auditor would, then run an internal audit against the scheme of the body that will certify you — with a written register of findings. Most failures happen on traceability, a mock recall within the allowed time, validation of critical limits, allergen handling and instrument calibration. A separate layer is food safety culture: the auditor questions the operator at the line, not the director in the office. Plan for a cycle, not a single check: audit → corrective actions → re-verification.

Start by sorting findings by weight: critical, major, minor. Then each one needs three different things that are commonly confused: correction (fix it now), root cause (why it became possible) and corrective action (so it does not return). Closure is proven with evidence: revised procedures, training, repeat measurements, an internal audit after the change. Product already released is decided separately — assess, block or recall. The systemic cause is almost always the same: nobody inside the company owns the system.

The EU has no "product certificate". It has food business operator responsibility under EU 178/2002 and infrastructure requirements under EU 852/2004. An EAEU document package does not convert into a European one. The second barrier is commercial: retailers ask for a GFSI scheme — IFS or BRC — and those carry capital requirements for the building and zoning. The third layer is the product itself: composition, on-pack claims and a fully rebuilt label. And a separate question: who becomes the food business operator in the EU — an importer, a distributor, or your own legal entity.

Start with the constraints, not the taste: sales channel, target price, required shelf life, your equipment, the regulatory framework of the market. A product that is perfect in the lab but unmanufacturable on the line never reaches the shelf. Before launch you need a pilot batch, shelf-life testing on real equipment in the final packaging, a specification with labelling, a cost recalculation on the actual yield, and tasting with the target audience rather than the team. Plant-based and gluten-free categories add structure work and cross-contamination control.

Interim management fits where there is a deadline and a cost of failure: a launch, certification, closing non-conformities, process rebuild, a change of scale. For routine operation it is excessive — that calls for a permanent hire. The difference from consulting is fundamental: an interim manager holds operational authority and accountability inside your structure, not recommendations from outside. Handing over to a successor is part of the job, not an afterthought. Hiring under deadline pressure almost always costs more than covering the role temporarily.