Providing pragmatic technical solutions to your business needs
SALSA and BRC Accreditation support – from designing system to accompany you during the audit
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and food safety management system
Quality control documentation.
Label creation and review of artwork – FIR compliance
Allergen management – risk analysis and creation of action plans
Specific projects and one-off collaboration
Managing all technical services
Regular support – long or short projects – pay as you go support or contracted.
Hourly rates for specification and label creation or review
Technical mentoring and coaching – technical team support
Bakery design – flow, equipment selection, link with suppliers
Productivity study and analysis
Gap analysis of systems vs. standards
Decision making and building business cases
CREATING SOLUTIONS THAT PROTECT YOUR COMPANY AND SUPPORT GROWTH
- creating and reviewing your food safety systems to fit your operations.
- providing bespoke practical solutions to food safety, technical and production oriented issues
- understanding your business, spending time with you and your team to create the best solutions for you
- support your business to generate cost saving solutions
SMES AND START-UPS
THE AFFORDABLE TECHNICAL SOLUTION
- one-off projects from accreditation project to review of production and operation activities
- run your technical services - handle customer queries, Self-Assessment Questionnaires, complaints investigations and handling - "pay-as-you-go" system
- contracted work - payment over period of time to ease cash-flow.
ABOUT RAPH
I have worked in the food industry and bakery industry for over 25 years – contributing to the success of each company by creating pragmatic solutions to answers daily and strategic issues. I have gained expertise in bakery, high-risk environment, chocolate, flour and broker environment over the years.
I am a passionate foodie and want to bring my passions for food and technical knowledge together to enable food SMEs to fulfil their potential by taking the food safety related pain away.
I work around your needs to find the best solutions for your business – engaging with your whole business and your staff.
I hold a post-graduate degree in Quality Assurance Management alongside an MSc in sensorial analysis and a BSc in Food Technology – all obtained in France universities. I also hold a certificate in Business Management.
Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology.
FIRST TIME SUCCESS FOR SALSA ACCREDITATION AT SPICE SUPPLIER
Amongst my most cherished achievement was to guide and support Ren’s Pantry to achieve their SALSA accreditation in October 2022.
Working closely with Ren and her small team of 2!, I created a simple to use and true to her company quality management system.
As a spice supplier, the key focus was on the selection of the ingredients and obtaining information from the suppliers. Ren and her team raised to the challenge, created product specifications for each of her spices and blends of spices and are able to be so responsive when a customer ask for some information about her wonderful spices.
The development of the system, the training of Ren and her team, the review of the system to ensure that they were ready and the audit all took place in a 6 months period ensuring that the system was well embedded in the daily life of the company and sustainable.
BAKERY DESIGN AND OPENING
I was approached by Martin and Simon to help him opening their bakery in Jersey in April 2021. Their Head Baker had just let him down and decided not to take the job.
The problem was that Martin was targeting an open date of June so less than 2 months to open the bakery. Martin had a premise, a mixer and an oven and not much else. To make matter worse, this was during COVID and travelling to Jersey was not possible.
Using remote working technology, we designed the product range, selected the raw materials, listed all equipment required, creating the shopping list and contacted suppliers to deliver equipment. I partnered with an experience artisan baker who helped with developing the recipes and went on site to train the staff.
The bakery opened in July 2021! What a crazy turnaround! Four Bakery is fully now thriving in Jersey.
JAPANESE RESTAURANT FOOD HYGIENE RATING GOES UP FROM 2 TO 5 – ALLOWING THEM TO TRADE ON DELIVEROO, UBEREAT AND JUSTEAT
When Cube Restaurant in Mayfair contacted me in February 2019, their food hygiene rating was poor – only 2 out of 5.
I worked with the team, adapting and tailoring the Safer Food for Better Business system to their need – in particular developing the Critical Control Points linked with the manufacturing of sushi and sashimi (raw fish, ambient storage of cooked rice) but also helping the team with the creation of simple and easy to use records – including start-up checklists, cleaning records and CCP records.
The following inspection took place in July 2019 with a very successful rating of 5. I continue supporting the restaurant with regular inspections and training sessions for their new member of staff. They have recently been inspected again in February 2021 and have achieved another rating of 5.
This has had a really positive impact on the business as they were able to trade on Deliveroo, UberEat and JustEat – these platforms require a minimum food hygiene rating of 3. A real business saving action when taking into account the pandemic situation and the closure of restaurants for the last year.
CASE STUDY FOR ARTISAN BAKERY – IMPLEMENTATION OF A SIMPLE TRACEABILITY SYSTEM
The mission was to implement of a traceability system and records in a busy artisan bakery. My first step was to understand what was already asked of the baking team to record.
Recipes were issued daily to the team so it made sense to use these production recipes to record the trace information of the raw materials.
The next step was to simplify the information that bakers were asked to record – by using delivery days to record info against raw materials, bakers had a simplified way of recording crucial and legal information.
Finally, by working alongside bakers to record the information and demonstrate that this was the most pragmatic way to record but also that this was helping the bakery to be compliant, the production team really took on the responsibility to record all information and to communicate clearly whenever a new materials was used and not recorded.
CASE STUDY FOR ARTISAN COFFEE SHOP – ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH OFFICER TRAINING
Food hygiene scores are so important to provide confidence in customers nowadays.
Putting aside the areas of food safety and conditions of premises for this case study, the third point assessed by an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) is the confidence in management.
This coffee shop chain had a very youthful, dynamic but inexperienced workshop – as a result, their score on Confidence in Management was letting them down in several of their shops.
I created a quick and effective training to boost the knowledge of shop managers and shift managers to ensure that they would know how to welcome an EHO, and how to answer all queries. One of the main point is to ensure that the management staff showed a genuine interest in the inspection and to create a honest dialogue with the EHO – they are here to help!
Following this training, most of the shops achieved a score of 5 – increasing the confidence of customers in their amazing and beautiful food creations!
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